28 October 2006 – On Rich Mountain

[Jimbaux is looking for changes . . . . to better his ways . . . . ]

Yes, more from Godsmack’s Faceless album of 2003.

Revisiting

This section of the essay was not part of the original essay.

We start before dawn at the Heavener yard office.

Here comes a northbound train entering the yard.

That’s nice.

Let’s shoot some cars.

I like the TFM and, especially, the ICG car!

The locomotives parked here are for that loaded coal train in the back, separated from the train so as not to block that road crossing.

Okay, now, back to the original essay

I’ll Never Be The Same . . . .

I hope that you enjoyed Day 1 of the 2006 Fall Foliage Foam Foray along the KCS at Rich Mountain in Arkansas and Oklahoma.  Day 2 saw clearer skies, a long chase of one train, a near-death experience thanks to some dumb local, and a greater quantity of pictures than Day 1.  As far as whether they are of greater quality, well, I’ll let you decide.

Here’s how we started the morning, at least photographically.

Remember that, as (almost) always, caption information can be found in the filenames of each picture, which can be found by holding your mouse over each picture.

A Clearer View Of The Town

There must have been a lull in the action, since for the second consecutive day, we climbed the hill east of town.

In the above picture, the locomotive repair shop can be seen at the left.  In the below picture, the Green Country Inn can be seen in the back.  It’s the only decent hotel in town, and it’s the hotel that KCS uses to house out-of-town crews (from either Pittsburg, Kansas, or Shreveport, Louisiana.)  The KCS is by far the hotel’s biggest customer, and regular citizens can’t really make reservations to stay there.  Well, they can, but they aren’t really solid, as one of my foam-boys and I learned the hard way a year later.

Below is a shot to the right of the above pictures, further north.  We see one of the diesel tanks at left and a southbound loaded coal train creeping through the yard.

And, below, is a cropped version of the above shot, showing the cemetery in the background that gives a crossover in the yard adjacent to it its name.

Below, looking more toward the south again, we see part of downtown.

The Downtown Cafe is there, our traditional breakfast spot in Heavener.

Chase Time!

Now, there’s a train assaulting the grade.  To be specific, this is the C-KCSH, coming from the BNSF Railway and entering KCS rails in Kansas City.  However, I don’t know to which plant the coal goes.

That’s Blue Cut.  Below is a cropped version of the same image.

How’s that?  See the grade?  Well, you should also be able to see it in the below picture.

These loaded coal trains really creep along at about 10-15mph even at full throttle, and it’s not only a sight to behold but also a sound to behold.  You can hear the engines of the train for about 15 minutes before you see the train!

The M-KCSH

The M-KCSH is the solid, non-stop (as in, no setouts or pickups, as far as I know) manifest train between Kansas City and Shreveport.  It’s therefore different than the H-KCSH (“H” standing for “haulage” in that case) super-local train in that when the H-KCSH leaves Kansas City, all of its cars will be set out along the way before it arrives in Shreveport, where all of the cars with which it arrives will have been picked up after the train left Kansas City.

Therefore, the H-KCSH is a completely different train once it arrives in Shreveport, whereas the M-KCSH is the same when it arrives in Shreveport as it was when it left Kansas City.

Here are a couple of going-away shots of the M-KCSH at Page.

Don’t be upset that you don’t see the locomotives on this train; by the time we get done with this trains hours and dozens of miles later, you’ll be sick of seeing it, as I was that day.

Here he is at the state line, entering Arkansas.

And here he is at Casey’s Spot in Howard, Arkansas.

Here he is at Rich Mountain.

Are you tired of this thing yet?

There were at least three of us chasing this thing, but there were more by the time we got to Dubya.

Hey, look, it’s The Shadow Warrior and some pals.

There is Shawn’s Jeep by the track, a site seen my many KCS railroaders and foamers.

Shawn had a big effect on me.

How Many Foot Long?

