TWO PHOTOS, KEVIN BURKHOLDER Railroads Haul Stone for Vermont Road Repairs
THE VERMONT RAIL SYSTEM AND NEW ENGLAND CENTRAL have teamed up to assist in the restoration of Vermont highways that were destroyed, along with much of the rail system, in the floods that fol- lowed Hurricane Irene in September. The railroads are moving daily trainloads of riprap, which comes from the F.W. Whitcomb quarry Colch- ester, Vt., and is trucked to the Vermont Railway’s Burlington yard.
There, it’s loaded into Canadian Pacific side dump cars and moved by New England Central (above, at West Braintree on October 7) to Bethel (below), where it is dumped and loaded into Cat 720 dump trucks which move the rock to the State Route 107 repair site along the White River. Moving an estimated total of 150,000 cubic yards of material, the trains are expected to run until early December.
City and Belmond, Iowa. IANR reaches the isolated segment from Manly by using track- age rights over Canadian Pacific’s ex-Iowa, Chicago & Eastern route from Nora Springs to Mason City and then west to Garner, at about the midpoint of the new line. Motive power is Morrison-Knudsen built MP1500D’s 1500- 1502, MP2000D’s 2004 and 2005, (all in fresh IANR paint) and the occasional IANR GP38. The line serves grain elevators at Garner and Forest City.
McCloud River
scrapper), purchased the line from Canadian National in 2009. Iowa Pacific Holdings, parent company of several short lines including Saratoga & North Creek and San Luis & Rio Grande, has expressed an interest in purchas- ing the route, which Grenada says is worth $21 million as scrap. The railroad says the line handled just 289 carloads in 2010 and has a bridge which is “falling apart” and will cost
30 JANUARY 2012 •
RAILFAN.COM
about $750,000 to repair, plus at least two dozen 10 m.p.h. slow orders.
Iowa Northern
GARNER SUB OPERATIONS BEGIN: On November 4, 2011, Iowa Northern made its in- augural run over 28 miles of former Union Pa- cific, ex-Rock Island trackage between Forest
RAILROAD IS SOLD: The moribund McCloud Railway of McCloud, Calif., has been sold to Railroad Materials Salvage, which owns several other short lines including the Bountiful Grain & Craig Mountain, St. Maries River, Ozark Valley, and Dakota Southern. While the surviving trackage between McCloud and the Union Pacific interchange at Mount Shasta will remain, RMS has started to scrap surplus materials. The line has not provided regular freight service since 2006, and the majority of the railroad from McCloud to Burney and Lookout Junction has been torn up. The Shasta Sunset Dinner Train contin- ued to operate between McCloud and Mount Shasta until November 2009. SD38 No. 37 has been reactivated for the scrap trains.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68