N&W 611 Roanoke Trip reports

[Seaboard92]

Well as some of you know I'm working the 611. So I'm going to post updates to this thread on breaks and evening.

7/01 I drove up to meet my boss. And we made our shopping list for things we needed to buy. Met with mechanical to discuss the problems that my car has. The plumbing is too narrow. So we had to buy a poker. Tomorrow we will be working all day inside and out in Shafers crossing. I'll post more tomorrow.

 

[Seaboard92]

Well today nothing much to report. So far we've stocked our cars. And connected the HEP. So things are cooling down. Right now we are loading commissary items.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Sounds like you're getting to enjoy the life of a railroader without the pay!

Maybe you can teach the Amtrak crews how to prep their trains, especially the ones in Chicago and Sunnyside!!

 

[Seaboard92]

Yes I am Jim. It's actually quite enjoyable.

The rest of the day.

The rest of the day was pretty mundane. Stocking the train took about six hours. Had a three hour tour to get our freight golf cart. I learned I can back a golf cart up on ballast fairly well. Tomorrow are the trips. Of your onboard feel free to shoot me a message. I'll let you know where I am.

 

[Seaboard92]

Just warped up the Powhattan Arrow for the day. Good crowd, lively crowd. We got hung up a bit eyeing the train. But not too bad. It's surprising that there aren't many railfans out there chasing. We have a great crew of car attendants. Everything is good. Time for Radford.

 

[Seaboard92]

Just wrapped up the first Pelican run. That was one of the most scenic stretches of track I have seen in this country. If you ever get the chance you should ride this route. Our run was perfectly on time and we arrived back in early. I'm really lucky. I have a really good crew in my car. And I've had really good passengers. And I'm loving every minute of it. Nothing anecdotal to say about this run. Nice and simple.

 

[Seaboard92]

Just wrapped up today's trips early????

The Powhatan Arrow was uneventful. Left on time arrived back early. Had some mechanical issues with my car. Nothing that I wasn't able to fix by myself. With some mechanical help. We had great weather for this trip. A really good crowd. Small crowd.

The Pelican to Radford ran just as it did yesterday. Early back in. I had an amazing time as we had amazing passengers. We had fun in the one tunnel as they asked to have me cut our lights out. I can't stress this next thing enough. My crew is AMAZING!!! I love them. And they do such a good job. I'm so proud of them. One more day.

 

[Seaboard92]

And his can I forget the trash bomber runs. When we pull back into the station. We throw our trash off the side while moving. Into the back of a truck. So if your out there tomorrow look for a trash bomb

 

[Bob Dylan]

Sounds like you're having a ball! We're envious! Keep on railroading!

 

[Seaboard92]

Well here is my final trip report.

The Powhatan Arrow was another easy easy trip. Our load was light enough we actually able to have a crew table which was unheard of. I had to train a friend of mine from a shortline freight railroad on passenger operations. Which made things a lot nicer. As we split a heavy work load. Midway into our run we had to repatch a leak in our dome. So paper towels and duct tape worked wonders. Other then that it was a quiet run.

The afternoon run was our highest load factor. It poured half the way. And we sprung several leaks. And had some new noises start. Good scenery. And quite a lot of fun.

Shoving back to Shafers was really quite sad as we had become good friends. And I really hated to see them go. But I have open invites back.

My trainee and I refused to ride with my boss back. So we rode with a friend of mine in his car. Which happens to have an IC K5LA mounted on it. Which is quite fun. He dropped us off at ten in Salisbury at the amtrak station. We waited three hours alone in the dark to get a ticket. I bought the tickets on the Quik Trak. And I had to have it reprinted as it printed his ticket with my name. We went out to the platform at the proper time. And the train was pushed back five minutes till it arrived an hour fifteen late. It got stuck five miles north of us. We rode the one stop in the lounge. Then I slept and my colleague looked after our bags in the charlotte amtrak station. Once I woke up we caught the city bus to uptown. Caught the lynx train for a ten mile ride. Got a cab to my bosses house and retrieved my car. Then we drove home and stopped once for fresh air in kershaw(yes there was a train involved). We finally got home at 11 am. And he got home at 1300. He went from 0400 Sunday to 1330 Monday with no sleep. Way to go for him. Pictures to come. If someone teaches me how to upload.