T.G.'s Photography Blog

This ariel view looking is looking across B705 in the Belle Isle siding, toward the FGLK yard at Solvay, NY.     After photographing Z520-10 on Tuesday , I noticed that loaded ethanol train B705, with CN 3863 and CN 3099, was tied down in Belle Isle siding. With the drone still in the air I captured this view, looking west, of B705 sitting at Belle Isle with the Finger Lakes Railway (FLGK) yard behind the train. The industrial complex right behind the rail yard is the former Syracuse Energy Corp. (SEC) cogeneration power plant. The coal-fired power plant supplied electricity and steam power to nearby companies. In September 2013, the plant closed when its biggest customer built and began using its own power plant. Per a news article at Syracuse.com, The customer built its own power plant due to concerns about SEC keeping the plant open. Photograph taken on October 10, 2023, at Solvay, NY.

  UP 2584 and UP 7323 passes by the old Railroad "Y" (red building to the left) at East Syracuse, NY. B741-07 passed through East Syracuse, New York, last weekend, and was led by a pair of Union Pacific (UP) locomotives. UP 2585 and UP 7323 provided another primary color to the railroad landscape of Syracuse, which primarily sees CSX blue. In the above photograph, the locomotives are leading B741 through CP 286 of CSX's Syracuse Terminal Subdivision. B741 is a loaded ethanol train that runs from Proviso, Illinois, to Linden, New Jersey. The train is handed over to CSX from UP at Proviso.  Photograph taken on December 10, 2022, at East Syracuse, New York.

  B727 is a loaded ethanol train that runs from Bensenville, Illinois, to Linden, New Jersey. The train is handed off from Canadian Pacific (CP) to CSX at Bensenville. Often ethanol trains like B727 continue with their run-through power . Other times the receiving railroad will swap out the delivering railroad's locomotive power for their own.  B727-30 at Memphis, NY. From the air, CP 9366 and & CP 8633 lead B727-30 east at the defect detector (MP 302.6) in Memphis, NY.   I saw this train pass by Virtual Railfan's cameras at Fairport, New York, just after 8 AM Wednesday. By the time I got out the door, I was sure I had missed my opportunity to photograph it. Luck was on my side, though not the train's crew. B727-30 stopped to allow Amtrak's Empire Service train P284 to pass it near milepost (MP) 313. Then, when B727 went to start moving again, the lead engine's prime mover wouldn't start. Talking with CSX's mechanical department in Jacksonville, Flori...