October 2 Railfanning

Sunday provided me an opportunity to enjoy some beautiful cloud free fall skies. With light winds and the nearly perfect sky, I was able to record some video which is something that can be pretty difficult to do with the wind in Nebraska.

The first catch of the day in the area I planned on fanning was an empty MidAmerica coaler just west of Lincoln, NE.

BNSF 6021 & 6096

I followed this train up to the bridge west of Pleasant Dale, NE to try to catch it coming through the widened cut the BNSF created for the second main train. Unfortunately, it had an advantage with the shorter route and beat me there.

After a short wait, the signal at CP 14.6 displayed a red over yellow and then a red over flashing yellow followed by a green. Drifting down grade an empty Bunge bean train rounded the curve to the west of the bridge and took the diverging clear for main two.

BNSF 3826 & 7420

Once this train cleared, the signal at CP14.6 went red over yellow and stayed that way for about 10 minutes. Since I haven't heard any horns across the valley, I headed west to Milford. Once at Milford I setup to get a shot of the anticipated eastbound on the slight grade out of the Blue River valley. Within about 5 minutes horns could be heard coming from the north side of Miford along with a distinctive EMD 2 stroke sound. Soon BNSF 9246 lead an Alabama bound coal load up the grade.

BNSF 9246 & 6124

BNSF 5857

While in Milford a quick stop at the local Casey's for a slice of pizza was in order. While eating another eastbound was heard blowing for the crossing north of Milford. Shortly a TU Utilities coal train approached and I was able to capture it rounding the curve.

After this train passed, I headed back to the bridge for some more photos and videos. Since it was after noon the farmers had returned from church and were out in the fields cutting their crops and stirring up dust as the winds had started to pick up. With that in mind, I decided to stay for the westbound that was holding at CP 14.6 but the BNSF had a bunch of eastbounds to get in before it would finally get a green.

First up was another loaded MidAmerica coaler. BNSF 6350 lead another ES and another was the DPU making an all GE consist.

BNSF 6350

Following the MAXX coaler was a Kansas Power and Light coal load with the BNSF 6209-5639 and DPU 8546. Once it crawled into the clear at CP 14.6 the westbound was given a green to head out. As the train came into view the green sheen of  the Boeing B737-8xx's could be seen. This tipped me off that the HKCKLAU-01 was about to pass my spot. 

BNSF 7686

After this train passed, I packed up my stuff and headed for the car. I decided to check out the signal one last time just in case and sure enough one more train was in store for me followed by another.

First up was the first train I recorded earlier in the morning. BNSF 9109-5775 and DPU 6057 with a GGPX coal empty was first seen on the east side of Waverly, NE holding for an opening in Hobson yard. Four hours later it had pasted trough the yard and was about 40 miles further west.

BNSF 9109

Once the BNSF 9109 passed it was followed by the last train of the day for me. BNSF 6404-NS 1086 with DPU 5821 rolled an empty JHMX coal west. After watching this roll by I headed for home. Not a bad day for about 4.5 hours of quiet. 

On a quest to find the NS 4002 and 4004

Our original plan was to get photos of these units around the local area, but the weather and updates on their status had us traveling south to get them in some sunlight.

We headed south out of the Omaha area, getting off the interstate at Mound City, MO to follow the BNSF tracks via the back roads. While making a quick stop in Mound City, we heard a northbound over on the Napier Sub and were hoping it wasn't the NS units running ahead of time. My son checked Facebook and found that the crew was called for 1100. Since it was 0900 we decided to head south until we found them.

At Napier Jct, an empty grain train was being held before continuing north up the Napier sub. The power looked like every other GE so we skipped going up to the headend for any pictures and headed south on Hwy 111 to Forest City. From there is was onto County Rd T to Forbes, MO.

North of Forbes, MO we noticed that the signals were lined for a southbound, so we pulled into Forbes and waited about 10 minutes before a southbound RWSX loaded coaler showed up. BNSF 8990-6394 with DPU's 9649-9085 cleared the only crossing in town within a couple of minutes.

