Visiting family in Terre Haute, IN, this weekend and stopped by the Haley Tower Museum down in Terre Haute.
Here I had an enjoyable afternoon visiting with the kind gentleman who filled my head with useful information about the history, operations and people of the railroads of the area. It was a nice way to spend a couple of hours.
Here are some photos inside the tower.
First, is a shot of the interlocking board, with all the levers and gauges and other items that operators used to switch the trains between the lines. The men of the museum have set this board up to still work (not actually switch the tracks!) When a train comes through, the board lights up and its pretty neat to watch.

Here is the operator's station showing his phone and some of the paraphernalia on the desk.

Then, outside, members of the museum are busy repairing a donated caboose. They have a lot to do!







Finally, I recommend, if you are in Terre Haute that you stop by the museum and take a look. I believe it is open on Saturdays and Sundays.
Map view of the Wabash Valley's Railroader's Museum.

Recently my nephew and I journeyed to Fostoria to watch the trains! If you want to see trains, then this is the place to be.

But first you have to get there. As we were driving north to Fostoria, we passed a large stone quarry and had to wait for the "stone" train to back into the quarry. Here is a shot out my windshield.

After waiting a while, we resumed our trip. Soon after arriving, we saw the first of many freights roar by. Here is one coming toward us as it passed F tower. We were standing at the future site of the Fostoria observation area. You cannot get near the tower as it is on railroad property. So all shots were through a telephoto.
We saw several trains the few hours we were there, make note of number 8704 heads south, we will see it later.
After lunch, we headed down to Marion to visit the station and tower located there.
Again, we were rewarded with several trains passing by, and watching from the vantage point of the tower was great. A gentleman was working on the station and was a wealth of information about the railroads of the Marion area.
After visiting for awhile, I was heading towards AC tower when here comes 8704!
I dashed back inside and snapped this shot of it running under the signals through the stationmaster's window.
I then climbed up to the tower and caught a NS freight (on the left) and 8704 on the right, both heading south. My nephew pointed out that I could have gotten a better shot right outside the station! Oh well! It did come out ok, but through the station would definitely have been better.






My last shot is of 5414 splitting the signals as it heads west. So ended our day of watching trains. Marion and Fostoria are great sites to visit. The visit at the station and AC tower make Marion a better site to visit, plus the sound of those freights hitting the diamond is awesome!

A Reminder Along The Way

At the edge of a small village on St. Route 821 called Whipple, is this reminder of the PRR's Marietta Branch.
The first view is looking north towards Whipple at the bridge.
The second shot is looking along the bridge, as I was standing on the old ROW.
In 1998, the Duck Creek flooded and the water was over this bridge. Quite a flood!

MAINTENANCE DAY ON THE CAPTINA DIVISION

Traveling over to my mom's on a very fine June day, I wondered down St. Rt. 148 towards Powhatan Point heading towards NS' mine loader.
As I pulled up, the coal train just arrived at the loader. As loading the train is a very slow process and I didn't have the time to loiter, I moved on, hoping to catch either a loaded on heading towards the river, or another empty one heading up to the mines.
In the back of my mind is the last time I came this way and caught all three running the line.
But, as I traveled on, I came across a loaded train just sitting on the main and this got me wondering if he was waiting on an empty coming from the Point.

Well, as this photo shows, this crew is the answer why the first train was not in much of a hurry, nor was the second, aas I found a maintenance crew transferring from rail to road at a crossing. It was a very interesting watching the crew work. Basically it is all done with hydraulics. I've run things similar-lift or lower the lever and the rail wheels go up or down. In this case the wheels were going up and the truck drives off the crossing and on its way!
So, the rails are clear for all to proceed, right? Wrong! A little bit further down the line is this contraption that I have no idea what it is called. What it did was lift and tamp the ballast around the rails and ties. At least that is what I saw it do.
Here is a series of photos of this machine.

The first show the machine approaching the crossing (a different one than the first), then it cross the road, pounding on the rocks. Look closely at photo three and you can see the rods coming down.
Finally, after very slow progress the machine is across the road. For being on a country road, there was a lot of traffic waiting to go!
I must have been heavy maintenance day, on down the road I caught a glimpse of another rail truck with crew working on the rails (too distance for a photo).
So goes maintenance day on the Captina Division

ALWAYS TAKE A CAMERA

Running errands the other day, and what do I see? I&O switching the Anchor Hocking Plant and what a train he is pulling!
Photo above-looking down the train towards the plant.
Here is the engine and engineer waiting for the trainman to hook up the boxcars back in the plant.

And off they go, heading north to the distribution center just up the road.
And that is why you take your camera with you when you run an errand...you never know what you might see!

Let's start spring break out-Ohio style! If you click on the photo of the two NS engines of the Captina Mine run you will notice that it is snowing! Yes, it is Ohio and yes it is April, so what else is new?
I caught these two engines in the yard at Powhattan Point. I am wondering, is the left one getting sand or fuel?

On http://american-rails-forums.com/ a member asked about the cars on the old B&O line on the Harmar Side of Marietta. As I was returning home, I stopped and took some shots of the attractions there. Unlike Tuesday, on this day the sun was out and it was close to 70 degrees!

I don't know what the engine is beside the C&O caboose. Obviously this caboose didn't ride these rails when B&O ran the show.


