Crossing Trains - St. Cloud - March 8th.
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I've definitely been feeling
lately like I need to get out trainspotting more. The trip up to Duluth
really got me fired up again. Today was the perfect chance. Mrs. TS-USA
headed off to the home and garden show with her sister, leaving me to
my own devices for the day. The only draw back being that I had to do
the laundry. No bother. That doesn't take long. Plus I then get to stay
down in the basement and work on my model railways. The laundry could
wait until the afternoon. Besides it's going to snow then. The
weatherman says so*. So shortly after 10am I was heading west to Saint Cloud, with John Lydon screaming at me through the CD player. I took this as a good omen as I had lost the CD "the best of British one pound notes" for over a year and had recently found it again. Once in Saint Cloud I decided to set up at the depot to start with and see what transpired. Well barely had I been there a minute when I heard the far off tone of a horn from the south. I don't normally hear them from that direction, must be the wind direction. So at least I was going to see something. The horn got gradually louder and then suddenly it came from the North! Had the wind been playing tricks on me? No there was defintely one coming from the North as well. At this I got quite excited. Two trains! Great! Then I had second thoughts. "What were the chances that the trains would cross right in front of me and I'd miss getting a picture of one of them" That would be just my luck. Still, I didn't have much time to dwell on it as the southbound rounded the curve crossed the road and entered the viewfinder of the camera an ES44 No. 7484 and warbonnet C44 on a mixed freight doing a fair old clip it had to be said. I wish I'd been paying more attention as No.3 loco in the lash up is a Ferromex C-44. A Mexican loco in Minnesota. Strange indeed. |
I looked to
the north and saw the headlights of the southbound approaching. At
least with the northbound passing first I wasn't going to get blocked
out on this second train. I glee fully clicked away at the lash
up of C-44's lead by number 4022. |
It was, it
had to be said a chilly morning. So I headed back to the truck to warm
up and have a read of a magazine I'd bought with me. So after about 15
minutes had passed I once again heard the sound of a distant horn from
the south... and the North. All thoughts passed though my head
simultaneously. "What a great day1" "I hope I don't get blocked out on one of these either. Luckily that wasn't to happen and the southbound Auto racks headed by C-44 No. 5347 arrived first and cleared out just before the Northbound coal train barelled though kicking up quite the dust storm |
Back to the
car to warm up for a few minutes and then another horn was heard from
the North. A Southbound coal train headed by a pair of SD70MACS. But
this train had a little surprise in store. |
Yes! Some DPU in the
rear. I
don't often see DPU on this section of the Staples sub. Heading east
through Brainerd to Superior its commonplace. But not so much here.
With that things went quiet and I dcided to head over to the yeard to
see if there was anything there. Nothing out of the unusual. Apart from
Northern Lines RLCX 1703 looking very sick indeed . It looks like it
had been subjected to a rather serious oil leak. |
with that I
decided to call it a day and head home. Not a bad mornings gricing all
in all... |
*It should be pointed out that at the time I'm writing this (5:45pm) it's bright sunshine outside and has been all afternoon... |