I just watched a train of car racks go south towards Ocala headed by CSX 7830 and UP 576. Why would a UP loco be in Florida? (unless it was leased as I'm told CSX is short on power.)
Posted by CP-home (Member # 1924) on :
Railroads like to pool power. I have seen Conrail units in California on Santa Fe Trains. Once there was a BNSF Dash-9 on Sandpatch grade in PA. and it actually ran around there for a couple of weeks like they had it assigned to the area. Now that I didn't understand. (CSX: "oh well what BNSF don't know won't hurt em", fictional quote). LOL!
Posted by atsf3751 (Member # 1538) on :
I live on the west coast near LA and BNSF is the closest major railroad to me. This is their "transcon" line, so there are trains from all over the country, and foreign engines come in all the time. NS is the most common, but I've also seen CSX, UP, Soo Line, CP Rail, KCS, Illinois Central, and others. I just recently saw a BNSF train with no BNSF units. A CSX was leading, followed by a Conrail and NS unit.
Posted by Ken V (Member # 1466) on :
Just today I saw two different CN trains at the GM plant east of Toronto with BNSF GP's in the consist.
[This message has been edited by Ken V (edited 11-30-2002).]
Posted by Kairho (Member # 1567) on :
Maybe they are lost?
Posted by Ira Slotkin (Member # 81) on :
Hey Kairho: That last post evoked an image of a tough looking engineer in overalls, standing with a small *** at the front of his huge, rumbling diesel locomotive, looking out across strange terrain and saying "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore..."
Posted by MPALMER (Member # 125) on :
Just curious what word got the censors involved? (see last post)
Posted by Ira Slotkin (Member # 81) on :
Hey mpalmer: Well,lets try it again. What Toto was in the Wizard of Oz: a *** . I must have misspelled it in some way as to make it a questionable word. Funny that they (whoever they are) choose to delete that but allow some of the name calling and diatribes and inappropriate posts I've seen. Seemed odd to me at the time but I love trains so what do I know...
Posted by Ira Slotkin (Member # 81) on :
Well I'll be, ...um, doggone. "They" don't want the word "d", "o", "g". Curr? Mongrel? Mutt? Hey what about "cat"? As in what Garfield is?
Gosh,Trainweb staff. If you are monitoring this, I suggest a visit to your program for some fine tuning.
Oh, well. Enough excitement. Back to my life...
Posted by conrailkid (Member # 1898) on :
are you sure the up 576 was still a up engine? those old c-36's have been taken over by helm leasing, and union pacific on the sides is either painted out or it has a line of tape over it. usually, they have hlcx or hlgx repoting marks on the cab somewhere. it isn't all that unusual to see foreign power. like the other responses you have, trains from one company run through to places on another company, sometimes it's just as easy to keep that power on the train. and, as rumor has it, csx is short on power, so leasing from independents like furx, gcfx, cefx, helm, gatx, as well as other railroads is pretty common.
Posted by atsf3751 (Member # 1538) on :
UP has renumbered some of their GP38-2's, mostly repainted ex-SP units, into slots in the 500's number class. Maybe it was that.
Posted by Kairho (Member # 1567) on :
It was definitely maybe a UP engine. The color caught my eye; I would think that I would have noticed a missing or struckout logo. And the number matched the engine model (as per some site I forget which).
There are indeed quite a few leased engines on the line. But the lack of power begs comparison with the "Foreign Units" thread over in Railfan: Western US, where MPALMER reports CSX power bopping through Arizona just 4 weeks ago. If CSX has a shortage of power, what are they doing out there?
I wonder if I could get an answer by calling the local dispatcher?