Soo Line Railroad
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A matched set of four Soo Line GP38-2s are running wrong main as they bring eastbound train 912 through the village of Brookfield in southeast Wisconsin. – On the day this photo was taken, it was still less than a year since the Soo had taken over the Milwaukee Road. – November 9th, 1986 ~~ A Jeff Hampton Photograph ©
An Assiniboia based crew heading for Shaunavon with empties behind a six unit set of GP38-2s. This track is now operated by the shortline Great Western Railway.
The pair of former NS GP38-2s now making up the primary power on the First Coast Railroad in Fernandina Beach shoves a long cut of boxcars down to the port for loading at the WestRock paper mill.
A couple of GP38-2s have an empty grainer crossing the North Saskatchewan River west of North Battleford on the Blackfoot Sub. This is CN's secondary main across the prairie provinces known as the Prairie North Line.
A pair of GP38-2s pass the wooden elevators at Ceylon on the dead end branch to Willow Bunch. Recent satellite aerial photos confirm the structures are gone and the rails appear no longer used.
An absolute perfect afternoon in northwestern Illinois as a pair of Iowa GP38-2s lead PESI through Mineral. Oct 20, 2012
Peoria to Springfield train 201 curves through Waynesville behind a pair of GP38-2s that are spliced by a similar number of GP7s, one of which has been rebuilt with a chopped-nose.
I was fresh out of high school and didn't know any better that I should do this chase in September or October, not the middle of July.
New York & Atlantic Railway RS-20 pulls across Flushing Ave in Maspeth, NY with all three GP38-2s on lease to NYAR.
Reading & Northern GP38-2s 2012-2011 head back to Coxton Yard in Pittston, Pennsylvania after spending most of the afternoon switching at the large Procter & Gamble plant in Mehoopany. The hillsides along the East Branch of the Susquehanna River were ablaze with color this past weekend. This is the former Lehigh Valley Wyoming Division mainline to Sayre and train MEPI is ripping along just like an Apollo from days past. I can just imagine Mike Bednar recounting an entertaining story. My first introduction to the area was in the late 1990s when "Big Mike" was the regular engineer on the PILE/LEPI turn and I enjoyed many a lunch break with the crew at the yard office in Pittston.
A Southern Pacific GP38-2 passes Stockton Tower on a transfer run. This locomotive was one of six SP GP38-2s specially equipped for snowfighting service.
Its the Fourth of July 1981, and on a day that started out with heavy overcast, now at 10 minutes to six, there is not a cloud in the sky. The fireworks people will be very happy. ICG is creating some fireworks of its own with three GP38-2s and a GP10. I would appreciate it if someone would provide an exact location for this photo. Thanks.
New Hampshire Northcoast engineer Cory Fothergill expertly guides his trio of engines up the 2.5% grade out of the Ossipee Pit, and up to the small yard, where they will tie on to the other half of their train. Both of the NHN's spotless GP38-2s are bracketing their former Rock Island GP18, and will get a good workout later in the afternoon bringing a thirty-nine car train south to Dover, New Hampshire. Just above the train is the top of one of the sand piles in the pit, the lifeblood of the New Hampshire Northcoast, which primarily exists to move said sand from here to Boston Sand & Gravel, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Out of the fog. Conrail C40-8-6043, C40-8W-6147 & GP38-2s-8045, 8087 are E/B on track one of the Pittsburgh Line as they cross a private farm lane at MP148. The classic Pennsy signal bridge is long gone. A talking detector here announced this location as Mexico (which is across the Juniata River to the right), but the postal location is actually part of Port Royal.
GP38-2s # 2009 and # 2006, B39-8 # 3905, B40-8 # 4003, and GP38-3 # 2011 power P&W Train WX-1 southbound on the Gardner Branch along Moosehorn Pond in Hubbardston, MA on their return trip from interchanging with Pan Am Railways in Gardner, MA. Photo date November 6, 2020.
Grand Trunk Western GP38-2s 4924 and 4907 make their way down Byron Hill with the "Quad Job" in tow.
Very faded, but still kicking in its CP action red, SD40-2 6024 leads the northbound edition of F16 near the John Dean Road in Orneville, Maine. While the first several months of CP on the CMQ featured GP20ECOs for power for the local assignments, lately a little variety has been trickling in with GP38-2s and this SD40-2, along with one of our SD40-2Fs.
Great Lakes Central's Cadillac North Turn rumbles up the old Grand Rapids & Indiana with a clean, matched pair of GP38-2s and a small train for Petoskey. The train is about to pass through a set of bridge abutments long-since abandon by the Boyne City Gaylord & Alpena Railway.
