Grand Rapids 06/11/06 and 06/12/06 (long)

[~Z~]

6/11 - Needed to get out of the apartment for a while this night. Left around 7:45pm and headed downtown. As I came into downtown and driving along Market St, glanced to the right and spotted a few engines waiting just short of the signal at Market St near the Amtrak depot. I figured they were waiting there to get their signal just to turn their engines around, so I headed on over to Godfrey for a shot...too many shadows, so a quick run over to Oakland Ave. When I saw what came around the corner, my mouth dropped. Why if it isn't the Chessie drone, #9120. This was leading HLCX 7202 and a CSX engine. These all came in on Q335 this afternoon. They headed past, and then I went to Judd St. Lite engines pushed the drone to the engine house, and found out these two were going to be the power for Q334 tonight. Right then, Y221 had 28 cars to drop off on Old 17. They said they'd be heading north from that point to drop off a few at the GRE interchange. I headed over to the Amtrak depot to wait for them. Heard the dispatcher pipe up, saying that the switch at Market St would not lock. I was standing there and watched the switch go, looked fine... anyway, conductor and engineer didn't sound pleased to have to walk from Godfrey to Market, requested a ride but sounded like it would take quite a while. Conductor walked over, switch was fine. Had to take it off power, throw it back and forth then put it back on power. As his Y221 was slowing coming towards, I talked to him for a little bit about it...said something about the new dispatchers needing more time to learn their new territories. It looked like Jeem was driving the train on Y221...can you verify this Doktor? I followed Y221 up through the north side, and took a few videos of them along the way. While I was up near Ann St, heard Q327 come into Wyoming Yard. At this point, it was off for home.

6/12 - Off for Monday morning...another good start to the week. Well, the early morning wasn't...woman was drinkin beer and wine last night...not a good mix.
Anyway, headed through town and out along Chicago Dr. Was near Hudsonville, heard maintainers working around in Wyoming Yard. Then I heard P371 (Amtrak) talking with a foreman loud a clear. Looked ahead, and sure enough, there's Amtrak sitting at the west end of Hudsonville. Got a video of them as I went by. Track inspections were going on right there at the switch at the west end. As I was nearing Zeeland, they got permission to pass through the west end of Hudsonville, about an hour behind schedule. Heard the dispatcher say something about the crossing at 72nd St was cleared up by the Police Dispatch Center...not sure what happened at that crossing...couldn't see anything wrong when I went by. All in all, pretty interesting morning so far.

[rsinoms]

Is this signal work tie up 371 this morning? And will this signal work hold up 371 tomorrow? I'm taking 371 tomorrow and was wondering if I can expect delays?

[~Z~]

Is this signal work tie up 371 this morning? And will this signal work hold up 371 tomorrow? I'm taking 371 tomorrow and was wondering if I can expect delays?

Don't know if it was work on the signal itself, but they are normally cruising by Hudsonville around 7:55am or so, but they were definately delayed..they left Hudsonville at 8:50am.

Listening in to the dispatcher during lunch, we had Y121 stuck for at least 25 minutes waiting for a switch to change. Dispatcher kept locking it up, and unlocking...the crew couldn't put it into manual either...after a while, it just switched itself... crew, maintainer, and dispatcher all blamed "the computer system"....fun to listen to.

Doktor...does James = Jeem? I believe it does.....Nice conductor with them as well.
Maybe if Q326 is running small, it may actually get into GR one one crew instead of the usual 2.
Kept us updated if you could about the track work in July.

[amtrak1007]

I know that they were having power (voltage) issues a few weeks back in that area. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the stop gap solution from last week, has failed. At that point the switch at the top of the wye was not an issue.

[SD80MAC]

Sounds like a busy night, Zack! You were lucky to see the Chessie Drone.

Well at work this morning a train headed east with an ex Conrail 8-40CW and a CSX 8-40C and about 6 cars. Could've been Q326 but they're never that early, are they? About 15 minutes later the local went by with a GP38-2, one boxcar and a Chessie Cupola caboose. Never heard or saw any trains the rest of the day, but I'm sure a few went by.

BTW, when I took Amtrak last month, we had no delays at all! We got to Chicago more than 20 minutes early! We were almost to Northwestern station and it was still 10 minutes before the train was origonally due. And on the way back we got into GR right on time. Guess I was lucky!

[leo28150]

Well, if you were by the Northwestern station on Amtrak, I'd say you had WAY too many of the our overpriced adult refreshments

Trackwork and maint-inthe-way conspire to eat up all of the 'padding' in the schedule; amaizing what miles of 25 mph slow orders can do to a train--just keep the 'kiddies' somewhat informed and tell the LSA to get the beers cold, sit back and watch the fun; I gets lots of practice on the Michinational telling people when to say when. Noodles does too.