Hotshot Magazine | Fall 2014

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Inaugural issue. Featuring leasers, DUS, the expanding Amtrak service, crude oil on the rise, The Rock Island, and much more!

Transcript of Hotshot Magazine | Fall 2014

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Publisher: James Terrebonne Cover Photo: John Crisanti

Produced By: Hotshot PublicationsLouisiana, Colorado,Illinois, and Kentucky

Photography: John Crisanti, Gerald Sharp, Jon Hill, Robert Della-Pietra, Jason Boring, Cameron Applegath, Carlos Ferran, Stephen Schmidt, Andrew Shafer, Michael Berry, Chip Sherman, Kerry Douglas, Mathieu Tremblay, Joe LeMay, and Brendan Richardson

Managing Editor: Maximillian Curry

Art Director: John Crisanti

Copyeditors: Stephen Schmidt, Mathieu Tremblay

Associate Journalists:Robert J Della-Pietra, Jon Hill,

Operations: Cameron Applegath

[email protected]

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04 John Crisanti Crude Oil Traffic on the Rise

08 Robert Della-Pietra Tracks of The Rock

14 John Crisanti Denver Union Station: A New Beginning

20 John Crisanti Now Leasing: Keeping the Railroads Moving

28 James Terrebonne The Ever Expanding Amtrak: After 10 Years, Amtrak Expands Again

31 Cameron Applegath Merger Not Meant To Be? CP & CSX Merger Discussions

32 Jon Hill Intermountain Review: HO SD40-2 - Advancing the Standard

36 Colin Mucha Life as a Railroader: How I Achieved the Dream

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I would like to thank all of our fans and friends of the magazine for all the support and encouragement you all have given us. Without it, I'm not sure if this magazine would've ever gone from just a thought to an actual publication. It really means a lot to us that there are fellow railfans in the community who want to see another magazine start up and possibly continue on. We appreciate all the initial contributions for our first issue and we hope that this isn't our last issue. From all of us here at Hotshot Magazine, thank you all for giving us a chance.

Hotshot Magazine began as just a thought during a conversation between some friends regarding the lack of railroad publications that related more to railfans. With older publications going out of business, and current ones unable to utilize social media tools that are currently available, we felt like that there needs to be a magazine that ties everything in and delivers a better experience for readers of all ages. Currently, our magazine is only a free quarterly digital PDF-based digital publication, however we do plan on expanding into other ways of communicating with current and future readers. Soon, we'd like to utilize services like Youtube and Vimeo to provide quality videos, from how-to's to short documentaries and more. We hope that this magazine becomes successful and to keep it going for as long as we can. We also hope to expand this to a monthly publication, but only time will tell.

Our first issue is quite a mix of content from old rail lines in Oklahoma, leaser units keeping the railroads together, and Amtrak's regional rail revival. In our main article, John Crisanti discusses the equipment shortage the railroads are facing and how leaser companies like CitiRail are saving them. Also in the issue, we have a story about Amtrak's revival after over a decade of downsizing and increasing gaps in the system. We also feature a story from Robert Della-Pietra's journey along the old Rock Island in Oklahoma, Colin Mucha's story of his start at the BNSF Railway, and in our Model Railroading Section, Jon Hill reviews some products from Intermountain and more.

We hope that you enjoy our first issue and that you subscribe to our following issues, as well as like and follow our Facebook and Twitter pages. Once again from all of us here at Hotshot Magazine, we would like to thank everyone in the railfan community who supported us in the beginning and we thank you for all continued support and encouragement.

James TerrebonneEditor-in-Chief, Hotshot Magazine

James Terrebonne

EDITOR’S

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For many years, railroads have transported coal to many power plants across the country that help

power the United States. In recent years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been setting new regulations on coal fired power plants around the country. Some have shut down and been converted to natural gas, but the rest have remained in service. Over the past couple of years, coal has started to

decline in the market in some places, especially the coal mines in Western Colorado and the Powder River Basin. In 2010, railroads like BNSF Railway began transporting crude oil out of what has become one of the largest oil shales in the United States.

In the state of North Dakota, the Bakken Oil Shale has provided the BNSF Railway with one of the largest traffic booms the railroad has ever seen. Over the last four years, oil traffic via interchange with

Norfolk Southern (NS) and CSX Transportation (CSXT) has increased dramatically. The railroad also began shipping the crude oil to refineries in the states of Washington and Oregon in the Pacific Northwest and to Kern Oil in Bakersfield, California. BNSF has also started running crude oil trains from the Bakken Oil fields to Chicago where they’re interchanged to the Canadian National Railway (CN) for the run up to some refineries in the Canadian provinces

An empty crude oil train slowly rolls into the Plains All American Pipeline oil transload facility east of Keenesburg, CO along BNSF’s Brush Subdivision in Northeastern Colorado. The Tampa oil facility sits on the Niobrara fields.Photo by Gerald Sharp

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of Québec and New Brunswick. With the western demand

for crude oil increasing, the Alon USA Energy Company and Plains All American Pipeline Company constructed two new terminals for transloading from unit trains to tanker semi trucks in Bakersfield, California. In the Niobrara and Mancos shales in Utah and Colorado, the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) has started running unit trains from two Northern Colorado and Central Utah load out facilities to multiple destinations, including the Plains All American Pipeline facility. BNSF has also taken advantage of running unit trains to the Alon USA Energy facility from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. Canadian Pacific (CP) has also seen an increase in oil traffic on their system spanning the American midwest and eastern regions. CP unit trains have been running from the fields in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and the state of North Dakota to refineries in Québec, New Brunswick, the state of Alabama, and other various destinations via CSX and Norfolk Southern.

