View allAll Photos Tagged LOADOUT
Ore empties for Hibbing Taconite round the bend at the old Boylston west wye location as they head for an appointment with the loadout.
Three Seaboard System SD50s were backing up the Pennington to Pocket (VA) branch on August 11, 1985 with an empty unit train bound for Powell Mountain Coal's loadout at Mayflower. The bridge crosses US 421 and the North Fork of the Powell River between Pennington and Stone Creek. The branch meets the Southern line to St. Charles on the other side of the ridge (through a tunnel). The junction point is known as "Pocket" for L&N (CSX) crews, and "L&N Junction" for Southern trains (NS). Those SD50s in SBD paint looked pretty snappy.
CSX C84016 catches the attention of a local dog as it passes through the small community of Sassafras on its way to the Yellow Creek loadout. They are bringing the second half of their train to the loadout, where they will tie down and load the train tomorrow morning. This location is on the former L&N Carr's Fork Branch, one of a couple of branch lines in the greater Hazard area that are still used to load coal.
Back in 2008 a Harding St, IN (Indianapolis) to Carlisle, IN to empty coal train is about to enter the siding at Carlisle and enter the balloon track to Sunrise Coal. The INRD uses trackage rights over the CSX between Sullivan and Carlisle to access the loadout at Sunrise. This train will be loaded and returned to Indianapolis Power and Light in Indy.
OC 4029 brings up the rear of the ECD coaltrain as they drift downhill into Cadiz Junction on the evening of May 14, 2018. After stopping at Cadiz Junction, the 4029 would then lead down the branch toward the loadout at Cadiz.
CSX R231 has just finished loading their train for Duke Power at Blackhawk Mining's Typo loadout as they shove their train in the clear to run around to the other end for their run to Martin. What a frustrating piece of railroad to railfan...2 crews for just as many miles...
Located in rural Ohio is NS' Captina Secondary, home to now just 1 remaining coal loadout running shuttle trains to be dumped to barges waiting on the Ohio River at Powhatan Point, OH. NS N33 with NS 7711 leading an ACU on the other end begin loading the 72 car train. It poured down torrential rains for the next 2 hours as I waited out for this train to finish loading and follow it down the branch back to the River Sub.
But apparently the mine boss at the load-out took exception to someone having the nerve to document this kind of type and tried (and failed) to shoo me off of the public highway "because I was "trespassing" on mine property."
Rather than hang out and have to potentially deal have to deal with more power tripping personnel, I opted to leave and go home. The train was only about half way loaded at that time anyways...and I got tired of sitting listening to the pouring rain. I'll be back one day to try and do better with this operation.
CSX 4555 leads southbound train B627 under the long-disused coal tipple at Collco just south of Haysi, Virginia, on the former Clinchfield Railroad. The fresh SD70mac was a nice surprise to roll up to early in Shelbiana, KY, that morning. This train was the second of 5 southbounds called out on the scenic north end of the Clinchfield from 10 to 10 this day. Collco was one of many small coal loadouts that used to dominate this section of the railroad. Now only the massive McClure Prep Plant loads on this end, albeit in massive volumes. This was a great day on what was a great spring trip up in the mountains.
Thanks for looking and enjoy!
CSX K010 leaves the quarry in Middletown, VA with its loaded stone train destined for Morgantown, MD.
A loaded sugar cane train with a GP11 heads toward the Clewiston mill as the last light of day shines down upon the fields.
It's a brilliant fall morning as CSX mine run R615 shoves the first cut of TVAX empties up the Merna Branch to the JRL Coal Creech loadout. The relatively fresh CM44AC was a welcome catch!
Enroute to Eliwana mine two FMG units lead empties south nearing Solomon. This section of the railroad seems to be a section of railroad that has had very little coverage due to the loss of over 1/2 the Solomon spur traffic that breaks off a few miles north of here for the Firetail loadout.
Southbound W092 passes the old loadout at McVicker, at Levisa Jct in Millard, KY, this past week with a pair of UP’s on the head end, and another 2 plus a CSX GE on the rear of a heavy riprap train for Erwin.