As we paced the 8990 south we soon encountered a traffic jam around Rushville, MO. A truck towing a trailer with a Suburban on it, blew a front tire going into the ditch and hitting the rails. To my untrained eye it didn't appear to cause too much damage to the track, but the DS had to have a track inspector out to verify all was good.

The curious part of this traffic jam was at that a southbound TXUX loaded coaler was in the siding while a northbound mixed freight was holding the main. BNSF 5387-4535 was the power on the freight while BNSF 9270-6014 and DPU 6255 had the TXUX loads in hand.

A bit further down the road we noticed a headlight coming around a curve, which belonged to a northbound KCP&L empty with BNSF 9144 and DPU 9258 as power. Once they came to a stop BNSF 9270 got a green signal to continue south.

We encountered our next train at Amour siding where a northbound freight was being held. Power was BNSF 6235-6207-54181-9658. There was also a KCPL loaded coaler on the ballon track running through the dumper at the Iatan Power Plant. From here we headed back up into the hills away from the tracks until we crossed under Hwy 92 about 2 miles north of the north end of Leavenwoth siding. Sitting at the north end waiting for the BNSF 9270 south was a TXUX empty coaler with BNSF 9280-6082 on the headend. I could not get the number of the DPU on this train.

About half way down the siding (which is 17550' long) we set up for a shot of the 9270 passing the northbound in the siding.

Our next encounter was near MP 11.8 where we encountered the BNSF 9257-9838 on a loaded RWSX coaler holding at the end of double track. Having not encountered the NS duo and needing gas we headed on down to N. Kansas City to take a peek at Murray yard. The connector from Hwy 9 to Hwy 169 was closed so we ended up taking the roads down along the east side of the yard. We saw lots of faded/dirty/stored C44-9Ws, SD70MACs, a few AC44C4s in various BNSF paint schemes stuffed into tracks along the east side of the yard. After figuring out how to get over to Hwy 169 we were able to drive north along the west side of the yard and finally spotted the duo at the north end of Murray yard.

Not able to get any photos of the units, we decided on lunch and a run over to the NS yard as the IT heritage unit and the Veterans unit were reported to be in town. A drive down along the NS yard didn't reveal either unit, but we did manage to catch a parked auto rack train.

We took another run around the Murray yard to see if a crew may have been brought out to get on the train and found it in the same spot and state. Heading back up to Parkville, MO to position ourselves to get some photos when it does leave, my son looked up the latest information for the train at the various social media sites and read that the crew was called for 1600. Since it was 1430 and we had a 2.5 hour drive home combined with a line of storms coming in we reluctantly headed north.

Retracing our route, we encountered our first train just north of Parkville. Seems the crew on the BNSF 9257, which we had seen earlier died on the single track and had the main plugged. Seeing this we assumed that there wouldn't be any northbound movements on our way back. This was soon proven wrong as we encountered a northbound empty DDG train at Sadler. Moving at track speed we had a bit of a run to catch up to the head end which had BNSF 4556-6605 as the power. While trying to get ahead of it, I noticed a different train in the siding at Sadler from when we had headed south earlier in the morning.

The northbound grain train slowed to take the siding at Halls and my son wanted to get a shot of the train passing under the old Q cantilever signal at the south end of the siding. Once he was able to get his shots (mine were not the best) me headed north again and encountered a monster of a consist on a train holding at the end of double track. This mixed freight was lead by BNSF 6100-5742-5876-5166-652-6304-1106-8160-6902-7764, 10 units. Of course they were not all online and the last 5 looked as though the last 5 had recently been removed from storage.

Once the crew was relived and a new crew got on board this train would continue its journey to KC. We continued our journey north and soon encountered a loaded KCP&L coaler powered by BNSF 6263 and BNSF 8572 as the DPU quickly rolling up on the stopped freight stopped in front of it.

While we got our shots the crew fan ran around us and pulled up to a stopped mixed freight in the siding with BNSF 3800-4058-3012 as power.

With us still over a 100 miles from home and heavy rain just to the north we made a beeline for home and ended our day of railfanning.