With the openings of new loading and unloading facilities, oil traffic throughout the North American rail network will continue to increase. Railroads continue to improve the infrastructure to efficiently run the trains safely and on time to their destinations. More facilities are under construction, while some are still on the drawing board. But for now, the oil is there and the railroads are helping transport the black gold.

Canadian Pacific train no. 608 (loaded oil train destined for Albany, NY) is passing CP's Lasalle yard in Lasalle, QC with UP 5507 leading and another UP GEVO as the rear DPU (UP 5516). Visible in the far distance at the right is the tail end of CP 609, empties coming up from Albany. UP leaders are very rare in Quebec. August 30th, 2014. Photo by Michael Berry

NS 1070, the Wabash heritage unit, slowly rolls west through Waterman, IL with an BNSF empty crude oil train. Photo by Stephen Schmidt

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Many people know the Chicago Rock Island and Pacific as a Chicago/Midwest

railroad, but little do people know

that they owned quite a bit of rails in the South. This article will cover their main east/west mainline through the great state of Oklahoma and extant photos of what we have

left of the Rock Island today. Starting in McAlester, Oklahoma, where the AOK railroad begins/ends, we head west where the mainline is now abandoned.

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The last major town on the Rock Island’s list is the town of Elk City, OK. As the Rock enters town, the first thing it crosses is the MKT: the CRIP goes over the Katy with a bridge. The CRIP depot is still fully intact, with the Rock logo on the side and full train order boards. Right next to the depot is a little freight sta-tion. Farm Rail uses this track up to this point and from there on is abandoned.

The town of Clinton, OK is Farm Rail’s hub. They use trackage of the CRIP, KCMO (Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway) and SLSF. This town once had four railroads run through it, but now only has one, which uses partial trackage of three railroads. As you come into town on the Rock, the first railroad you cross is the SLSF; the only thing left is a mast with no signal. Heading west, you go under the Hwy 183 bridge and soon see the remains of the mound were the KCMO (ATSF Subsidiary) went over the Rock. A little bit further is switch coming up from the south off the KCMO at Orient Junction. Although there was no Rock Is-land depot there, the town of Clinton, OK was a major stop for the agricultural busi-ness.Farm Rail power is sitting in Clinton, OK where the KCMO en-

tered on to the Rock Island.

Elk City, Oklahoma Orient Junction

Clinton, Oklahoma

As I was following this line, it was shocking how such a main line was, for the most part, abandoned. At one time this line saw fast passenger service to the west coast. Down the line on the Rock was the town of Tucumcari, NM where the

Rock ended and got on to the Southern Pacific to continue the voyage to the west coast.

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About 22 miles to the west is the town of Geary, OK. Although there is no longer a depot there, the Austin, Todd and Ladd railroad still runs through Their main runs between Geary and Watonga, OK which was the former Rock Island, continuing all the way to Enid and Ingersroll.

The next station stop was Hydro, OK. The depot is still intact and stands about 1000 feet from the tracks. It looks like the city was try-ing to restore the depot but stopped as years went by. The originality of this depot was shocking. Once again, it looked like the Rock was in operation one day and walked off the next day. The pole for the train order board was still up with a bladeless semaphore atop. On the side of the depot sat a railroad lock that read “CRIP”. The track in town was intact but had been “rail banked” by the state of Oklahoma. The track has not been used since 1984. As I drove down the field following what was the Rock’s main quarter, I noticed that mature trees were growing in the middle of the track, which indicates that the tracks were not been used in many years. As I went further down the line, the track conditions got better starting in the town of Weath-erford, OK where Farm rail takes control at the main grain elevator.

A little past Oklahoma City is the little town of El Reno, OK. This was the Rock’s crew change point and the home of one of the two Rock Island Car and Engine shops (the others were in Silvis, IL). The shops still stand in abandonment today: the main building is intact with three shed doors, but only two tracks running through the building. Along with the pits in the middle of the building, the transfer table still stands with the table portion missing. Off to the right are the offices of the shops, which have been cleaned out in the past 35 years. On the left is a photo of what remains of the El Reno shops.

Hydro, Oklahoma Geary, Oklahoma

El Reno, Oklahoma

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Another location where the Rock is practically gone. All that re-mains is a station sign marked for the Rock Island and the AOK “mainline.”

The next town of significant size is Shaw-nee, OK, which the Rock had a little yard currently used by the Arkansas and Oklaho-ma (AOK). Three railroads once traversed Shawnee: the Santa Fe, the Rock Island and the Oklahoma City, Ada and Atoka Railway (OKCC), which later became part of the ATSF system. The OKCC was abandoned and ripped up in June of 1969 after the ATSF took over. The Rock’s line is still intact, but the depot is gone. The “Rock Island Lines” slogan can still be seen on nearby bridges.

Only 54 miles outside of Oklahoma City is the town of Seminole, OK. There, the Rock Island depot still stands intact, complete with CRIP lettering. The tracks are still there but are rarely, and if ever used. A few miles east, the Rock Island had a yard that was used to serve local industries.

Choctaw Station Sign Shawnee, Oklahoma

Seminole, Oklahoma

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What is left in McAlester is an interchange track with the Union Pacific (Former MKT) and a little yard. McAlester was once the crew change point for the Rock Island rail-road. In the above photo is AOK 2442 (ex ATSF 3242) sitting on the interchange track in McAlester, OK. Notice the similarity in the CRIP and AOK paint schemes, comple-mented with the Rock Island logo on the nose.

The next existing Rock Island station is only 8 rail miles west in the town of Wewoka, OK. In Wewoka, the depot has been refur-bished, but all the rails are abandoned, buried deep under weeds and grass. A few relay boxes and telegraph poles still stand.

The next town of significant size along the Rock Island is Hold-enville, OK, where the line crossed the Frisco (SLSF). Here, the Rock Island depot and both signals that protected the interlocking still stand, which I discovered while making my first road trip down to Madill, OK.

