A Union Pacific freight heads south through Albany on Monday evening.
If you like watching trains, Albany is a good place to be: Lots of crossings, and many trains coming through.
On Monday, on my usual evening bike ride, the flashing lights were coming on and the arms were coming down just as I was nearing the Main Street crossing on the UP’s main line. And this is what it looked like:
If you were expecting something to happen in this short video, sorry to disappoint you.
I just get a kick out of railroads in action, and I hope you do too. (hh)
The wonderful variety of freight cars makes watching a real pleasure. We may lose much of that picturesque experience when containers take over the bulk of the traffic here at Millersburg. Meanwhile keep showing trains, please.
When I am stopped at railroad crossing I find myself counting the number of cars, to include the engine(s) and usually come up within a counter’s error of 100. I turned the sound off and, using two 3X magnifiers, ran the video through again and called it at 102. I wouldn’t bet money or property on my number, maybe an ice cream cone.
I hold our farm’s singles boxcar loading record at five hours and seventeen minutes.
I know other, off farm, people who would make me blush for even mentioning it.
A few caveats: It was after we had gone from 100 lb. bags to 50 pounders. The
cars had stretched from 40 feet to 55 and I only had to put 2,200 bags in.
A few years later they demanded capacity loads at about 156.000 pounds.
And, finally, I’m the only one on the farm to load one by themselves.
When I was a kid there was a section crew at the Fayetteville crossing of the Oregon Electric Rail Road. I always hoped I could get a ride on the crew’s motorized “speeder.” Never did. I would make plans to build a “hand-car” like I saw in the old-time movies. (This was in the early fifties.)
My dad and the men would haul 100 lb. burlap sacks stacked hand-truck high (5) to the siding on a flatbed truck to 40 ft. cars, wheel them in and stack them up to put 80,000 lbs. in a car. They would make a “dump” and then two-man them up from there. They earned that $1.00 an hour wage.
Trains are neat.