Saturday, August 23, 2014

I Love the Smell of Diesel in the Morning

So after a small breakfast at the Best Western Hotel in Fostoria, Ohio (which I highly recommend by the way if you're going there for trains), we headed back to the rail park to catch some more trains.  While it didn't seem busy at the time, looking back at my pictures, I see that I ended up seeing quite a few trains.  I think the total was 15 in roughly two and a half hours and that's not all that bad.

The park was actually pretty busy.  There was a group of people from Rochester, New York.  Another couple of people from Dearborn, Michigan and a group of people from somewhere else in Michigan.  There were also a few other groups of people that came and go.  It was kind of cool to see a group of people like that.  I will once again say thank you to the group of people that made this rail park and I hope it stays successful for them.
 Just as I got to the park, I heard the sound of a train horn in the distance.  Since I'm starting to the get the lay of the land, I had a pretty good idea of where to put myself.  I kind of like this picture because it almost looks like I'm going to get hit by a train.  I'm not going to of course because I practice safe railfanning.
 The train after it rounds the bend.  I will have to admit, there is something pretty impressive about seeing a train especially one that is carrying a bunch of cars.
 Then I discovered another good spot for a head shot.  This time for the trains from the north.  I really like this particular spot, I think.  I will have to try it again.
 The train as it passes by.
 It's amazing the logos you see on the train cars.  Just because the engines may belong to CSX, the cars may not necessarily belong to them.
 Conrail was the entity that sucked up the failing railroads of the Northeast.  Probably the biggest railroad of that bunch was the Penn-Central which was the merged entity of the Pennsylvania and New York Central.  Apparently, it also had the Erie and Lackawanna and a few regional railroads. 
 Another amazing thing about this line is that you see engines from companies that don't normally operate in this part of the country.  Union Pacific's normal area of operation is west of Chicago but I imagine it costs money to switch trains. 
 Another CSX engine. 
 An example of some of the cooler grafitti.
 I think this engine came down from somewhere near Toledo.  It was coming down to pick up a load of automobile cars to take back to Toledo, I think.
 After going down to one of the main lines, she backed up to the Norfolk-Southern line and then picked up a string of cars.
 A west bound Norfolk-Southern engine.
 And an east bound Norfolk-Southern engine.
 Another CSX engine working its way west.  I think I like CSX's color scheme the best (for some strange reason).
 But I think my favorite overall scheme is the Union Pacific scheme.  Especially the engines that have the US flag on them.
 However, that wasn't this one.
 A close up of the cab.
 Another CSX engine heading south.
 The CSX engine from earlier after picking up the load of cars and working around the diamond to get lined up to head back north.
 A BNSF engine heading down from Toledo.
 A close up of its cab.
One more shot before heading on.

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