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F units 87A-114B-93C-89B-70C have pulled their loads past the switch leading to the C&NW Antoine yard with the head end entering downtown Iron Mountain. They will then shove back into the C&NW yard to exchange loads for empties.
Maine Northern Railway Train 521-11 switches LaJoie Growers on 4/11/2025.
LaJoie runs a warehouse here which loads and unloads products for the Twin Rivers Paper mill in Madawaska, since there isn't a whole lot of room at the mill. In addition to this LaJoie takes cars of fertilizer for local potato farms, in addition to shipping occasional loads of potatoes.
Behind me is the large Irving lumber transload, which can load 10-11 cars at a time with lumber from various mills in New Brunswick.
Once done working the US side, 521 will normally work the Irving mill across the river in Saint-Leonard, NB as well as dropping interchange traffic with CN. However on this day they didn't end up switching the mill.
At one point tracks continued south from here to Stockholm, where the line split with one leg going to Caribou and the other to Mapleton. The trackage from Caribou to Van Buren was pulled during the BAR's downsizing in the late 60-80's, while the Mapleton-Stockholm line survived for a few more years. After large plots of land were sold by the paper companies, the BAR got rid of the Mapleton-Stockholm portion after the loss of logs going to the paper mills.
A few customers remained in Van Buren until sometime in the 90's. Around 15-20 years ago, US Customs and Border Protection bought the remaining track running into downtown, to allow for a new border crossing to be built on the former right of way. Today the line dead ends around a mile south of this point.
Maine Northern Railway
Train: 521-11
4/11/2025
Van Buren, ME
MNR Van Buren Yard
Delaware-Lackawanna Job PO-74 switches out the cars they picked up earlier from NS as DL3 to assemble the train they would be taking up the Poconos. This task ended up taking way longer than it should have because they apparently were asked by the secret service to clear out the yard of any freight cars as a "security measure" in anticipation of Sleepy Uncle Amtrak Joe's visit to Steamtown the next day.
Side note: the prominent building in the background, which now serves as a Radisson Hotel, was the passenger station for the Lackawanna Railroad in Scranton. 10-19-21
The other day I was creating with some friends and was a bit lost in my own mind.
I started thinking of how creative my friends are, how creative this community is and how I'm so lucky to have a job and passion and life where I get to share very openly, the inner workings of my mind. The inside of who I am as a person through my work. I came up with this idea of my "inner workings" spinning away above my head, like a hamster on a wheel.
#thelightbulbproject_inside
Two rarities in 21st century railroading - an active interlocking tower and an end-cab switcher - converge at the north end of Washington's Union Station. K Tower is alive and well guarding the throat of the terminal and the surrounding area, while Amtrak's switcher fleet is kept busy pulling cuts of cars in and out of Washington's largely stub-ended terminal.
Those of you who follow my work know I have a thing for shooting freight under wire. Well this past Thursday I got a tip that CSXT Middleboro based daytime local B727 would be making a relatively uncommon move that was long on my wish list to shoot. B727 runs five days per week between Middleboro and Attleboro on the MassDOT owned and Mass Coastal maintained and dispatched Middleboro Subdivision serving customers and interchanging with the MC along the way.
On Thursdays they normally sneak out on to Amtrak's NEC main at BORO interlockong for a two and half mile shove west down Track 4 to East Junction to work a couple customers on that historic bit of trackage that I've written about in this caption: flic.kr/p/2jck93J
But there is one other customer in the area that every once in a while gets a switch. And on this day after shoving out they reversed direction and ran east a mile to a short twisting lead splitting off just short of Holden interlocking. This lead reaches down into the building of Polyfiber Inc. a subsidiary of Holland Manufacturing makers of industrial packaging, specialty coated and laminated products, water activated tapes and other products.
B726 has run the mile west with three cars trailing three GP40-2s. Just short of Holden they stopped and made two trips down and back on the lead to pull one empty and spot one load before shoving back east through Attleboro station toward East Junction. They are seen here pulling out of the building with three geeps to head back to the Amtrak mainline at MP 198.
Attleboro, Massachusetts
Thursday January 14, 2021
A pair of Prairie Line's locomotives switch Archer Daniel's Midland in Clinton Iowa NBH photo 10/16/2024
On Houston's northside, UP 680 switches scrap gons out of Commercial Metals at Tower 71 on the West Belt. After wrapping up their work, they'll swing around the corner at Tower 26 nearby to head back to the bottom end of Settegast Yard.
The green signal to the left is a lineup for the Big Boy, which will be passing through in a few minutes on its way to the top end of Settegast Yard.
YHO50R 04
UP GP38N #680
Houston, TX
October 4th, 2024
Pan Am Railways PORU switches out cars at the feed mill in N. Leeds, ME. Three blue dip Geeps were a treat on this dreary February day.
