WCfan
A Tale of Two "VWs" - Part I
It's been over four years now since I took my second big swing in the Dakotas. This trip left me a little bitter. And even today with hindsight, these photos don't leave me with a warm nostalgic feeling. After the first two days I suffered the rest of the trip with a cold. Then, two days were eaten up by poor weather. We put on a lot of useless unproductive miles those two days, creating a giant circumscribed square within the combined "Dakota". The skies were also slightly tinged with smoke from the absolutely massive and long lasting Dixie fire in California (as well as others). We saw some really cool stuff. But it's been hard to forget the negatives and muster up the enthusiasm to post any of these. Anyway, enough whining...
RRVW's Oakes job is at Milnor dropping off a cut of company hoppers with a nice pair of CATs. This is the former NP 5th Subdivision of their Saint Paul Division that split off their mainline west of Staples near Wadena, passing through Fergus Falls, Breckenridge-Wahpeton, and ending in Oakes. NP was a dominate player in southeastern North Dakota. Although SOO and GN made their own forays into this region, paralleling the NP to the south by 10 to 15 miles. BN continued operations on a rationalized system that was cut back to Breckenridge-Wahpeton, where the GN main from Wilmar to Moorhead crossed. Following the wave of Class-I spinoffs in the post-Staggers era, this line and a cluster of other former NP and GN lines were spun off in 1987, forming the Red River Valley and Western (RRVW) railroad. The RRVW has maintained a quite active base of agricultural customers on their remaining lines, with many shuttle loaders built on their system within the last 5 years or so. Large processing plants also keep them busy moving "shorts", as shown here, using their now ancient fleet of late-60s and early-70s era covered hoppers.
While following this job west, we noted chatter of the other "Valley & Western" regional working in Hankinson. About this time, we heard them give totals on their line about 10 miles to the south of us and decided to check it out. More on that in the next post...
A Tale of Two "VWs" - Part I
It's been over four years now since I took my second big swing in the Dakotas. This trip left me a little bitter. And even today with hindsight, these photos don't leave me with a warm nostalgic feeling. After the first two days I suffered the rest of the trip with a cold. Then, two days were eaten up by poor weather. We put on a lot of useless unproductive miles those two days, creating a giant circumscribed square within the combined "Dakota". The skies were also slightly tinged with smoke from the absolutely massive and long lasting Dixie fire in California (as well as others). We saw some really cool stuff. But it's been hard to forget the negatives and muster up the enthusiasm to post any of these. Anyway, enough whining...
RRVW's Oakes job is at Milnor dropping off a cut of company hoppers with a nice pair of CATs. This is the former NP 5th Subdivision of their Saint Paul Division that split off their mainline west of Staples near Wadena, passing through Fergus Falls, Breckenridge-Wahpeton, and ending in Oakes. NP was a dominate player in southeastern North Dakota. Although SOO and GN made their own forays into this region, paralleling the NP to the south by 10 to 15 miles. BN continued operations on a rationalized system that was cut back to Breckenridge-Wahpeton, where the GN main from Wilmar to Moorhead crossed. Following the wave of Class-I spinoffs in the post-Staggers era, this line and a cluster of other former NP and GN lines were spun off in 1987, forming the Red River Valley and Western (RRVW) railroad. The RRVW has maintained a quite active base of agricultural customers on their remaining lines, with many shuttle loaders built on their system within the last 5 years or so. Large processing plants also keep them busy moving "shorts", as shown here, using their now ancient fleet of late-60s and early-70s era covered hoppers.
While following this job west, we noted chatter of the other "Valley & Western" regional working in Hankinson. About this time, we heard them give totals on their line about 10 miles to the south of us and decided to check it out. More on that in the next post...