With work all complete in Whitehall the Logan local follows close behind the pipestone loads making for a rare third move through Jefferson Canyon in one day.
C602 begins loading another train bound for Eastman Chemical at the Nally and Hamilton Balkan loadout. After fighting with the light all day, it finally began to work in my favor!
Freshly recrewed, C821 shoves its second cut up into the loadout at Creech, passing the old Mary Helen Coal Corporation company store.
The night before operations would resume for one whole day, Tilcon’s North Branford plant sits silent late at night, GMTX 2198 sits idle under the tipple, In just a few hours a crew would take this engine south on the main to pick up a cut of cars from Pleasant Point Storage yard.
Passing the old engine house in Winifrede, WV, the Big Eagle Railroad takes a cut of 30 empties to the Kanawha Eagle Loadout. It should be noted that they received a third GP38-2, currently in the middle of the consist.
The operation was probably one of the coolest I've seen. Definitely a step back in time!
A look back at a day chasing a train on my favorite branchline. I've written extensively about the history of this former Rio Grande branch line and why I'm so enamored with it. To read that and learn more check out the long form caption with this image: flic.kr/p/2i2KxnQ
Here is view of the rear DPUs on Union Pacific train CTRSK as it winds its way south beside Mud Creek up the steep 2.4% grade of the old D&RGW Pleasant Valley branch just a couple miles from its destination at the Skyline Mine loadout.
Scofield, Utah
Sunday May 12, 2019
The Big Eagle entered the Kanawha Eagle mine trackage with 30 empties in tow.
From here they will run around and shove the train into the load out.
CSX R608 tied down at Fire Star Energy's Resource loadout in Manchester on the C&M Branch. CSX CW44AC 367 and company have Duke Power empties for Brice ready to load the next day.
Four of BMLP's E60s slowly inch a coal train through the loadout silo of the Peabody Kayenta mine. After the 1-2 hour loading process the train will return to Page, where the coal will eventually fuel the Navajo Generating Station which has since shut down. This picture was taken on the first of two trips I made to the line after three announcement they would be shutting down the plant and railroad by 2020.
A shoving platform is positioned at the end of the line as a Norfolk Southern coal train is loaded at the Consol loadout in Oakwood, Virginia.
CSX local R240, the Shelby Shifter crew, brings light engines through Millers Creek Tunnel headed for Shelby for fueling. They have just dropped SCWX empties at Scotts Branch for loading overnight.
The former NP/BN route over Homestake Pass was cut as a through route in 1983, though a bit of the eastern climb is still used by MRL/BNSF to serve a ballast pit at Pipestone. The former main is used as the loading track, with trains shoving up the 2.2% grade to get under the ballast loader.
The loader for the ballast pit is at the right; it dumps ballast from up on the hill down into waiting railcars below. However, on this day it broke during the middle of loading the train in the background. As a result, the pit foreman decided to use the dump truck to bring ballast down to track level here, then use a front loader to manually shovel ballast into the hopper cars.
While the train waits clear of the crossing, the big dump truck brings down another load of ballast to the ever-increasing pile just out of frame below the image. When the pile is large enough to fill the rest of the train, the front loader will come down and the train will pull forward to be loaded.
MRL Ballast Train
MRL SD70ACe #4307
MRL SD70ACe #4407
Pipestone, MT
May 1st, 2022
U44 peeks around the corner at dusk, flood loading around the bend at the Toms Creek loadout on the Big Toms Creek Branch.
US Sugar Corp 148 leads the first cane train of the season from a loadout near Shawnee South toward the United States Sugar mill in Clewiston, Florida. The fully restored 4-6-2 steam engine was built by the American Locomotive Company in 1920 for the Florida East Coast Railway until it was sold 32 years later to US Sugar where it spent more than 15 years hauling sugarcane from 1952 until 1968 (I believe). Four years ago US Sugar begun restoration of the unit after it had changed private ownership a few times. On what is also the locomotive's 100th anniversary, the 148 kicked off this year's sugar season by leading the first cane train consisting of ten loaded cane cars from a loadout just North of Clewiston to the Clewiston Sugar Mill. Here the train is seen heading South paralleling a canal just after picking up the cars from the loadout. With a mostly cloudy day the sun ended up coming through as the train departed!