Here are two coaches that have been, at one time, converted to a restaurant? I don't know as the cars are empty and a for rent sign hangs in front of one.









One car still had Christmas lights and decorations showing through the windows.
Hopefully, someone more knowledge about the B&O than me can identify the cars.





This is an interesting boxcar. C&O? B&O? Chessie?
The letter stands for "Historic Harmar Village Bridge Company"
To the left of the car is the bridge across the Muskingtum River.


Well that is my short visit to Marietta.

Around "Round Town"
Returning from a men's retreat down on the Hocking Hills region, I decided to detour through Circleville to see what railroad action I could find on a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
I have passed through Circleville many times to watch trains in Chillicothe, but now I decided would be a good time to visit roundtown. Here are the results of my short trip.

First shot is back towards state route 22, Main St in town. To the left is the remains of the old papermill and just pass it is the grain elevator. Last time I was here, the siding was full of covered hoppers waiting for their share of the grain. The NS main is to the right, just out of view. As always, click on the photo for a larger view (or right click, open in new tab/window).

Here comes a very, very long hot shot with containers. I am standing on a fairly sharp curve and the train has slowed considerably down for the curve, as well as being in town. This long train will block a lot of street crossings! It is heading south to Portsmouth.
Here is a MOW car going the other way. My wife called me and I was on the cell phone when I saw the train approaching. This is the result of one handed photography. Good thing my DLSR has an "A" button!
I think this is what remains of the old PRR line from Lancaster. The shot is towards the east and this is an old station that is now a self store place.
Here is what happens when a railroad loses a business. Either the grain elevator is closed, which I suspect, or just does not use rail anymore...the tracks are weedy and have a heavy layer of the dark rust of misuse on them. This is westward and was once part of the PRR line.
This is the same elevator and looking east. In the distance you can see where the station is.
Turn around from the above photo and this is what you see. The old tracks passing under state route 23. They once headed to Washington Court House from Lancaster.

Driving around roundtown, you can tell where there were once more tracks laid out. The signs are there, but the tracks are no longer. What a place to have seen thirty to forty years ago!

As I left my mother's today, I decided to head east on RT. 78 and go to Powhatan Point to see if I could find NS' Captina coal train being unloaded. An impulsive turn to the right, instead of the left, paid off!
As I headed North on Rt. 7, what did I see looking back at me? A NS thoroughbred!

This is the "rear end" of the train or is it the front end? For today, it is the rear, as the train was slowly moving northward as it unloaded its coal at the transloading site along side the Ohio River. In this rather distant view, you can see the "front" of the train as it slowly advances through the unloading bay. To the left of the photo is the fuel point for the engines.
I decided to take Rt. 148 west towards Barnesville, just to see how the tracks followed the twisting hills of eastern Ohio. And what, to my surprise, I find another train heading back to the mines! Here it passes a farm on its way west.
NS uses a push-pull method to get the trains to and from the mines. Here is the engine at the rear crossing a bridge on its way to the mine. It is crossing Captina Rd and creek.
Here it is, peeking around the turn at Armstrongs Mills, just before the crossing.

Here it comes! Just before the crossing and as it comes across the highway. As you can tell, daylight is fading fast!
Just past the first mine you come to, the highway passes over the bridge. I just got a shot of another drag heading back to Powhatan Point! Wow! Three in one day!
Evening comes quickly down in the hollows of eastern Ohio and light is fading fast. I have one last shot to take. Hand held, slow shutter and I think it came out just fine. In better times, I would have had set up my tripod, taken some test shots, and been ready. Instead, its out of a window hoping no one rear ends me on the highway,since there was no place to pull over on the road.
Well, this was quite an adventure! I am glad I took a different route home!

CHRISTMAS IN ILLINOIS
2008

During my visit with family in Illinois, my nephew and I went on a small safari to look for some trains.
Our first "catch" of the day was the Amtrak Illinois coming south from Chicago towards St. Louis.

In the first photo, the engine just peeks out past Lenox tower near Mitchell.
(click on link for map of area).
My next shot gets more of the engine coming through. I can't say it was racing through, it was moving at a more sedate pace. The next show is one of car passenger cars passing the tower.

Realizing that we were racing the sun, and with nothing seemingly coming our way, we went to another location to look around. Here we caught an UP coal drag heading the opposite way. A quick turn a round on route 203 and we have this photo.


Unfortunately, the engineer stopped the train while it was on the crossing and we were stuck and unable to cross back over to route 203! So, we took quick side trip, but were unable to find a way around the train. Coal trains are very long...
Eventually, he moved out, but also cut down on our time (it is winter and the days are short!) for photography.

Here is our next stop, at Duplo yard. This was once a Missouri Pacific yard, and today belongs to Union Pacific Railroad. Across the main street of Dupo, is a model shop (Reynolds Railways) that has an observation deck to view the yard. This is were I took the following photos.
Here is a shot north towards the yard tower.
This view is of the engine house and shows quite a number of engines waiting to go to work. While we were there we watched one crew load up and set out into the distance to go to work.
As the sun begins to set, we say our goodbyes to the store owner and call it a day. It was time to go back and have a wonderful dinner with family and look at the photos taken today.


The crew heads their train out for an evening of work.