DM&E SD40-2 6370 leads a trio of former SOO LINE EMDs: CP SD60 6234 and GP38-2s 4422 and 4437 on train K409-15 west of Lyons on the former New York Central mainline. The crew was ordered to leave the trailing units isolated/shut down, so this former Milwaukee Road Deuce struggled across the Water Level Route mainline all afternoon which allowed a chase from Little Falls to here, nearly 120 rail miles. Not bad for a day I started off working the Utica job in the morning and early afternoon.
Shoving onto the CSX James River line with 4 loads of wood chips. GP7 number 1 is former L&N while the RF&P 101 is Ex-RF&P 104, on lease from Old Dominion Chapter, NRHS. Interchange takes place two miles west of here at the small yard at Strathmore.
Both of these units have since been replaced by rebuilt/painted former NS GP38-2s.
The TC&W Saint Paul Turn crosses the Mississippi over the 1912 ex-CGW lift bridge at Robert Street behind four GP38-2s under threatening skies.
PW PR-3 paces George Bennett Highway in Pawtucket, Rhode Island as it continues down the East Providence Running Track after switching Teknor Apex. #2007 leads the train with #2006 bringing up the markers, both original P&W GP38-2s.
C&A's Edenton Turn on its way back north in Yeopim Station, NC. The 2 locomotives on this train will soon be retired in favor for GP38-2s.
Four TCWR GP38-2s lead the Saint Paul Turn over the Robert Street lift bridge with mixed freight to be interchanged with UP at South Saint Paul.
VRS detour train 27W, or NS train 29E heads west out of Rutland towards the CP interchange at Whitehall with 5 GP38-2s leading the way. This train is routed via the NECR and VTR due to the Hoosac Tunnel collapse.
A pair of Norfolk Southern GP38-2s lead local H2W northward on the Buffalo Line. In the 2000s I spent a lot of time chasing locals H2W and H3W on the former Pennsylvania Railroad secondary mainline north of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The PRR position light signals are gone, so too are the high-hoods, but standard cab SD40-2s are common on local H53 between Enola and Northumberland these days so it isn't all crap yet!
With the Fury dead again, both of the NHN's painted GP38-2s provided power for today's D8, seen approaching the Weeks crossing in East Wakefield. The crossing itself was a bit shadowy, but fortunately there was a nice pocket of sun just around the curve, lighting up both 38s and the new 500 series sand hoppers.
A pair of Iowa Interstate GP38-2s scream into Sheffield leading a PESI train back to Silvis. Oct 20, 2012
A C&NW local has just started out of the yard at West Chicago to head towards the city working customers. They have just banged across the diamond crossing with the EJ&E. JB Tower can be seen in the distance. C&NW GP38-2 4708 was one of eleven rebuilt GP38-2s acquired in 1991 from NRE, Dixmoor. The unit started out as a B&O GP38.
Ringing in the new year with a burnt out ditch light! A seemingly impossible fix and multiple second attempts by others, the ditch light will be left burnt out…it adds more character right?
Anyway, a rare sunny January day in Chicago, South Shore Freight’s “Belt Job” or AF4 is seen here crossing the Calumet River westbound with 30ish cars in tow for Belt Railway of Chicago’s Commercial Avenue Yard. The power this day was a pair of classic traction orange CSS GP38-2s (2002/2006). Lucky for me, the clouds played nice, as the day got shorter, the clouds came to steal whatever sun was left hovering around the east side. Taken: 1-9-23
Thanks to FURX 5509 blowing up the week before, the New Hampshire Northcoast only had painted power available to run the gravel train with. A long train necessitated the use of both GP38-2s and their single GP18, with thirty-nine cars trailing. It was a tense wait here at Union Meadows, as just minutes before the train showed up, a dark cloud had blotted out the sun, but fortunately it had just cleared up before the southbound came through.
Under fantastic sunny code blue skies, South Shore Freight’s “Belt Job” or train AF4, is heading west through Hegewisch, IL for Belt Railway of Chicago’s Commercial Avenue Yard with a pair of CSS GP38-2s (2006/2004) and cars from their own Bailly Yard. Seen here at “Big Blue” Bridge, swinging around the sweeping curve over the NS Chicago District in run 8, making the steep incline no match for the two veteran EMDs. Taken: 2-20-23
Five EMD GP38/38-2s of Freeport McMoRan howl in Run 8 as they climb the incredibly steep railroad connecting Clifton with Morenci, Arizona, as it curves through a cut approaching Corral Road grade crossing on October 28, 2020. The lead trio of blue, white and red GP38-2s are still in the colors of previous owner of the copper mine and railroad, Phelps-Dodge.
I find myself alone in a city of 32,000 on this foggy Monday morning. It’s a minute past 5 AM, and South Shore AF-1 is gliding westbound through the street, enroute to Bailly for their day’s work. The set of GP38-2s are the only traffic to grace 11th Street for the duration of their street running.