Wewoka, Oklahoma

McAlester, Oklahoma

Holdenville, Oklahoma

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Denver is both the largest city and the capital of the state of Colorado. In 1868, Denver’s first rail-

road station was constructed by the Denver Pacific Railway. It connected with Union Pacific’s transcontinental rail line at Cheyenne, Wyoming, one hundred miles to the north. By the year 1875, four railroads had built their own stations in Denver, making it inconvenient for transfers. In re-sponse to this, the Union Pacific Rail-road proposed a centralized Union Station to combine all operations. By

February 1880, the Union Pacific, Denver & Rio Grande Western, Den-ver South Park & Pacific, and Colo-rado Central Railroads had all agreed on to build the brand new station at 17th and Wynkoop Streets in Down-town Denver. Architect A. Taylor of Kansas City was hired to develop the plans, and by 1881, the brand new station had opened. However, in 1894, a fire destroyed the central part of the station which forced the companies to build a brand new sta-tion. A Kansas City architectural firm was hired to design the replacement

depot in a Romanesque style which included a clock tower on both sides of the depot.

In 1912, the Union Depot part-nership of the four railroads was dis-mantled and replaced by the Denver Terminal Railway. Now represent-ing were the major railroads of the past: the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe (AT&SF), Chicago Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q), the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific (CRI&P), the Colorado & Southern (C&S), the Union Pacific (UP), and the Denver & Rio Grande Western (D&RGW).

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With the new partnership with the railroads, the central portion of the station was rebuilt to handle the in-crease in passenger traffic. The new part of the station opened in 1914. Up until the formation of Amtrak in 1971, Denver Union Station once was served by 80 daily passenger trains per day. Famous trains such as the joint California Zephyr have served Denver. With the take over by Amtrak, the D&RGW refused to join the national Amtrak system and

continued to operate its Rio Grande Zephyr between Denver and Salt Lake City, Utah until 1983. Missouri Pacific also made their appearance in Denver as they ran their Colorado Eagle between Denver and St. Louis via Pueblo and Kansas City.

Over the years, train service be-gan to dissolve and was only down to a couple of trains. In 1973, Am-trak adapted the name San Fran-cisco Zephyr which operated be-tween Chicago and San Francisco

via Denver and Ogden, Utah. Since the D&RGW kept running their Rio Grande Zephyr, the San Francisco Zephyr was forced to route through Wyoming over the Union Pacific Overland Route. The train operated until 1983 when the D&RGW de-cided to join Amtrak, which created today’s California Zephyr. Operat-ing between 1977 and 1997, Amtrak operated the Pioneer between the cit-ies of Chicago and Seattle via Den-ver and Salt Lake City. After 1997,

Denver Union Station was cut down to only Amtrak’s California Zephyr operating between Chicago, IL and Emeryville, CA, a suburb of Sacra-mento. Other passenger trains have continued to operate out of Union Station. D&RGW’s Ski Train, which operated seasonally from 1940 to 2009, carrying skiers 56 miles west to the ski resort at Winter Park. In 1988, when the D&RGW took over, the Southern Pacific Railroad (SP), the Ski Train was purchased by An-

sco Investment Company, which turned this into a franchise from the D&RGW. The train was discontin-ued in 2009 but that same year, Iowa Pacific Holdings that owns numerous rail lines in North America had plans on reviving the service but couldn’t due to insurance problems. One other train that operates out of Union Sta-tion is the Cheyenne Frontier Days train that runs between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming once per year in July.

In 2002, plans were completed to transform Denver Union Station into a major transportation hub with Am-trak and the Regional Transportation District (RTD). On July 30, 2010, the US Department of Transportation announced that the station received a $300 million grant to build three light-rail tracks and eight heavy rail tracks with a storage and servicing area. In February 2011, Amtrak ser-vices were temporarily moved to a building on 21st and Wewatta Street

A view of the western side of Denver Union Station from the platform next to Track 1, which will be used by commuter trains.

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across from Coors Field in Lower Downtown Denver for the duration of the main construction project. Three years later, Amtrak moved their services back to Union Station and began service on tracks four and five. On July 26, 2014, Denver Union Station officially opened. The Craw-ford Hotel was built on the northern side of the station and a Great Hall which sits on ground level serving as the main lobby. A brand new un-

derground bus concourse opened, which enables passengers from both Amtrak and RTD’s commuter and light-rail trains to connect with bus services in and out of the station.

The Great Hall serves as the main lobby and waiting area for Amtrak passengers. During the construction, the lobby was renovated to include multiple restaurants with an entrance to the Crawford Hotel on the north side of the lobby.

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The Wewatta Plaza is the western entrance to the brand new Union Station Bus Con-course with 22 boarding-deboarding gates.

Denver Union Station’s Romanesque style building peeks through the newly built open-air train hall at the platforms. The closest track is for commuter usage, while the raised tracks to the right belong to Amtrak.

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Do you or someone you know have a business pertaining to railroading, railfans, or model railroading and want to attract customers? Do you or someone you know want to get the word out on a event? What if you could advertise it for free with no strings attached?

Hotshot Magazine is offering individuals, businesses, and event planners the option to advertise their railroad related product, service or event for 2 issues for free! Each slot will either be 1/8th or 1/4th in size, with the option to have bigger sizes once the initial trial is up. If you choose to not to continue after the trial, then don’t worry, you won’t pay anything.

Please contact us at [email protected] line: AdvertisingPlease provide us a summary of your business, event, product or service as well as any questions or comments you may have.

Advertisements will be in the magazine in order to pay for expenses like web hosting, so that we can avoid charging our fans to subscribe. We will also provide an option to donate for people who are interested in donations which will also cover web hosting and website services, as well as any future expenses.

