11m 49s: Lenght

Saturday, September 29th was one of my few chances to "get out" for a day, and I took advantage of it. I was going to go to a softball game near White Sulphur Road, so this seemed like a great spot to start my morning. Though clouds held on throughout the day, they lowered the temperature and made ANY shot available. Of course, the rain took hold at the softball field, so I got to keep railfanning, too! Beginning my morning were Amtrak 19 and NS 204. It was too dark to shoot for both, though 204 did sport a UP leader. The first visible train of the morning came quite a while later. At 8:52am, NS 203 popped over the hill, took its signal, and hurried toward Atlanta. Led by NS D9-40CW 9002, NS D9-40CW 9394, and UP SD70ACe 8771, the train had no problem with the rolling Piedmont region hills. About 30 minutes later, at 9:24am, NS 237 came into audio range well before sight range. NS SD60 6676 and NS D8-40C 8759, unlike the previous train, had quite the time working their long intermodal over the rolling hills of the area. Though the leader has lost its P5, it still retains its long-hood-forward control stand. Thanks to the SD60E rebuild program, these are getting rare. So go get them! At 10:41am, little did I know, traffic was about to get big. Starting a parade of trains and thus radio chatter, NS 290 flew north up the grade behind NS SD60 2573 and NS D9-40CW 9615. Had there been any cars, I highly doubt any would have tried to cross in front of a horn like that one! Minutes (6, to be exact) behind 290 was NS 212. Pulling in Run 8, NS D9-40CWs 9837, 8980, and 9649 hardly took a clear at White Sulphur as they rushed north into some interesting traffic. NS 054 had been sitting at Cagle for the two northbounds, and it carried quite a large payload. This train had been quite a burden on the Greenville District for awhile. Seen hours earlier, my friend Peter sent me a text saying that he'd seen it. Finally taking the signal at Cagle at around 11:30am, the southbound high-and-wide coerced its train into Gainesville behind UP AC45CCTE 7813. Three Siemens generator loads from Charlotte took up 15'-1" in width, leaving about 14" overhanging the width of a normal locomotive. The million-dollar train took two hours to make two meets in Gainesville, as local P8G, which had just finished putting New Holland Yard back together after a sloppy crew tore it up the previous night, had to take the yard apart again to move a cut of cars off of the siding west of the second main. Then, because of the wide load, the trains could not meet on a curve, so the two played "musical trains" to make their meet. Then, 054 had to slowly work by 154 at Midland. Finally out of the way, Gainesville heaved a sigh of relief and threw out 154. At 12:31pm, the northbound manifest slid through the reverse s-curve north of White Sulphur. Led by NS ES40DC 7526, NS D8-40C 8731, and NS D9-40CW 9679, the engineer and conductor both gave some friendly toots and "made tracks" toward a meet with their counterpart at Cagle. Radio chatter between two friendly conductors took up the greater part of 10 minutes as NS 154 and 153 reached their meet. 153 started south and cruised by me, NS D9-40CW 9800, NS SD60 6615, and NS D9-40CW 9201 out front. The engineer gave a shave-and-a-haircut on the horn before leaning out the window to greet me. I've got to figure out who that is! I headed home for a break before learning that 213, once again, had a high hood SD40-2 leading. Of course, I was running a Train Simulator session later that night, and my grandparents were coming over for a couple of nights. Again, I missed 213, but Larry Smoak made up for this one... At 5:54pm, Jordan met me at Red Lane to catch Larry on his rail train to Atlanta. An ultra-rare locomotive (for us), NS ES44AC 8063, headed up the train, NS ES40DC 7680 trailed, and NS SD40-2 3382 brought up the rear. The conductor leaned out the window to say hey, and Larry's K5HLL blared through the southernmost White Sulphur Road crossing. About an hour later, he finished his four-hour trip, and I headed home.