Not every day can be
filled with
exciting, colourful, ACe's to photograph and today was one such day.
The morning had been quite nice and bright. As I was taking a trip over
to Saint Cloud to get some supplies for my new HO scale model railway
layout from the hobby shop. I decided I'd stop lineside somewhere on
the way back and see what I could see. Well, it may well have been
bright when I left home, but by the time I arrived a the model shop it
was raining. When I left the shop it was just plain cloudy. My thoughts
of a grand afternoon were ruined. I still decided to drop in on the
yard and see what was about. I may not get any great photos but the
yard normally has a varied selection power in there.
Over the
North side of the yard was an unusual triple lash up of a
couple of
"Canoodle" loco's (SD's I think) and a Warbonnet liveried C-44.
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From here I could see in the
distance on the south side of the yard a pair of SD's on a ballast
train so I hopped into the truck and zipped around to see what that
might offer. On the way I caught a glimpse of a pair of GP's sat
waiting
for some work to do.
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Arriving at the south east
corner of the yard. I was somewhat shocked at what I saw. The lead out
unit was a quite respectable looking SD40-2 No . 7024.
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But behind it was
this other,
shocking looking SD No. 6748 which had received some attention from
graffiti artists. I'm fairly open minded when it comes to graffiti some
times it can be quite artistic. But this graffiti isn't even any good.
It's no more than mindless vandalism. To be honest I found it somewhat
sad to look at. I
hope the loco gets an overhaul and visits the paint shop soon because
no loco should look like that.
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It was too painful to
look at so
I headed for home, but as I approached the Amtrak Station a long coal
train went through and I decided to sit there in the car park for a
while and see if anything came though. Things were pretty quiet but
after about 30 minutes I heard the dispatcher caution a westbound train
about a speed restriction he was approaching. So I knew something was
on the way. I took a leisurely stroll out to my tripod and the crossing
gates went off! Clearly the train hadn't reached the speed restriction
yet (Note to self: learn your mileages around here) So I quickly jammed
the camera onto the tripod and captured the arriving train. It was
certainly worth it. Three SD70 MAC's on a long train of coal empties.
By some strange chance I managed to get the Saint Cloud nameboard in
there too.
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There we go then,
considering
I'd pretty much written the afternoon off once it started raining. I
ended up with some interesting if somewhat sad at times, stuff.
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