8.5 in x 11 inFULL PAGE

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3.5 in x 9.75 in

3.5 in x 2.125 in

3.5 in x 4.75 in

1/2 PAGE

1/8 PAGE

1/4 PAGE

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Continued on page 6

For many years, railroads have needed to borrow (or in this case lease) lo-comotives from other

railroads or private companies to help keep their trains moving when their regular power was not available. With this, lash-ups on

railroads have become colorful, and have taken on a rather diverse appearance. The most common leasing company that still provides locomotives to railroads is Helm Leasing Corporation (HLCX, HATX, HL, HLLX, and HLC). Over the years, Helm Leasing has

provided the extra horsepower to many railroads with a variety of lo-comotives from small switchers to high horsepower main line units.

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Most if not all of Helm’s loco-motive roster is mainly locomotives that were sold from different rail-roads and were given a second life. Other leasing companies such as: First Union Rail (FURX), GATX Rail (GMTX), National Railway Equipment (NREX), and Electro-Motive Diesel (EMDX/EMD) have followed in the same foot steps in providing the extra power to the rail-roads needing it.

One of the most commonly leased locomotive was the Oakway SD60. From October to December

1986, the Burlington Northern Rail-road (BN) began purchasing and tak-ing delivery of one hundred SD60s that were in a modified blue and white scheme similar to the scheme that the four EMD SD60 demonstra-tor’s wore. The locomotives were owned by EMD and leased to Oak-way Inc., a subsidiary of Cornnell Rice & Sugar, a New Jersey corpo-ration. The locomotives were num-bered from 9000-9099. Instead of leasing the locomotives from a bank or equipment leasing company, BN decided to purchase just the electri-

cal energy exerted from the locomo-tives. The locomotives were origi-nally delivered with a winterization hatch on the roof, previously seen on the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q) and Great Northern (GN) railroads. An amber rotating beacon was placed on the top of the cab on the engineer side, a feature that was removed during the early 1990s. The horn on the locomotive was placed on the top of the cab, but crew com-plaints forced the placement to be changed to the top of the long hood between the exhaust and radiator fans. The locomotives were also de-livered with classifications lights but started to disappear in 1995. The units were delivered with silver trucks, but

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as road grime began to accumulate, the trucks were painted black. Most if not all of the Oakways were as-signed to BN’s Powder River coal trains. The common places the Oak-ways roamed were on the Alliance to Denver mainline and Colorado Joint Line, hauling coal trains to power plants in Texas. They were also seen pulling coal trains on BN’s east-west mainline through Lincoln, Nebraska to Midwestern power plants. Rail-roads lease power, whether the lo-comotive is moving freight, idling, or being serviced, has to be paid for as per the lease. However, with the Oakways, BN was only paying for the time the locomotive runs, even though it costs the railroad more to

operate a locomotive in notch eight than in idle. BN didn’t even have to do the servicing and maintenance for the Oakways. The locomotives were serviced at an off-site loca-tion by EMD personnel. Most of the work was done at the Colorado & Wyoming Railway shop in Trinidad, Colorado. However, due to labor disputes, the work was moved to the shops at BN’s Murray Yard in Kan-sas City, Missouri where the work was done by selected BN and EMD employees. Later on, the work was then moved to BN’s locomotive shop in Alliance, Nebraska.

After the merger with the BN and Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fe (ATSF), which formed the Burl-

-ington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), the Oakways were kept and used in coal and general freight service on the BNSF. In early 2010, BNSF got rid of half of the Oakway roster and went to GATX Rail, an-other leasing company. They spent a couple of years on lease to Norfolk Southern before being sold off to the Canadian National Railway and New York, Susquehanna, and Western Railroad (NYS&W) in 2013. The re-maining Oakways BNSF kept were also sold off to the CN and NYS&W.

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A select few GATX units remained with the leasing company, where they got overhauled and repainted in GATX blue before going on lease to the Providence and Worcester (P&W) Railroad.

Coal has been the main commodity that helped the railroads build the foundation of their image.

Over the past several years, we have been trying to find different alterna-tives for cleaner energy whether it’s wind, solar, or Liquid Natural Gas (LNG). For years, we’ve depended on our oil from the Middle East up until 2010, when the Bakken Oil Fields in North Dakota were tapped in, which

launched the biggest oil boom of the century. BNSF Railway (BNSF) has responded with the oil boom by opening nine, which now has in-creased to seventeen Crude-by-Rail facilities in the basin.

In 2013, oil traffic on the BNSF has increased to record levels, so much that the railroad was forced to return older power into service. Some locomotives had expired leases and were sold off to leasing compa-

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After meeting the Longmont Switch at Longs Peak, this empty coal train led by a leased CitiRail ES44AC coasts down Berthoud Hill just outside of the town of Berthoud, Colorado. Photo by John Crisanti

nies or other railroads. For example, nine of one hundred ex Burlington Northern SD60M’s had their leases expired and were sent off to Progres-sive Rail Leasing (PRLX).

However, in 2014, BNSF started taking lease in secondary power, which included the former BNSF, now PRLX SD60M’s. They also start-ed leasing an assortment of power from CEFX including ex SOO paint-ed SD60s, SD40M-2s, and SD40-2s. A few CIT/CEFX SD9043MACs have made it onto BNSF rails as part of a lease agreement. BNSF began leas-ing fifty two older AC4400CWs and thirty five ES44ACs from the Cana-dian Pacific Railway (CP). However, BNSF decided to take on a lease of

locomotives as important as the Oak-way lease that occurred during the late 1980’s with Burlington Northern.