It’s a gorgeous Sunday evening, as Engineer Matt Lastovich lugs 113 car coal train from the BNSF (PF-EX1) up and over the CSX Barr Sub in the city of Hammond, IN with a five pack mixed bag of South Shore Freight EMDs. CSS 2009 (GP38-2) leading two more orange GP38-2s while sandwiching the NICD 1001 (GP38-2) and CSS 804 (SD38-2) trailing. Seen here smoking it up through the curve at 150th street along Interstate 90 on their trip to Cleveland Cliffs in Burns Harbor, IN. Taken: 11-7-21.
The NICD 1001 was only there for moral support…four units was just enough.
Missouri Pacific GP38-2s No. 2038 and 2022 pull Union Pacific's PVSC on Rio Grande rails through Geneva-Pipe Mill in Vineyard, Utah on April 18, 1986.
Just another wider take on this scene to help give you a sense of how truly massive these cranes are.
Remember in this post how I shared a bit about my surprise as to how busy the Savannah rail terminal is: flic.kr/p/2orwBib Well this should put it into starker relief for your. This is the Mason Mega Rail Terminal viewed looking down from Bourne Ave. (compass northwest) at the east half of the 18 track yard. Each of the two groups of 9 tracks has four wide span cranes reaching across its breadth. Everything here you see is new to support the absolute explosion in container volume through the Georgia Port Authority's. To put in perspective in 2003 the port handled 1.5 million TEUs (twenty foot equivalent units) and 5.9 million in 2022 and are building out capacity to support up to 9 million by 2025! There are tons of stories online about the port and this growth but here are a couple specific to the rail terminal in this photo:
gaports.com/blog/gpa-commissions-first-two-cranes-for-mas...
In days of old the port trackage was operated by the Savannah State Docks Railroad but since 1998 has been operated under contract to the Genesee and Wyoming as the Savannah Port Terminal Railroad. With the contract extended it seems like this road will be around for the long term and busier than ever.
www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210421005327/en/GW%E2%80...
A pair of Georgia Central GP38-2s are dwarfed by the cranes with GC 2115 having been blt. Nov. 1979 as Chicago and Northwestern 4610. The SAPT only rosters three units in their own lettering and two of those, original Savannah State Docks SW1001s, are on the EPA consent decree 'kill list' that was all the talk a couple months ago. Sadly I eient get to see them during my very brief outing.
Garden City, Georgia
Wednesday March 30, 2023
On beautiful Sunday morning, a PF-9 crew takes a 120 car loaded coal train from the BNSF at BRC’s Commerical Avenue Yard with a four pack of CSS GP38-2s. Seen here heading eastbound through the curve over the NKP (NS CHI District) and across “Big Blue” bridge before going downhill into the Hegewisch depot, eventually crossing the border into Indiana. The train is bound for Cleveland Cliffs Mill in Burns Harbor, IN. Taken: 5-30-21
What has been a pretty odd year for fall color, the late change due to the warmer temps made timing things out for work was a challenge. After watching, waiting, and hoping for cooperative weather, I got just enough of all 3 to make some things happen. After setting out a cut of empties at Zeeland just south of here, the GLC ONTN continues north through Woodland Park past a stellar stand of oranges and yellows. A much harder feat to achieve these days is to get matched power on GLC, which a pair of GP38-2s did the job to compliment the stellar color.
As the first of two snow storms begin to hit Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana, Engineer Mike Polk brings train PFEX1 through the heart of Michigan City, IN, street running at the intersection of 11th street and Wabash street. In the lead is two CSS GP38-2s (2003-2005) and in tow are cars that would be dropped at Bailey Yard in Burns Harbor, IN. Taken: 1-30-21
With a respectable 101 cars and 10k tons in tow, F16 glides into Milo along the Sebec River, with a pair of GP38-2s, a SD40-2 and GP20ECO doing the honors. Lately the ST haulage traffic has been building over the weekends as we don't run it south until Monday night, so the southbound F16 tends to be pretty big Monday and Tuesday, often not leaving south until well into the day, such as this day.
A pair of CSS GP38-2s pull the AAPRCO special down 10th Street in Michigan City months before street-running was removed.
Missouri Pacific GP38-2s No. 2024 and 2030 pull a train of empty hoppers from Geneva Steel through the outskirts of Lehi, Utah the afternoon of Feb. 28, 1986. While the terrain looks relatively flat, the 1.18% grade is taxing the relatively low horsepower 38s, pulling at a steady 15 mph on the approach to 4812 ft. Mount Summit.
A pair of P&W GP38-2s lead GRWO into Worcester crossing an impressive 21-degree skewed bridge over Southbridge Street. The bridge was built in 1910 by the Boston Bridge Works, once one of the largest bridge engineering firms in New England. The lead engine, #2009, was the last of four EMD GP38-2s built brand-new for the railroad between 1980 and 1982.