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Not as bad as all that - Saint Cloud, June 28th


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.
CN 5261
CN 5931
BNSF 614
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.
BNSF No 2933
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.
BNSF No.7024
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.
BNSF No. 6748
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.
BNSF 9863
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.