Locomotive Leasing companies
View allAll Photos Tagged HLCX
Great Sandhills Railway passes the elevator at Pennant with Canpotex cars bound for storage elsewhere on the line.
As a hunter out of the frame wrestles with and ties up an alligator, USSCs/SCFEs Sebring Turn with an EX-SP leaser heads back south toward Clewiston crossing Fisheating creek on the edge of the Florida Everglades.
Central Midland Railway HLCX 1521 leads three cars West past the bluff East of Labadie which strangely has an odd looking cave dug into it. I'm rather curious of how or why that cave came about, but I'm assuming it might have something to do with the pipeline property behind the cliff. Anyhow, trying to find an open spot along the steep ground leading up to the cliff's edge proved challenging but I was able to cling onto a tree right on the edge here to get enough of a view through all the brush. I'm glad I even got some red leaves in what is otherwise an area of sparse fall colors at best and an otherwise clear view of train and bluff. Who knows, maybe Bigfoot usually sits on the ledge of the cave watching the trains go by on his Missouri vacations.. Labadie, MO
A Boscobel/Prairie du Chien Train heads west along WSOR’s Prairie Subdivision with a colorful lash up crossing over the frozen swamp west of Lone Rock, Wisconsin.
A wedge shot from our recent trip to Madison, Wisconsin... I did some research on the area and hoped to catch a couple WSOR trains in between other business and ended up shooting six in three days. Among a couple longhood forward leaders and one led by a patched UP "triclops", the real treat was finding HLCX 6313 leading in decent light. Arguably one of the better leaser schemes from the last 25 years, I believe the 6313 is the last SD40 in this classic maroon and blue scheme.
Across the Rock River WSOR T6 with the HLCX 6313 leads the charge towards Janesville on the Madison Subdivision.
MNR train 910-13 rolls through the dip at Crystal on 3/13/2022. 910 met counterpart train 909 at Millinocket. Normally 909 goes all the way to Oakfield, but on this day the two trains swapped cars and 910 went back north. My original plan was to chase a spreader on MNR, but due to a derailment it didn't end up running.
Maine Northern Railway
Train: 910-13
3/13/2022
Crystal, ME
MNR/MDOT Madawaska Subdivision
Available railfan real estate! Great Sandhills Railway crosses one of few bridges on the Empress Subdivision in the backyard of an old farmhouse. Currently the entire 83.9 mile GSR Empress sub is 10mph which makes for a less than exciting chase, but there are certainly some interesting surroundings to include in one's photo.
Former FTVM (Ferrocarril y Terminal del Valle de México) SW1504 1521 and ex-UP MP15DC 1550 cross Brush Creek in the morning sun as the Central Midland Railway departs Union, MO for Maryland Heights on their biweekly eastbound run.
Inside the cavernous halls of Union Pacific’c Downing B. Jenks Shop at North Little Rock, Arkansas, some repairs to HLCX GP38-2 No. 3837 are taking place on May 18, 2015.
A wide variety of EMD power leads DREI train 101 over the Embarrass River at Camargo. Not expecting to get any pictures in the middle of a downpour, the 4210’s horn caught me off guard and I decided to begin the chase to Camargo for a shot I’ve wanted for a bit.
Former SP 7336, now HLCX 6341, takes the Fort Pierce turn east through South Bay not long after sunrise.
The turn has traffic from the Clewiston mill that is destined for the Florida East Coast Railway who will take the traffic north to interchange with CSX and Norfolk Southern in Jacksonville.
As a precursor to the rebuilt Tunnel Motors, Missabe tested this pair of SD40-3 units supplied by Helm Financial (HLCX). They were equipped with Woodward Governor's CLC (Complete Locomotive Control) computerized operating system.
United States Sugar Corp's leased SD40-2, HLCX 6341, leads the Fort Pierce turn over the Port Mayaca lift bridge with cars from the Florida East Coast Railway bound for Clewiston and surrounding businesses.
BCRail C40-8M-4623 & HLCX leaser SD40M-2-6500 are S/B on the Lillooet Sub about to cross the Interlakes Highway, BC Rt. 24.
HLCX 6313 passes through a rock cut as it approaches the small town of North Freedom, WI. The train is heading west on the WSOR’s Reedsburg Subdivision during an afternoon thunderstorm.
A former IC&E GP40-2 is on the point of this 101 train, seen here approaching Murdock. HLCX 4212 and 4210, the two GP40-2s the DREI has on lease, used to be used on the road trains all the time. When the "new" SD40-2s came to the property, the 4210 & 4212 were used more in the yard and less and less on these road trains. It was sure a nice surprise to see this one leading on a beautiful April morning.
It's tough to beat a Wisconsin summer afternoon. On this fine late August day, Wisconsin & Southern's Janeseville bound freight is closing in on Whitewater on their Waukesha Sub, with a fine mixed bag of classic EMD's.
WSOR T4R
WAMX 4188
HLCX 6313
WAMX 4172
" " 3893
" " 1594
Whitewater, WI.
August 24, 2017
A trio of GP38’s lead BNSF’s L-CHI105 West on the Chillicothe Sub. I could hear this train still 3 miles after it cleared me!
HLCX 8161 leads two IORY motors down the Toledo Sub back in 2014 on a once typical Sunday afternoon southbound LNL. The I&O was fun to observe back then, now it's just work. It's now just shy of five years since I shot this, and I'm in Jacksonville for engine school nearly 3 years into my time on the I&O.
Central Midland Railway's leased HLCX 1521 emerges from the woods West of Chesterfield on its Southwestern journey to Union, MO. The SW1504's former FTVM colors match much of the surroundings as the leaves start to show just a smidge of color. I don't think this area would see much more color than this, but I was happy to capture a little bit of fall mood even if the colors are a far stretch from the beautiful orange and red in Pennsylvania and other Northeastern states.