Clewiston,FL
Anyone who knows me knows that I will basically never go to shoot any excursion (with few exceptions) and definitely never a photo freight, but after hearing 148 would run a revenue freight for the mill I certainly had to come out.
NS 1073 pulls a train of freshly loaded coal from the Paragon loadout in Appalachia, Virginia off the old L&N, ducking under the former Interstate/Southern.
A cargo hauler variant, here with engineers hurriedly bolting together a microlight and pop-up tracking station to get ahead of an oncoming storm...
After loading at Leslie Loadout the day before 2 cuts of 52 and 53 cars were brought back to Clearfield and then advanced back to Cresson the next day. 4 engines on the head and 3 on the rear take the train past US Siding, in the conrail days this location was known as Pike, if you look closely in the back ground you can see the white faded Pike Block sign. The other side is still in good shape. This is my favorite chase on the Corman lots of cool pacing shots and some good notch 8 action!
CN train M354 works its way up the slight, but steady eastward grade of CN's Clearwater Subdivision, just east of the village of Vavenby, British Columbia.
This train carries mostly empties from Vancouver to Prince George, much of which will be forwarded down the former BCR mainline to industries in Quesnel, Williams Lake, and Exeter. The white capped gondolas visible along the tangent are destined for the Gibraltar copper and molybdenum mine reload near McAllister. That loadout is 344 miles from yhe ore's destination via the BCR routing. Those cars now travel north to Prince George, are marshaled into the M355 there, and then travel to North Vancouver via McBride and Kamloops for a total of 772 rail miles.
CN spent $1BN CAD for the 'lease' of BC Rail. They effectively bought loyal, captive shippers, whose distance from the population centers of the province make shipping by rail a necessity. When CN shifted the rest of this traffic from travel down the former BCR main to Vancouver to their own route of the BC North Line to the transcontinental mainline, it put the writing on the wall of what will happen in 2028 when they get the formal approval to abandon much of the former BCR.
E758 Brice empties are finally underway again after being held out at Marrowbone waiting on the C365 to depart Shelby Yard, seen here framed by the former Viking Preparation Plant Loadout at McVicker.
The local C860 crew brings a train in for loading at Myra along the SV&E Branch that comes out of Shelbiana.
With the siding completely covered in almost two feet of snow, the Craig local works east past the searchlights at West Adams. Also tied into this interlocking is the Energy Spur leading to the Energy Mine loadout to the south.
One of the few remaining NS served loadouts in Kentucky is Sunny Ridge, known officially as Blackberry Creek.
Owned by B&W Resources, this 150 car capacity steam and met coal loadout is located on the former N&W Delorme Branch. This was originally the site of the Kentucky Carbon KenCar loadout.
While Sunny Ridge has been idled for several years, trains are now loading here once again.
Cumberland coal mine SD38 #1 pulls a empty 38 car coal train across the 14 mile stretch to the loadout where the engineer will hop off and load his own train and return to the dumper where he will then dump his own train. Takes about an hour and a half to load and the same amount of time to dump and on a good day if the mine doesn't run out of coal these guys can make 2 trips in an 8 hour day.
A Kanawha River Railroad empty coal train enters the town of Gauley Bridge, where it will part ways with the Kanawha River and begin following the Gauley River up to the High Power Mountain loadout near Drennen, WV. The train is operating on the New York Central's former West Virginia Secondary, which was sold by Norfolk Southern to Watco in 2016.
On a gorgeous spring morning, 2 fresh 70s take empty hoppers south out of Keating passing the former site of the Belford Loadout.
AF-04 departs Edwards AFB on an asymmetric loadout flight with a little extra insurance in the form of a spin-recovery chute.
A loaded oil train en route from the Wildcat loadout near Helper, Utah to St. James, Louisiana rolls through what might be the most well-known railfan spot in all of Colorado as it makes its way down the Moffat.
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