The longest chase day of 2013

[Matt L]

I think I had my longest chase day for 2013 just a few days ago. Shots began at 6:45 AM and continued until evening twilight. The day was productive!

So what was my first shot? The Finger Lakes Railway has leased a couple high horsepower EMDs (SD45ms?) to handle the growing traffic between Geneva and Syracuse. I found them at the east end of the yard in Geneva.



Speaking of yards, the main focus of my morning and early afternoon was FGLk's local HW2. I arrived at the yard in Himrod while B23-7 #2306 was assembling a train.



HW2 denotes a run from Himrod to Watkins Glen, where FGLK does business with a pair of salt mines. Road construction prevented me from capturing shots of the train working at US Salt, but I did catch #2306 heading southbound along the west shore of Seneca Lake in Watkins Glen.



I was able to catch HW2 working the Cargill facility in Watkins Glen. Number 2306 was shoving a boxcar up the ex-Pennsy spur.



After the switching was complete, HW2 hauled a string of boxcars from Cargill northward. This shot was taken at North Glenora Road, one of my favorite spots on the Finger Lakes Railway.



All photos were taken by me Friday 6/14/2013 in central New York.

To view the entire FGLK chase album, including the afternoon yard job in Himrod, please visit:

s857.photobucket.com/user/Erielackawanna/library/2013/June 2013/0614 Finger Lakes Railway?sort=2&page=1

[BryanJones]

Cool stuff. The leased units are classed as SD40-2. Both are former SD45's that have been rebuilt to SD40-2 specifications.

[Matt L]

After HW2 finished working, I headed south to NS's Southern Tier Mainline, and caught 13T heading eastbound at the Route 352 overpass in Gibson.



13T heads off into the distance at Gibson. The white spots on the ties were apparently put there by the local MOW crew to mark ties for replacement.



Later in the afternoon, I visited Gang Mills. I was hoping this pair of SD40-2s would be the power for evening local H06.



A GP38-2 was also in the yard at Gang Mills.



All photos in this post were taken by me Friday 6/14/2013 in Steuben County, NY.

[Matt L]

My main reason for the chase did not occur until late afternoon/early evening, when H06 pulled onto the Corning Secondary in Corning.



H06 is heading through Baker Street Yard on the north side of Corning. The northbound consist was rather short for a couple of high HP widecabs, so I'm guessing there must have been a fairly hefty string of cars waiting for interchange with NS at the FGLK yard in Geneva.



NS 9141 leads H06 at Post Creek.  



H06 is crossing State Route 14 in Himrod at sunset. This is my favorite location to catch a train on the Corning Secondary.



As darkness fell, getting good shots became a challenge.... but I did like this one. H06 has descended a 1% grade since crossing Route 14, and is running along side Seneca Lake in the Town of Geneva.



H06 is approaching the Lake Avenue crossing in the City of Geneva. The widecabs will interchange with the Finger Lakes Railway about 2 miles further up the tracks, and head back to Corning in the middle of the night.



All photos in this post were taken by me Friday 6/14/2013 in central New York. A special thanks goes out to the employees of the Finger Lakes Railway for their friendliness and professionalism, as well as the Lake Street Winery in Geneva for letting me use their parking lot.  

To the view the rest of my H06 chase shots, please visit:

http://s857.photobucket.com/user/Erielackawanna/library/2013/June%202013/0614%20Norfolk%20Southern?sort=2&page=1

P.S. Thank you, Bryan, for identifying the EMDs.

[thpbears]

Looks like you had a better day than I did. Nice pics.

[Matt L]

Thank you. I attribute my successful chase to two factors: tips from fellow railfans and mother nature only giving me a couple sprinkles. The weather forecast called for thunderstorms, but the storm clouds all blew south into Pennsylvania. The departure time for H06 changed earlier this spring, so I could catch 13T without any worries.