A square-cabed Geep trundles down the overgrown spur to WCO Enterprises to retrieve an empty wax car off of CSX's now decommissioned Export yard. With the adoption of precision scheduled railroading, all jobs from Export yard are now originating from Moncrief and have been consolidated into fewer and fewer locals. The customers around Export yard largely remain. Portside Paper has vacated its space and moved to a different warehouse up the line, still receiving cars at its new location. Manson Construction's service ended after enough rock for the St. johns dredging project was delivered. Owens Corning had discontinued limestone deliveries a few years ago but still gets asphalt service. Steelcon Supply hasn't gotten a car in a few months to a year but continues to be in business it appears. That leaves Export yard with WCO (pictured here), Jones Chemicals, a Crowley transload (tomato paste boxcars), Owens Corning (asphalt only), Lehigh Cement, and potentially but not certainly the occasional service to Steelcon Supply.
Below are some photos of the customers that have disappeared:
Portside Paper, relocated and still serviced in Yulee, FL:
www.flickr.com/photos/henry_dell/15445579949/in/photolist...
Owens Corning Roofing, switched to trucks at several facilities across the US with limestone shipments:
www.flickr.com/photos/henry_dell/14510986414/in/album-721...
Steelcon Supply, may or may not get service still - hasn't gotten a car in months:
www.flickr.com/photos/henry_dell/14512630714/in/album-721...
www.flickr.com/photos/henry_dell/28915284395/in/album-721...
Manson Construction, reactived its spur for about a year to receive rock for dredging project:
www.flickr.com/photos/henry_dell/22147836598/in/album-721...
www.flickr.com/photos/henry_dell/23119879146/in/album-721...
A CSXT local switches Kayne Ave on March 9, 2019. The days of an end cab switcher on CSX are numbered.
© Eric T. Hendrickson 2019 All Rights Reserved
CSXT's L13605 is at Suburban Propane in Woodensburg MD along the Hanover Sub. The local has cars for the customer and likewise, the customer has cars for the local. Once finished, the crew will continue east to Emory Grove and run around the cars, then head back west to Hanover PA. The train's power today is GP38-2 2561-a former Seaboard Coast Line unit from 1972 while the other unit is GP39-2 4302- a former Reading Lines unit conveyed to CSXT via D&H.
Kodak Ektachrome E100
Retina lllC
Bringing train 664 into Overbrook, 642 makes another autumn appearance on the Keystone Corridor. MOW is hard at work replacing a switch as part of a weekend project.
CSX switching crew dismount to reset the switch after the train passes off the siding onto the main line preparing to head to Raleigh.
SFG Train 565-11 has cut away from the rest of the train and will shortly start working the Groupe-Lebel lumber mill in Nouvelle-Ouest, Quebec.
The lumber mill is one of only a few customers on the Cascapedia Subdivision and ships outbound loads of lumber and woodchips.
Société du chemin de fer de la Gaspésie
Train: 565-11
12/11/2023
Nouvelle-Ouest, Quebec
SFG Cascapedia Subdivision
Lighting is still not quite where I would like it but the light box works for what it is. I think I need to raise the work lights off the ground and angle them down through the box.
A big thank you to everyone that voted at the Switch photo contest. Congratulation to all finalist. All photographies were amazing, everyone deserved to win !
And a special thanks to Switch for hosting this event. I am really happy ! *tear of joy*
GP-7 4296 switches an industry track in Elburn, Illinois on a very cold February 10th, 1988. This unit was rebuilt from the 1650 in November 1980 at the C&NW's Oelwein shops.
One of NS's many SD40-2s breaks down 140's setout at the Griffin, GA yard. The bridge pays homage to its old truss predecessor.
The photo was taken at GEG, an industrial monument of a former mill and a factory of malted coffee substitute. It is located in Mannheim, Germany.
CN 537 has just cleared the switch for Tri-Province Scrap, with an empty to spot and two loads to be pulled. A fresh snowfall the night before has the landscape looking quite wintry just a few short days before Christmas. The tied down cars in the background are pulls from the Humphrey Spur to go west on 305 the following morning.
HESR 8802 switches Georgia Pacific on the west side Owosso as a lite rain/mist falls on a rather nasty January night. As a kid i used to watch 8802, 8804 and the other CMGN and HESR units switch this line over the years. With the Railamerica take over by G&W and all their repainting & moving of power, it is really nice to see this engine working Owosso. 8802 and the 4 former HESR GP38's are the only ones left on the HESR that have not been renumbered or repainted. It is only a matter of time.
WAMX SW1500 1507, dressed up for the KCT and still wearing its old GWWR paint, sits behind the Veseris building in the Bedford Industrial Park waiting for its next assignment. WAMX 1507 is currently one of only three Gateway Western locomotives still retaining their GWWR "Bumblebee" paint. Now that Watco has bought the locomotive and patched it up, it would be difficult to destinguish it from any other Watco locomotive if not for the striping on the plow.
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Kaw River Railroad
Bedford, North Kansas City, Missouri, USA
May 21, 2025
Canon EOS 60D
Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
The entirety of the SCIH/CSL roster switches some cars just south of the Skyway about 25 minutes outside downtown Chicago.