Ian Holmes Posted September 26, 2011 Share Posted September 26, 2011 All, I was out lineside on Saturday morning for a bit of trainspotting. I spend a couple of hours in Elk River, MN It was pretty quiet apart from these trains. One being particularly worth seeing A container train with BNSF and NS power Northstar commuter rail (double heading a 4 coach train...a prototype for everything) Grain train with a pair of C44's leading Highlight of the day was this grain train which had a Union Pacific C40-8W sandwiched between a BNSF ES44-DC and C44-9w Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted September 27, 2011 Share Posted September 27, 2011 Nice photos. Β Actually I really like the "Northstar" one! For us idiots on here; which commuter network is that citywise? Mineapolis/St. Paul? Β Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Holmes Posted September 27, 2011 Author Share Posted September 27, 2011 That's right Pete. More specifically it runs from Downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake an "ex-urb" some 30-40 miles to the NW. It's a true commuter rail set up, three trains into Minneapolis in the morning and three trains out of Minneapolis in the evening and only one going the other way each time. On the weekends it's very popular for taking people to baseball and football games in the city so much so that double-headed 8 coach trains are seen. Myself I haven't ridden it yet. Because trains don't run to my schedule. The stock for the trains is available in both HO and N scale. Athearn I think, and very nice it looks too.. Β Ian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adrian Wintle Posted September 28, 2011 Share Posted September 28, 2011 That's right Pete. More specifically it runs from Downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake an "ex-urb" some 30-40 miles to the NW. It's a true commuter rail set up, three trains into Minneapolis in the morning and three trains out of Minneapolis in the evening and only one going the other way each time. On the weekends it's very popular for taking people to baseball and football games in the city so much so that double-headed 8 coach trains are seen. Myself I haven't ridden it yet. Because trains don't run to my schedule. The stock for the trains is available in both HO and N scale. Athearn I think, and very nice it looks too.. Β Ian Β Are there a lot of grades on that line? I didn't think the Mpls area looked that hilly the couple of times I've been there. Β GO Transit manages to pull (or push) 10 of those coaches with a single MPI loco (albeit one with a bit more HP), so I'm not sure why they would need two locos on 4. Β The Athearn Bombardier cars look good in both HO and N. They also paint their F59PHI model in N to match the coaches (where appropriate) so it can act as a stand-in for the similarly-shaped MPI loco. Β Adrian Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Holmes Posted September 28, 2011 Author Share Posted September 28, 2011 Its a mystery to me as to why they need two locos on a four car train. There were some reliability issues with the locos reported at one time. Why I've even seen a three car train double headed... There is one short grade from where I was stood in Elk River on Saturday eastwards to Minneapolis that can reduce a long freight train to a crawl but the Northstar fair zips up it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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