In 2013, a few silver, blue, and yellow painted General Electric ES44ACs marked CREX with the name CitiRail began showing up at the Mid-America shops in Kansas City, MO. By Fall, a couple of them traveled north to the North Shore Mining Railroad in Minnesota for leasing/testing. Not too long after, several CitiRail ES44ACs arrived at BNSF’s yard in Aberdeen, SD from Mid-America. The ES44ACs that were leased to the North Shore Mining and BNSF were in the ear-ly 1200 series. By late 2013, more CitiRail ES44ACs in the 1300 se-

ries were delivered from General Electric’s plants in Erie, PA and Fort Worth, TX. This continued into early 2014. In June 2014, brand new Citi-Rail units in the 1400 series were being delivered from the Erie plant via CSX to Chicago, IL, where they were interchanged to the BNSF. In early July 2014, several brand new CitiRail units were sent to Cicero, IL on the BNSF where they were put on a light power move that was destined for Alliance, NE. However, the set was broken up at Lincoln, NE and put on three different trains. One set went on a Greybull, WY mani-fest, while the other two sets went on two Provo, UT bound manifests. Upon arriving onto BNSF property,

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A loaded PRB coal train sits at the “Depot” in downtown Calgary with CERX 1026 and BNSF 7585 on the point. When a new crew takes over, it will back through the west end of Alyth yard, then head north on the Red Deer subdivision. Then, the train will be handed off to CN in Edmonton for forwarding to Prince Rupert. Photo by Mathieu Tremblay

the railroad decided to put these units into general service, from oil to inter-modal. However, lots of these units have found themselves on coal trains from the Powder River Basin.

With the increase in oil traffic, CitiRail ES44ACs have also made a general appearance on oil trains run-ning between the Bakken Oil Fields and east coast refineries on CSX and Norfolk Southern, in the Pacific Northwest, and in California. While BNSF continues to lease the Citi-Rail ES44ACs, the railroad has also purchased new locomotives from General Electric and Electro-Motive Diesel. BNSF took on orders of two

hundred and eighty two ES44C4s and over one hundred SD70ACes, which also includes twenty SD70ACe-P6s.

As the demand for oil continues to grow, more trains are being added. Power continues to be short in areas, but the railroad is trying their best with brand new locomotives and leased locomotives. Essentially, the CitiRail ES44ACs are pretty much considered the modern Oakways.

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The southbound Saluki, train 391, dives into the turn out at North Carbondale, the train is nearing it’s final station stop after 5 and half hours of high speed running on Canadian National’s former Illinois Central Mainline. Photo by Andrew Shafer

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Ten years ago, David Gunn made extensive cuts for rail service on Amtrak, leaving major metropolitan

areas and corridors lacking proper transportation options. Now, with Amtrak’s future in the hands of Joe Boardman, and more states wanting to fund their own regional rails, the gaps in the United States’ rail transportation system are slowly being filled. Although the only new services are currently Thruway Motorcoach, it is a start in the quest to better connect the United States.

Amtrak and several transportation agencies have announced the purchase of new equipment for existing and newer services. This announcement, along with a massive increase in passenger ridership on Amtrak, has made smaller agencies look into proposals for new services in markets that only see less than two trains per day, and some that haven’t seen a train in years. In

August, Amtrak introduced three new Thruway Motorcoach services operated by Greyhound and Capital Trailways that allow the Cities of Gulfport, Biloxi, Mobile, and Montgomery, MS to connect to New Orleans, LA, Jackson, MI, and Tuscaloosa, AL for connections to Amtrak services. These cities have not seen any Amtrak service since Hurricane Katrina disrupted the New Orleans to Orlando portion of The Sunset Limited. The new bus service could one day bring back a tri-weekly or daily rail service for Gulf Coast residents. Amtrak also announced proposals for additional trains for the Chicago to Carbondale, IL Saluki and Illini services, as well as a proposal adding a new Chicago to Memphis daily train. The new proposals came after Amtrak received its first of several new Viewliner cars that would replace the aging heritage diner and baggage fleet, allowing shorter travel times on services bound for the

Amtrak P42DC #111 leads a two car “shuttle” train in Windsor, CT. This route is a 63 mile branch off of the NEC and gets about 12 trains per day, most of which are these 2 car “shuttles”. Photo by Brendan Richardson

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Northeast Corridor and for future services.

Louisiana DOTD, Texas DOT, and Mississippi DOT have begun funding proposals for a daily Merid-ian to Dallas/Ft Worth Amtrak train that would split off from the current New York to New Orleans Crescent. The new service would give trans-portation options to Shreveport, Monroe, and Vicksburg, cities are only provided with limited as well as expensive flights, and long driv-ing distances from other cities and towns. Currently there are no set dates on when or if this corridor will be given the rail service.

In March, Siemens had an-

nounced a contract between them and the DOTs in Illinois, Missouri, California, Michigan, and Washing-ton. The new $225 Million dollar contract allows delivering of 32 new Charger series locomotives from their plant in Sacramento, replacing the GE P42s and EMD F59PHIs that are used by those agencies. Each lo-comotive, according to the concept drawings, would be painted for their regions services: Blue for California, Green for Northwest, and Red for Midwest and Great Lakes. The con-tract would also open up the option for 225 more locomotives to be built for Amtrak and other transit agen-cies, possibly replacing Amtrak’s

fleet of P40 and P42s. The locomo-tives are set to be delivered to their respected agencies by 2016 or 2017.

As flying and driving become more of a hassle in modern society, Amtrak along with state agencies have opened a “Pandora’s box” with rail travel and service. Whether or not these proposals will become re-ality and whether or not these new services will be successful is current-ly unknown. These agencies have realized the problems and needs of wanting hassle-free and comfortable transportation options for an ever-expanding nation.

