December 21st, 2007
We started out in Oneida and headed straight for Reber Rd outside Rome in the community of Stanwix, New York to watch CSX trains while waiting for the daily run of the Mohawk, Adirondack, and Northern. It came after a couple of hours and we spent a few minutes chasing it in Rome after spending a lot more minutes trying to find it again. After that we returned briefly to Reber Rd., found the tracks dead, and proceeded to Utica. We went to see the NYSW dead line but found it completely obstructed by a long cut of high gons. We went back to the Amtrak station and shot a considerable rush, punctuated by the return of the MWHA with its lone C424 and 5 cars.
Stanwix, New York
Stanwix is the home of Reber Rd, a decent spot to sit and watch the CSX line between Utica and Rome. The Mohawk, Adirondack, and Northern runs over the CSX from Utica to Rome by this point.
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Westbound stack train CSXT Q159 is preempted by eastbound AMTK P280 as we start our day at Reber Rd.
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CSXT Q115 crosses Reber Rd.
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CSXT K683 westbound ethanol train crosses Reber Rd near Rome.
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CSXT Q381 with an SD40-2 leading a pack of newer power passes westbound over Reber Rd.
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CSXT E828 empty coal drag heads back for more.
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CSXT Q163 stack train crosses Reber Rd.
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CSXT Q390 crosses Reber Rd.
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MHWA UTR-0/CSXT Z343 - It is the sweet sound of an Alco as MHWA 2456 crosses Reber Rd on its way to Rome.
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Amtrak 63 heads for Canada.
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Two CSX SD40-2s power an eastbound manifest freight in the day's only brief moment of sunshine.
February 17th, 2009
We left Brattleboro on the morning of the 16th and went to NMH, where I caught up with some of my old teachers and classmates for most of the day. In the late afternoon, we cut across Mass. to the Hoosac tunnel in Florida, but the Guilford gods did not love us and no trains were forthcoming, although a local railfan reported a Bow coal empty was supposed to be on its way. We slept in Utica that night and on the 17th we started the day there, shooting the Mohawk, Adirondack, and Western and an NYSW unit from afar that came in by surprise. We chased the MHWA to Rome, where we followed the wrong spur and took a while to find it out in the industrial park on the east side of town. From there we chased CSX Q091, the ultra-high priority vegetable train to Lyons, catching it only once at Syracuse yard, and there only barely. From Lyons, where we missed Q091 by about 7 minutes, we headed up to Geneva to see what we could find on the FGLK, and chased the Lyons job back to Lyons before heading out to the Rochester and Genessee Valley Railroad Museum south of Rochester and finally completing our trip by getting back to Guelph a few minutes past 10pm.
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MHWA 805 crosses Reber Rd on its way into Rome.
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CSXT Q626 crosses Reber Rd with a Conrail trailing.
