Trainwatching
Report
Today, I felt like heading down to the Dunkirk area for some trainwatching with my first stop being near the Purina Plant in Dunkirk, I had my bike brought to the area so I could get to a few different places. Here's what I saw...
CSX was in a bit of a transitional period at this time, as they were beginning to use more of their dumb "Q-Symbols" for naming the trains, most all the mainline freights still had Conrail symbols, but this train pictured above was renamed, it is the former Dunkirk Local YADU, and I was informed by someone from CSX that this train was now called Y-120, if I'm wrong, please let me know. Here's the train, seen near the Purina Plant with renumbered "Ex-Con" SW-1500 #1075 on the lead on one of the Dunkirk yard tracks at 12:37pm.
The first mainline freight to show up today was BUCU-2 with CSX C40-8W #7712 on track #1 heading West at 12:43pm. The area near the Purina Plant on Middle Road in Dunkirk provides some nice wide-open views of the trains in the Dunkirk area.
Next up was CSX Train SEBB on Track #2 heading West at 12:51pm, today's train sported a lease unit trailing SD40-2 #8046.
I hopped on my bike and rode over to the former Niagara Mohawk Dunkirk Power Plant, the plant which was sold recently, had no coal hoppers in its enclosed yard today, and what you're seeing is the product of putting my camera up against a chainlink fence then using a high-powered computer scanner to zoom in on this car, it is the Ex-Amtrak (Former New York Central) Slumbercoach, appropriately named "Dunkirk Harbor". This coach saw service on the famous New York Central 20th Century Limited, and survived well into the Amtrak years on such trains as the Lake Shore Limited. A few years back, Amtrak eliminated Slumbercoaches as sleeping accomodations on most all of its trains and this one was subsequently sold. Rumor has it that the owner (name escapes me) plans to gut this old sleeper and turn it into a coach, but I'm not exactly sure, any info would be appreciated...
After leaving the NiMo plant, I bikerode for another half-hour or so to Pomfret, NY to a spot I last visited in March, Van Buren Road. The first train to come by today was this Eastbound TV train with CSX AC6000CW #622 on the lead on Track #1 heading East at 2:22pm.
Heading West on Track #2 was this TV train with another AC6000CW on the lead, this time #627 passes by at 2:24pm.
At 2:53pm, Train TV-302 passed by with C44-9W #9047 on the lead on Track #1 heading East.
Finally for today, Train SEBR-1 heads past Van Buren Road with C40-8W #7718 on Track #1 at 3:20pm. I heard a couple more trains as I headed back to Dunkirk and that would be it for today.
| To Go Back To The Front Page, Click Here... |
