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###### Omaha and Lincoln Area
######
April 4-6, 2008
Friday,
April 4th, 2008
Shortly after the 4:00PM
last-class “bell”, the Iowa State Railroad Club was on the road for our
annual spring
trip. We headed west toward Omaha
where we would meet up with an alumni member for a weekend of
railfanning
around the Lincoln-Omaha area. We were graciously offered us the use of
his
living
room floor for sleeping and we would also have the opportunity to “play
trains”
on his new HO scale DCC switching layout.
We decided to travel west
along U.S. Highway 30 which
parallels the Union Pacific mainline for the entire length of western Iowa.
Shortly before reaching Grand Junction,
we came upon our first train, an eastbound with UP 3300 trailing. We
managed a
quick shot as the train went flying past us in the opposite direction. UP
3300 is dressed in a fancy
red, white and blue
paint scheme, and is the only locomotive like it on the UP roster. Just
east of
Missouri Valley, we caught UP 5077 leading an eastbound
stacker. After grabbing something to eat in town, we
continued
across the river to Omaha
. From there, we decided to drive downtown and sit at the
depot for
some evening train watching. We had hoped to catch Amtrak, however,
after
waiting for over an hour, we learned that Amtrak had lost considerable
time and
would not arrive for at least another 40 minutes. With that
disappointing news,
the group decided to call it a day, and head back where
we spent
the remainder of the evening testing out the new layout.
Saturday,
April 5th, 2008
After grabbing breakfast at McDonald’s, our
group proceeded
west to the small town of Greenwood
where we spotted our first train of the day led by BNSF
4845. We caught a few
other trains here including a westbound coal
empty led by BNSF9988,
the highlight of
the morning was a westbound
coal led by
BN 9403, one of the very few remaining Burlington Northern locomotives
that
have yet to be patched to BNSF. Moving a short distance west, we caught
Amtrak’s eastbound California
Zephyr
headed toward Omaha. From
here, we
headed into Lincoln, and
visited
two of the local hobby shops where everyone opened their wallets to
purchase
some new
toys. After grabbing lunch, we
continued west to the overpass at Emerald. Shortly after arriving, we
again spotted BN
9403 continuing its westbound journey.
Being that the BN units are disappearing fast, we could not resist
taking
additional pictures of this locomotive. A short while later we spotted
eastbound BNSF
5691 leading a short cut
of ethanol
tanks. After seeing three
more trains from this location, all of them loaded coal; we heard some
chatter
on the scanner that alerted us to a westbound being led by a brand new
locomotive. On our return to downtown Lincoln,
we took a quick spin past the Havelock Shops before stopping at a
trackside
parking lot. We didn’t have to
wait long
before we saw a coal empty being led by BNSF
9148,
a very fresh SD70ACe. Not long afterwards, we were greeted with another
coal
empty, being led by a brand new SD70ACe. From Lincoln,
we decided
to head north toward
Freemont, but on the way out of town we immediately spotted an oncoming
coal empty
with a BNSF Warbonnet leading. Too late to get photos, we turned around
and headed
back to Lincoln hoping to
grab a
shot of this leader. After a lengthy wait and seeing nothing, we
followed the
tracks back through town and discovered the Warbonnet parked downtown near the university.
Since it was
getting late, we decided that it was probably time to start heading
back to Omaha,
but first we decided that a stop in Ashland
was in order. Not long after arriving, we saw an eastbound coal, again
with two
new SD70ACes
leading and BNSF
9888 carrying out its
duties as a DPU. After
returning to Omaha, we all
went out
for a nice supper before returning to do some more
operating
on the switching layout.
Sunday,
April 6th, 2008
We awoke to cloudy skies, and so decided to
see what we
could find around the Omaha
area.
Our first stop was Gibson yard, where we spotted these Geeps switching a long cut of cars. The
club then
continued to the other side of the river to the BNSF Council Bluffs
subdivision
where we caught our next train led by BNSF
2808.
Just a few miles down the road, we caught a solid grain train pulled by
a one-unit-wonder
with BNSF 684 doing the honors. Continuing
on, we found what we had heard on the radio earlier in the day, a KCS
leader with a solid unit of freshly painted KCS
hoppers. We were all impressed with the amount
of traffic this BNSF line had to offer in such a short period of time,
being
that it was single track and on a Sunday. From there, we checked out
the Iowa
Interstate yard, being greeted with the usual IAIS
power idling outside the building. After lunch, we bid
our friend farewell
and began our return trip to Ames,
following U.S. Highway 30 the entire way. The first westbound train we
encountered
was a coal empty led by UP
6037. Just
past Denison we caught UP
5422 passing an eastbound auto
train. Everyone
agreed this was a good trip, offering a wide variety of operation
activity,
motive power and photo opportunities.
### Bonus Shots ###
IAIS
603
BNSF
DPU 9637
BN
9403
BNSF
6036
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