T.G.'s Photography Blog

 CSX Q561 is a manifest freight train that originates at Selkirk, New York, and terminates at Cincinnati, Ohio. During the train's journey, it stops in Syracuse, New York, to work at DeWitt Yard.  CSXT 524 leading Q561-29 at CP280 and Auto 280 Control point (CP) 280 sits at milepost (MP) 280.5 of CSX's Syracuse Terminal Subdivision, along Saintsville Road in Kirkville, New York. The CP is about a half of a mile west of North Kirkville Road. The subdivision here has three tracks. Track 2 is the southernmost track, Track 1 is the middle track, and Track 4 is the northernmost track. Track 4 is the only track controlled by a CP signal. The block signals for tracks 1 and 2 are intermediate/automatic signals. The CP signal is constantly lit, and the automatic signals are approach lit when a train enters the block. CSXT 524, CSXT 5439, CSXT 9010, CSXT 9051, CSXT 7790, and CSXT 9039 on Q561-29 at CP280/Auto 280.  Q561-29 was heading west on Track 4, which leads directly into DeWi...

 Wilkerson Pass is situated among the Rocky Mountains, about fifty miles west of Colorado Springs, Colorado, and about eleven miles northwest of Lake George, Colorado. The summit of Wilkerson Pass looks out over the South Park Basin from the Front Range Mountains.   Wilkerson Pass' summit sits at 9,507 feet/2,898 meters above sea level. The Wilkerson Pass Visitor Center sits at the summit of the pass, on the south side of US 24. To the west you can see the Mosquito Mountain Range and to the southwest you can see the Collegiate Mountain Range. The Collegiate Mountain Range is part of the Sawatch Mountain Range. The South Fork South Platte River and the Middle Fork South Platte River flow through the basin. The confluence of the two rivers, south of Hartsel, Colorado, forms the South Platte River.  Mt. Yale is center-left, and Mt. Columbia is to the right, in this view from the summit of Wilkerson Pass. If you look toward the southwest from the visitor center over...

 Yesterday, the youngest and I went to Kirkville, New York, to catch a couple of trains on CSX's Syracuse Terminal Subdivision (STS). After photographing Amtrak train P284 from alongside Saintsville Road, we headed to Brewer Road, where it dead-ends at the tracks on the north side. KCSM on B725-23 at Auto 280 As we drove down Brewer Road toward Syracuse Terminal Subdivision, loaded ethanol train B725-23 rolled east in front of us. B725-23 was interesting because it had Canadian Pacific (CP) 8947 leading and Kansas City Southern de Mexico (KCSM) 4763 as the end-of-train DP unit. B725-23 was handed off to CSX from CP at Bensenville, Illinois. Its destination is Sewaren, New Jersey. I honestly thought that B725-23 was long gone from the Syracuse, New York area and that I had missed it. KCSM 4763 is the end-of-train DP unit on B725-23 at Auto 280/CP280 of the STS. Having missed the lead CP unit, I quickly grabbed my camera and set it up to capture KCSM 4763 as it passed through the A...

 This past Saturday, I went to Savannah, New York, to check out control point (CP) 320 on CSX's Rochester Subdivision. The location is intriguing because the control point is on the southern edge of the Northern Montezuma Wildlife Management Area (NMWA) along the Seneca River and Crusoe Creek. Because of the spring thaw and lots of rain, the Seneca River and Crusoe Creek are flooding. I hoped the landscape would make an interesting backdrop. CP320 of the Rochester Subdivision Control Point (CP) 320 sits southeast of the confluence of the Seneca River and Crusoe Creek. It is to the west of the Seneca River and south of Crusoe Creek, along Railroad Road in the Town of Savannah, New York. CP320 is at milepost (MP) QC 320.5 of CSX's Rochester Subdivision (RS). Going east from CP320, the Rochester Subdivision first crosses over the original Seneca River channel on the  double-track Montezuma Trestle , a deck plate girder bridge. To the east of the trestle the line crosses over the ...

Along Bonta Bridge Road, in Brutus, New York, are remnants of the old West Shore Railroad (WS). The WS tracks crossed over Bonta Bridge Road and the New York Central Railroad tracks which the WS paralleled in the area. Today, the ex-NYC tracks are part of CSX's Rochester Subdivision. The NYC and the WS competed directly with each other between the New York City area and Buffalo, New York. When the WS fell on hard financial times it was taken over by the NYC, eventually making much of the WS' route unneeded. Bonta Bridge Road bridge abutment According to an old map of the WS that I found, on the east-west segment of the two railroads' routes across New York, the WS ran just to the south of the NYC from the Schenectady, New York, and Albany, New York areas to Syracuse, New York. At Syracuse, the WS tracks crossed over and ran to the north of the NYC tracks, before crossing back over to the south side of the NYC tracks at Brutus, New York. Looking north, the eastern abutment s...