Probably knowing that he had to go sit in the hole at some siding ahead, the train stopped at Subway in Mena so the crew could get a bite to eat.  I seem to recall that we did the same, by which time there may have been more than three of us.

Ah, that was good (though I could really do without that glaring area at the lower right.)

Vandervoort!

Oh, the stories that we have from Vandervoort!  There were about seven or eight of us in Vandervoort on the scene as the M-KCSH took the siding.

Are you getting sick of the KCS 4609 yet?

Here’s something different, as we were waiting for whoever he was meeting.

Well, that’s a bit different, and especially different than this.

Whatever.

Death By Dirtbag?

Right about this time is when we almost got killed.  We learned that there was a Pittsburg-bound light power move coming northward.  (I don’t remember if there was anything else that the M-KCSH was meeting, but there must have been if he was in the siding.)

Well, we’re set up on the other side of the highway to do our shot as the gate starts coming down, right when some local in a blue pickup truck stops right in front of us – right as the tail end of his truck is still parked on the track – to ask us what in the heck we’re photographing.  “Trains,” some of us replied.  “Trains?,”  he asked, with a disparaging look on his face.  Yes, you fool, and you’re about to get us all killed!  Move!  He did, just as the gates were down.  Only about a second after he got out of our way, I managed to overcome my fear and fire off this shot despite my rapid heartbeat.

Needless to say, our opinions of the people of Vandervoort weren’t helped at all by that encounter.

Vandervoort has since become a source of never-ending jokes.

That’s a C-TUKC coming north.

Whatever the case, the M-KCSH began to move at some point, and we needed to decide what to do next.

More?

I can’t believe we chased this thing any farther south than this, but we did!  Here’s the M-KCSH at Hatton, Arkansas.  The most amusing thing about this shot, though, is that three of us were set up on a little hill to get this shot, when we noticed that one of our trucks was blocking the shot.  The two of us still on the hill had some good laughs as the third one went move his truck while we could already hear the M-KCSH’s horns, and then sprinted back up the hill just in time to get the shot while he was huffing and puffing.

Okay, now that really is enough of the M-KCSH and the KCS 4609!  There weren’t many good shots south of here anyway, and we needed to get back north anyway also.

Afternoon Northbound

I wonder where this empty coal train met the M-KCSH.  We finally caught up with it and got this shot one hour and 16 minutes after the previous shot, some 30 highway miles to the north and west.

Not bad, eh?

Back In Heavener

Ah, yes, we were back in the cool city of Heavener.  That was enough driving around up and down the mountain.  There will be no more of that today.

It’s time to shoot whatever is at the fuel racks on the north side of the yard.

I’m not much of a roster shooter, but those things were new and fresh at the time.

I like the sign in this shot.

The view below shows to southbound trains, one on each line entering the yard from the north.

Well, that’s nice.  Now what?

Page?  Again?

Wait, didn’t I say that we were finished driving up and down the mountain?  What’s this?

Damn.  Sometimes, you just cant stop foaming, especially when you’re on Rich Mountain.

I can’t remember it well from five years ago, but from the looks of it in the picture, there seems to be no crew aboard this train.   I guess that means that we just went back to Heavener (again) and planned (again) to end the day there.

Yeah, that’s the head-end of the M-KCBM, bound for Beaumont, hence the “BM” in the destination code.  Oh, and it looks like a self-portrait too.

I love and miss that standard-cab power.

Here are some cars.

Okay, bye now.

Wait!  Again?

I seem to recall that we chased the MKCBM up the mountain, even though there aren’t many shots, but I can’t remember where he met the GMXKC, an empty grain train coming from Mexico.

Regardless, we climbed the mountain again, and we shot the GMXKC at Hodgen.  I couldn’t decide if I wanted to render this one in color or black-and-white, as both versions seemed to look good; so, I did both.

I think I saved the better of the two for last.  What do you think?

All for now . . .

Jimbaux