P32-BWH 518 cools its heels in Carbondale, Illinois after it’s 310 mile run on the southbound Illini, train 393. The train will become the following day’s Saluki, train 390. Photo by Andrew Shafer

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CSX 4687 sits in CP’s Lambton Yard in Toronto as three rebuilt CP SD60’s lead the eastbound Expressway on the mainline bound for Montreal. Photo by Cameron Applegath

A CP AC4400CW and CSX ES44AC lead a BNSF stack train down the middle of Atwood Street in Longmont, CO. Photo by John Crisanti

On the week of October 6th, Calgary, Alberta-based Canadian Pacific Ltd approached Jackson-

ville, Florida-based CSX Transporta-tion in a merger bid to bring together two of North America’s largest rail corporations. CSX has reportedly rebuffed the advance by E. Hunter Harrison’s railroad, and it seems CP has retreated to the drawing board. When approached for comment, both parties would not speak on the pos-sible merge, which fed public uncer-tainty and spawned questions about the move.

Interestingly enough, the attempt may have benefitted CSX, as their shares increased 5.9% to close at $31.70. However, the same cannot be said for CP, whose shares dropped 2.3% to land at $184.97 on the week of October 13th. For example, a hypothetical entity of CP and CSX merged in this case would produce a

market capital of $63.5 billion.If by chance this merger was

successful, the operation would not be approved by the US Surface Transportation Board due to their harsh regulations implemented since BNSF Railway and Canadian Na-tional’s attempt to merge in the early 2000’s. No Class 1 railroad has since attempted a merger operation. Credit Suisse analyst Allison Landry wrote to clients: “The STB rules concern-ing Class 1 mergers have an arguably impossible hurdle rate, therefore in our opinion, the deal is a non-starter.”

Many folks are not happy about this merger advancement by CP. Folks like analyst Jason Seidl [Cow-en and Co.] remarked: “Still, it ap-pears that CP picked a bad time to try to orchestrate a major takeover. Both shippers and regulators are currently disenchanted with the rail industry due to the ongoing service and ca-pacity issues.” CSX CEO Michael

Ward warned that major service dis-ruptions may occur if this merger goes through. Ward commented, “You might actually see a step back. As you know, in the past there have been severe service disruptions after one of those transactions.” A survey by Cowen & Co. found 70% of af-fected shippers opposed the CP and CSX merger in the third business quarter, which is a 6% increase from the second quarter.

From what the public has seen of the attempt, CP has unsuccessfully tried to merge with CSX to be what we can only imagine to be a wishful-ly powerful eastern North American railroad combo. E. Hunter Harrison continues to be under the microscope as many suspect he will try this merger bid again in the future.

MERGER NOT MEANT TO BE?Story by Cameron Applegath

MERGER

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Story by Jon Hill

Throughout the year of 2014, Intermountain Railway Co. has done continual releases of Electro Motive Division’s

most popular locomotive in the last forty years (even though many in the modern era are reduced to yard and local duty). In the model world, Intermountain has advanced the standard set by Athearn and Kato in previous releases of this lo-comotive.

SD40-2’s were introduced by Elec-tro Motive in 1972. With 3,000-hp 16 cylinder 645 engines, these locomotives became the standard for many railroads for several decades.

The 2014 releases of SD40-2 by Intermountain follows their previous release of the Canadian Version. While that version was needed in HO Scale, it was not properly executed in many

ways. The models had lighting issues and were very low weight. An inad-equately weighted locomotive typically has low pulling power. This had critics wondering if their new release would continue down the same path.

Luckily for HO scale modelers, they improved and in a big way.So far, there have been two releases of SD40-2’s this year, with another sched-uled for November.

This release of locomotives includes many roadnames: Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, CSX, GATX, Iowa, Chicago and Eastern, Pan Am, Norfolk South-ern, Union Pacific, Seaboard, L&N, Ferromex, Grand Trunk, KCS, BNSF, CN, CP Rail, C&NW, Milwaukee Road, SOO, Southern, Ontario Northland, Conrail, Rock Island, Chessie, MKT, Florida East Coast, BC Rail.

Story and photos by Jon Hill

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Specifics on the models include DC/DCC Sound and non sound ver-sions from ESU. LED headlights and ditch lights depending on prototype. Many of the models have beacons or strobes. Unfortunately Intermoun-tain made them non-operating. This is something that should have been included.

The basic detail for each locomo-tive hits the mark and is something other manufacturers should be striv-ing for. Details such as treaded walk-ways, see-through fan housings, grab irons, lift rings, coupler cut bars, de-tailed plow MU cables and air hoses come factory applied. Sunshades and horns are included in the box and can be applied by the modeler. Gluing the extra details is recommended to keep them in place.

For the most part, Intermountain has done fairly well on this aspect. Details like air conditioning units, properly positioned headlights, pro-totypical horn position and some an-tenna versions were done right. How-ever, after seeing the BNSF Heritage 1, Iowa Chicago and Eastern, Ferro-mex and Chicago and North Western versions in person and tested, we noted that not all models have the full roadname-specific details.

Examples are antenna stands, in-cluding Nathan P3 horns instead of Leslie RS3L horns and not includ-ing a beacon or a strobe on the CNW version. These all fairly minor things to add, but to a detail oriented mod-eler, those will have to be changed or added to make the model complete.

That isn’t to say that the base

model detail is merely average. Quite frankly, the overall detail for the most part is better than Athearn’s SD40-2 release earlier this year.

As far as operations testing goes, I usually subject each model to vari-ous tests, including all of the lighting and sound functions, smooth run-ning, pulling test, and a preliminary speed match test with other brands locomotives with no extra program-ming on DCC mode.

With this unit, Intermountain has added more lighting functions than just about any of their competitors do for a SD40-2. Headlights are dim-mable. Ditch lights on units that have them have the separate ability to be turned on and off from the headlight, and dimmable.

Some units have marker lights,

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which work as they are intended to do. All of the units have lit num-ber boards, which is a great feature that other manufacturers should be including standard on their models now.