After making a trip earlier in the day to Horace, train 101 returns back with HLCX 4212 on the point. Seen here near Hume, 101 gets back on the move after exchanging orders between conductor and engineer.
HLCX 1521, an SW1504 of Mexican heritage, pulls a cut of boxcars out of the spur of one of the three or four customers located at the railroad's end of the line in Union, MO.
Eastbound on the CP secondary main across the Prairies passing the steam-era water tank and Manitoba Pool elevator. Four SD40-2s including an HLCX leaser 3rd out. From what I can tell on Google Maps is both structures are gone.
BNSF GP38-2 2354 sits at GM yard in Hodgkins, IL with BNSF GP50 3196 and HLCX 1069 waiting for assignment.
A crisp early November morning finds Wisconsin & Southern train T4H dashing through Whitewater, after a light overnight snow.
WSOR T4H
WAMX 4181,4172,
HLCX 6334
Whitewater, WI.
Autumn 2018
It's summer 2006 and I'm living in Malden, Missouri between sophomore and junior year of high school. As I drove through town headed to Sonic I spied this former SP Tunnel Motor coming down into the city.
With tunnel motors already starting to become hard to find on the point of trains, especially barely "patched" Southern Pacific ones that looked pretty authentic from head on, I was off to the races once my coney dog and cherry limeade arrived.
By the time I got ahead of them I was in another state, which wasn't that far down the road. On the UP Jonesboro Sub. crossing the St. Francis River into Arkansas is UP Train ADEWF 15 looking for all the world like a Cotton Belt train a decade earlier.
Everything after the 2nd car is still inside Missouri in this shot; you can barely make out the welcome sign on US 62 on the left side of the frame. This is one of those shots I've always been glad to have gotten since I never got to shoot the real thing, and this, the next best thing has been gone for well over a decade at this point. In fact, UP 8861 was retired the following year on 11-14-07 and was sold to RJ Corman, where it still serves in 2025 as far as I know.
Locomotives: UP 8861, HLCX 6064
6-16-06
St. Francis, AR
My only catch of the old former un-repainted SP unit owned by HLCX occurred in Statham, GA on CSX's Abbeville Subdivision during unfavorable late afternoon light. The old unit is seen leading ethanol train K457 northbound over one of the many rollercoaster hills this line is known for. A catch of this unit was certainly better than nothing.
HLCX 1521 and FURX 1550 are seen collecting cars from various customers in Union, MO on a not so excellently maintained ROW. The pair is here seen switching Silgan, a company specializing in the manufacture of plastic food containers.
HLCX SD40-2 6341 takes the Fort Pierce turn eastbound out of Clewiston with traffic for the Florida East Coast Railway in Fort Pierce, FL. HLCX 6341 is obviously of Southern Pacific heritage and is currently US Sugar's only six axle locomotive.
HLCX 8148 and CP 6251 lead 471 through the classic curve at Donehower West. We were gearing up for a nice chase up Stockton Hill. But those hopes were dashed after a grade crossing car accident was reported further up the hill. So instead, we chased H19 which had a "mediocre" consist of CP 4421, SOO 4438, CP 6256, and two GEs. We doubled back to investigate the car accident only to find no traces or signs of trouble.
Times were changing on the CP. Four years earlier, leasers were a common sight along the River Sub. However, by 2015 they were long gone. Ironically, this one was a long time CSX resident, never serving for CP directly.
Standard cabs leading CP road trains were becoming less frequent. In the not too distant future, CSX would dump the remaining leasers off their roster, with the 8148 going to RailUSA working on the Grenada Railway. And from there, you all know the rest of the Class 1 story...blah blah blah PSR blah blah blah PTC blah blah blah ETTS.
NS 3521, an original Kennet Copper Mining SD40-2 leads the NS D36 South past the signals in Osman on the Bloomington District. This SD40-2 went to BC Rail before going to HLCX then NS. This unit has some different & unique history for sure! Here it is seen pasting a set of original Wabash signals alongside some codeline.
A C40-8 leads a pair of leased EMD's on UP Train AASPB 10 down the UP Jonesboro Sub. one train ahead of the Katy Heritage Unit. Looking back I was way more excited about the 1988 showing up, but I'm glad I shot plenty of these standard cabs back when they still ruled the roost down there. You won't find one today leading a train on the UP.
Locomotives: UP 9136, HLCX 6076, HLCX 3811
3-11-07
Bernie, MO
Unfortunately the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha Scheme was too little, too late as not many units were painted/lettered before the SOO Line take over. Here one leads an HLCX rust bucket leaser, a former ICG SD40A.
A pair of SD40-2s are seen passing the old N&W shops as they bring a local eastbound out of Roanoke on the Blue Ridge District.
The Dallas, Garland & Northeastern's Dallas Turn rounds the bed after crossing White Rock Creek as it makes its way through Forest Hills, Texas behind an RP20BD and two EMD's. Running as the Dallas Turn, this job is heading from the DGNO's Mockingbird Yard up their Garland Yard, with a stop along the way to work the CPKC Dallas Yard.
====Info====
DGNO Dallas Sub
Forest Hills, TX
DGNO Dallas Turn (Mockingbird Yard - Dallas, TX to Garland Yard - Garland, TX)
DGNO 146 RP20BD Blt. 2013
CCPN 3516 GP38-2 Ex. HLCX 1832, UP 352, UP 2087, MP 936 Blt. 1973
DGNO 3416 SD40-2 Ex. HLCX 8147, BN 8147 Blt. 1980