ex-Sante Fe B23-7's through Cookeville, TN

[ssmith1627]

Ok, once every other month here in Cookeville I see a train......hehe.   Not quite like the days along the west end but once in a while it's pretty neat. Nashville & Eastern operates these two ex-ATSF loco's.  Pretty cool to see this war bonnet paint scheme in such good shape. A few pics here at the bottom of this page:

http://picasaweb.google.com/ssmith1627/Cookeville#

I haven't edited the pics at all so please forgive that.  They're not even straightened. 

I've heard there's an almost daily sand train that runs between Nashville and Monterey, TN but this was the first time I'd caught one.  I was only lunch hour so I didn't have time to chase it any further.

Hope you're all doing well !

Steve

[Backyard]

  I've heard the sand train runs on Wednesdays & Saturdays at about 10AM but I haven't yet seen it.

[ssmith1627]

Assume there's no freq they'd use so we wouldn't hear them with the scanner, right ?

Of course I'm at work on Wednesday so it was luck that they came through when I was home at lunch last week.  But I was pretty happy with that "find".

I'm home sick today but I'm listening for a train horn anyway....these trains aren't speedy with the tracks how they are here so it's pretty easy to catch them.  Any idea of their speed limits through here ?

Appreciate your feedback !

Steve

[ssmith1627]

I didn't find anything last Wednesday -- looked all morning but never found the sand train coming through.

Found it headed back through Cookeville last night though so the Wednesday thing does seem to hold true.  Was headed back west about 7pm from Monterey.  They stopped near Tenn Tech, uncoupled the locos and hooked up to some misc. cars there, then shoved those into the sand hoppers before pulling out toward Lebanon.   There were 20 sand cars altogether.  Same two ex-Sante Fe B23-7's.  It was drizzling but still cool to see them work.

Steve

[Backyard]

  Wonderful pictures!