Greetings: With the testing winding down for the year, we are on the WNYP trying to finish 37 miles of railroad before the Christmas break is upon us. Finally saw some action on the mainline today in the form of a couple of NS run-through hopper trains. Most everything else has been running at night. The westbound hopper train at Olean was interesting by having 2 standard cab C-40-9's...altho the second really could have used a paint job...
I've included a shot of what a rail defect looks like. I have had a number of questions recently about what we look for out here. This is a Split Web-Open Rail (as opposed to a joint). it ran up to the head, then started into a Head-and-Web separation. a real nasty bugger that was just lying in wait to snap under one of the beloved M636's. Luckily, we found it first!!!
Eastbound coal train East of Carrollton, NY on WNYP
What we are looking for, before a train finds it. A split web & a head /web separation
Westbound empty hopper train at Olean, NY
Cl'ass'y paint on this NS unit