Last
The last sunny wedge of a raging adventure saw many things pass in the time between, including but not limited to, me becoming desperate enough to buy a pack of Newports (as that's the only menthol the damned place had), beers, prime rib, an inept and seemingly strung out hotel clerk, more beers, and a couple of halfway decent railroad movements. After bagging the East train on it's way to Pierre in the morning, a couple of shots of the west train east of JC, and a long and frustrating drive along the Pierre Sub made up of wild speculation, confusion, frustration, and unresolved EOT chirps on the scanner, we finally found a train. Going East. Less than an hour before sundown. The unit grain we'd foolishly and inadvertently followed for nearly two hours not only was powered by a trio of typical BNSF GEs, but was also on the approach to Wolsey, where it would tie down and wait for a BNSF crew. Lest we give up (NEVER!), we decided to push the last handful of miles towards Huron, in hopes that a west train would depart in the last minutes of light. Fortunately for us, as I navigated us down yet another janky, slushy, dirt road, the RCP&E crew on the grain train toned up and had a brief discussion about their instructions, as well as that there was a BNSF local "coming down in about 15 minutes". Coming down, that should mean south.
It's a damn good thing railroad time and actual time differ by a hefty margin, as we were able to start driving north along the BNSF line towards Redfield. We followed the line for miles with no sign of a train, as the sun sank lower and lower. We were about to turn around, but I saw one more bend in the rail and figured we'd check the straight away north of it. Lo and behold a the headlights of a southbound were rapidly growing along the horizon. A quick U turn and a couple of shots later, the chase was all but over as the sun sank into the cloud line just above the horizon.
With a pair of unrebuilt GP50s bracketing a GP38-2, a lash that is hard to sneeze at (much less in the year 2016!), 42 cars are lugged south towards Wolsey, where they will work the interchange with the RCP&E before banging the diamond for points south.
These trips are always poorly planned and chaotic, this one lasting somewhere around 50 hours, with probably 7 hours of actual sleep in between, but the memories, pixels, and feelings I take away from each one makes them unquestionably worth every penny and every second.
Last
The last sunny wedge of a raging adventure saw many things pass in the time between, including but not limited to, me becoming desperate enough to buy a pack of Newports (as that's the only menthol the damned place had), beers, prime rib, an inept and seemingly strung out hotel clerk, more beers, and a couple of halfway decent railroad movements. After bagging the East train on it's way to Pierre in the morning, a couple of shots of the west train east of JC, and a long and frustrating drive along the Pierre Sub made up of wild speculation, confusion, frustration, and unresolved EOT chirps on the scanner, we finally found a train. Going East. Less than an hour before sundown. The unit grain we'd foolishly and inadvertently followed for nearly two hours not only was powered by a trio of typical BNSF GEs, but was also on the approach to Wolsey, where it would tie down and wait for a BNSF crew. Lest we give up (NEVER!), we decided to push the last handful of miles towards Huron, in hopes that a west train would depart in the last minutes of light. Fortunately for us, as I navigated us down yet another janky, slushy, dirt road, the RCP&E crew on the grain train toned up and had a brief discussion about their instructions, as well as that there was a BNSF local "coming down in about 15 minutes". Coming down, that should mean south.
It's a damn good thing railroad time and actual time differ by a hefty margin, as we were able to start driving north along the BNSF line towards Redfield. We followed the line for miles with no sign of a train, as the sun sank lower and lower. We were about to turn around, but I saw one more bend in the rail and figured we'd check the straight away north of it. Lo and behold a the headlights of a southbound were rapidly growing along the horizon. A quick U turn and a couple of shots later, the chase was all but over as the sun sank into the cloud line just above the horizon.
With a pair of unrebuilt GP50s bracketing a GP38-2, a lash that is hard to sneeze at (much less in the year 2016!), 42 cars are lugged south towards Wolsey, where they will work the interchange with the RCP&E before banging the diamond for points south.
These trips are always poorly planned and chaotic, this one lasting somewhere around 50 hours, with probably 7 hours of actual sleep in between, but the memories, pixels, and feelings I take away from each one makes them unquestionably worth every penny and every second.