The title of this
email best describes my railfanning along CSX's Trenton Line (TL) on Saturday
(October 19). That first K040 coming west over the TL would have a power consist
of three BNSF diesels. I envisioned a nice image as it passed by the Belle Mead
station on this sunny morning. Watching the Internet posts, I learned it had
passed CP Townley at 10:44. That would allow me sufficient time to drive down to
Belle Mead. Traffic was horrendous on Route 206 but I eventually arrived around
11:15. I made it, or so I thought I did. Off in the distance, I heard an eastbound
train blowing for a grade crossing. It would be CSX's intermodal train Q190
(Philadelphia, PA to Kearny, NJ) coming east. Motive power would be CSX 779 and
CSX 567.
Shortly after Q190 passed, a second eastbound CSX train's headlight
would appear. The next train was CSX Q418, a Camden, NJ to Selkirk, NY mixed
freight. Motive power would be CSX 7855 and CSX 7778.
Ahhh.. so perhaps K040 is
waiting at Port Reading Junction waiting for those two trains in order to
continue its westward journey to the oil refineries in Philadelphia. After a
prolonged wait, I finally grew tired of not knowing where the BNSF powered K040
was and decided to head home and research the web to find out its location. To
my dismay, I learned that K040 had passed through Belle Mead prior to my
arrival.
So what was so
special about the second K040 that was scheduled to come west over the TL? This
train's leader would be the NS heritage unit Virginian with NS 1054 and NS 1034 also
in the power consist! With a late afternoon run down the TL, my concern would be
the sun. Clouds were forecasted to roll in later that afternoon. At 3:55, this
K040 was reported heading past NK Tower in Newark. That was my cue to head down
once again to Belle Mead and wait. As the afternoon went by, sunny skies still
gave me hope that those predicted clouds would hold off. Such was not the case
as soon thereafter the clouds slowly blotted out what sun remained. That was
when the headlight of K040 appeared around 5 PM. I did manage to get my photo of
the Virginian passing by the Belle Mead station. Even though this image isn't
the best, it is definitely better than nothing, eh?