Sound versions come with ESU LokSound decoders. These decoders have quickly started to take a large share of the sound market, and it’s easy to see why. With higher quality recordings over Tsunami and more customization options, it was clear Intermountain made the right choice. These units are very smooth and fairly quiet runners, although not as silent as some Kato units are.

As for the pulling test, my basic standard for good pulling locomotive out of the box is approximately 30 cars on a flat layout. Anything less

than 30 for pulling power is subpar. Anything more than 40 is great, more than 50 is excellent.

A single Intermountain SD40-2 had a continuous no slip pull of 42 cars, which is great for a single loco-motive. This is comparable to the At-hearn RTR SD40-2 which measured 44 before slipping.

A speed matching test revealed that these locomotives run fairly well with other manufacturers loco-motives. They are slightly faster in most speed steps, so a speed table programming will be necessary for proper running.

Overall this is a great release from Intermountain. Despite some minor detail issues, it easily advanc-es the standard for HO Scale SD40-2 locomotives.

I give it a 75/100 and would recommend its purchase.

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How I achieved the dreamStory by Colin Mucha

My parents and I lived with my grandparents until I was about three years old in Villa

Park, IL. To pass the time while my parents were at work, my grandpa Ron would walk me down to the Villa Park Metra station along the UP West/UP Geneva subdivision. Sometimes we would sit for hours and hours watching trains. We would

walk over to the convenience store, he would get me a pack of grape bub-ble gum, and he would carry me on his back home. He had me absolute-ly hooked and he knew I would one day work for the railroad. I learned everything I could about trains with him. We would watch videos about them and then walk over to the train station. Spending time with grandpa at the Metra station watching trains

fly by was my absolute favorite thing in the world to do. Even though I was still very young and had lots of time before I would start, he encouraged the dream and supported me on my journey there. He passed away in 2001.

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Photo by Stephen Schmidt

As a young enthusiast, I aspired, as many do in this hobby, to work for the railroad and spend my days riding the rails. It wasn’t an easy achievement. I worked for it, I mean really worked for it. As soon as I turned 16, I was applying for any job that would take me. My first job was essentially handed to me as a favor from a family friend. I worked at our village swimming pool as a janitor, making less than minimum wage. I took out the garbage, I cleaned up af-ter children (which is not a fun job as anyone who has done it knows)

and did the usual spiel of “No run-ning!” for a few hours every day dur-ing the summer. I needed something more than a seasonal job, having no experience and no clue where to start looking, I turned to the internet and applied for the first thing that I saw, a seasonal package handler position at UPS. Saying I worked hard would be an understatement, but they hired me back on as a part time employee. This was by far the most intense, and exhausting job on my résumé. Af-ter a full day of school, I would go straight to the warehouse and load

packages that were between 1-120 lbs into semi trucks for minimum wage for 4-6 hours a day, with only a 10 minute break. I worked there from my junior year of high school until the end of my freshman year of college. The summers were brutal, the heat was intense, and you became incredibly dehydrated.

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I actually passed out one day of heat exhaustion and woke up being carried out of a 53’ container and brought towards a chilled container to try to cool down. What a fun situ-ation that was. It was nice of them to contact my emergency number promptly, however my mother re-ceiving the message “Hi, this is UPS, we may have to take your son to the hospital” and nothing else. Really goes over well.

The winters were extremely bit-ter. I often lost feeling in my hands and toes, and the only way to stay warm was to work harder. Soon, I graduated high school and started to look for ways to move towards the goal. I took business classes at a community college. I studied busi-ness just to pass the time, I had no real interest in the business world, but it hap-pened to be the cheapest and least amount of courses I could take at a time.

My career focus was always on the railroad, and at this point I made a decision, which was the biggest decision of my life. I dropped out of college and got a full time job. To be honest, I never had a real inter-est in going to college. That was not

easy conversation with my parents, but they wanted the best for me, of course they wanted me to attend col-lege and graduate. But mom and dad knew where my heart was set. After weeks of convincing, they allowed me to stop attending classes on the one condition. I would need to have a full time job, and I would need to pay all of my bills (up until then they had graciously let me live at home, rent free, and fully taken care of). The full time job I got was at the Em-bassy Suites in the next town over. I worked as a dishwasher and kitchen assistant, so I was all over the clock on hours. Working mornings one day, late nights the next and right back to mornings the day after that. It was by far my least favorite job.

I came home smelling of grease nearly every day. I had to collect all the leftover food and dishes from room service on every floor of the hotel. Some of the smells involved were sinus clearing, nauseating, just plain horrific. I worked at this job un-til my opportunity came.

Colin Mucha waves while he sits idle in two ex. BN SD60Ms locomotives. Photo by Joe LeMay

THE OPPORTUNITY

It was April of 2013, and BNSF Railway posted conductor trainee positions out of Cicero, IL. It was the first two emer-

gency classes that would start an absolute flood of hiring. They were called emergency classes because the railroad was incredibly short of conductors, requiring them to quick-ly hire and train lots of people at a time. I put a very condensed version of what I wrote above onto a piece of paper, filled out the online appli-cation and sent it in, hoping for the best. I don’t think anyone has ever checked their email more than I did in the next few months. Shortly after, I received the BNSF personality test, their genius online test that sorts out what a computer thinks would make a good railroader. Having passed that test, I went months without receiv-ing an email, long enough to think, “Well, maybe something happened, maybe I need to contact someone?”. I recieved the email saying I was invited to a group hiring session and I was never happier to have not quite gotten a job yet. The actual in-

terview process was terrifying. They started by giving us the 2x4 speech.The reality check speech railroad-

ers give to possible future railroaders telling them how awful the job can be. “You WILL work on weekends, you WILL work on holidays. You know what I call Thanksgiving? Thursday, cause I am at work!”

I have developed my own modi-fied 2x4 speech for railfans, but thats for another column.

“It’s like getting hit upside the head with a 2x4.”

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Colin Mucha performs his daily duties as a suburban Metra conductor in the beginning of his railroad career. Photo by Joe LeMay

They also said something to me that I remember to this day. “Dur-ing your career, you will kill at least 6 to 8 people.” Thankfully it hasn’t happened to me, and I hope it never does, but its something that is seri-ous. I was once told that its not the initial shock that bothers you, its the nightmares that happens months later. The woman who I interviewed with asked me the standard interview questions, asked about my job expe-rience, why I wanted the railroad as a career, but did it with such a blank stare, such a monotone voice. She did not once smile, and it threw me way off. I lost my confidence. I left the interview feeling awful, think-ing I had blown it. I nearly just went home, skipping the drug hair test that they would also be doing that day. But I stayed, and I am so glad that I did. It was another few months before I heard back. I was with one of my best friends, Steve Schmidt, we drove up to Savanna, IL, not knowing how much time I would be spending in that town as it is our away from home terminal. We parked near the tracks and just hung out for the day. It was fairly dead so I pulled up Netflix and we listened to George Carlin comedy specials as the day went on. Finally, not even thinking about it, I did my phone check routine. Checked and responded to some text messages, checked Facebook for the 27th time that hour, and checked my email. Go-ing through my disorganized inbox, I saw it. I had the job. I actually got the job. I could not believe it. I called

my parents, I called my girlfriend, I called everybody I could think of. My dream was coming true, and I achieved it before I was 20 years old. After fighting with the medical background check people for weeks, I was able to put in my two weeks at Embassy Suites, and start my career at BNSF...on labor day of all days.

THE START OF MY DREAM

One thing that any enthusi-ast needs to remember is that we are NOT entitled to a job on the railroad.

The company does not care how much you know about the locomo-tives, what type of airhorn is better, and why EMD seems to be so much better than GE. Living my life as a railroader took a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice from me. You have to have the passion for it, it needs to

be almost an obsession, but you also have to keep your head on straight. This job is not for everybody, and it is certainly not for every enthusi-ast. When you say you want to work for the railroad, you have to commit your life to the company. When you read this, you might think that these are just words, that you know you are right for the job, and for all I know, reader, you may be the perfect rail-roader. But I am sitting here, writing

this living out of a hotel room, being force assigned to work 300 miles away from home, having to have tear filled goodbyes with my family, because it could be weeks or months before I get to

go home and see them again. But you know, I would not change one single thing, because I am one of the rare few who get to do exactly what they dreamed of when they were a little kid.

“I did it, Grandpa.”

“You WILL work on weekends, you WILL work on holidays. You know what I call Thanksgiving? Thursday,

‘cause I am at work!”

“During your career, you will kill at least 6 to 8 people.”

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Frosty Morant’s CurveOn December 30, 2013, an eastbound manifest rounds the famous Morant’s Curve, just east of Lake Louise, AB on Canadian Pacific’s Laggan Subdivision. Photo by Mathieu Tremblay

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Snowing in LillyOn November 02, 2012, after a change in weather, light snow begins to descend upon the right of way, as a widecab Dash 8 leads an intermodal towards PT 254 in Lilly, PA on Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Line. Photo by Jason Boring

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Pacing AlongPacing along UP EMD E9A no. 951 along US-HWY 85 near Gilcrest, CO on the annual Cheyenne Frontier Days Special on July 19, 2014.Photo by John Crisanti

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Switching with GensetsUS Army 6512 was moving Humvees around the railhead in Fort Carson, CO on July 8, 2013 at The Mountain Post. Photo by Chip Sherman

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Winter’s a KickerA westbound CN freight breezes through Lovekin, ON on January 25, 2014 as it creates a small snow storm of it’s own! Photo by Cameron Applegath

Searchlights & CantileversAn ex-Santa Fe Dash 9 leads this west-bound stack train under vintage Santa Fe Cantilevers in Verona, IL on July 13, 2013. The cantilevers date back to the late 1920’s and the searchlights to the 1930’s. Photo by Jon Hill

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IC Death Star Leads Double StacksWith an Illinois Central unit leading, CN 121 heads west through Montreal West, foregoing its setoff for CN 149, which has become rare as CN 149 usually does not have room for extra cars anymore. Full lash-up is IC1009, CN 2150, CN 5700 & CN 8947. August 1st, 2014. Photo by Michael Berry

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Curvy LoadsA BNSF coal load rounds the s-curves at The Sag for the final assault north of Palmer Lake, CO on the Colorado Joint Line. January 22, 2013.Photo by Carlos Ferran

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Fresh Reading PaintTop: On September 24, 2014, Reading & Northern’s QARG pulls up to North Reading to wait for permission onto NS territory. This was the first time that a pair the recently acquired GP39 locomotives ran in their new Reading Railroad inspired paint scheme. Photo by Nick Rynes

MLW Rail TrainTop Left: A&K Railroad Materials leased SMNR 3518, a Montreal Locomotive Works model M420W, to move empty rail trains onto the former Missouri Pacific RR Towner Line last owned/operated by the V&S Railway. SMNR 3518 was parked at MP 825 with no activity underway. Kiowa and Crowley Counties in Colorado had a district court hearing that stopped abandonment of the line on August 29, 2014. The Missouri Pacific’s Colo-rado Eagle once plied these rails! Photo by Chip Sherman

Leaving the FlatironsLeft: In 1996, a northbound Burlington Northern manifest on the 11th Subdivision leaves Boulder, CO with the Flatirons in the background.Photo by Gerald Sharp

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Photo by Jason BoringCassandra, PA