Man Tries To Get Hit By a Train. Watch the whole video to see everything and SUBSCRIBE!
Railroads and Transportation
Man Tries To Get Hit By a Train. Watch the whole video to see everything and SUBSCRIBE!
Hello everyone and welcome to Train Talk! In the 6th episode of Train Talk, I discussed
different types of freight trains. I did not, however, discuss all the different
types of freight cars, and there are many. So today, I’m going to talk about all of
the common freight cars you can see out on the mainline today and what purposes they
serve. Let’s get started! Box cars are some of the most basic and versatile
freight cars you will see on the main lines today. They are quite simply, a box on wheels with
sliding doors on each side for loading and unloading. While they were in the past used for hauling
finished products to market, they are now primarily used for hauling raw materials to
factories. Everything from coffee beans to paper can
be found inside of a box car. Some boxcars have also been modified with
refrigeration units on one end. These are called refrigerator cars and are
used for transporting fresh produce, all while staying nice and cool. Another very important type of freight car
is a hopper car. Hopper cars exclusively carry uniformly shaped
raw materials such as coal, grains, or even plastic pellets. These materials are loaded from the top of
the car and discharged through hatches on the underside of the car. Hopper cars come in two types: covered and
open top. The covered hoppers also have hatches in the
roof of the car so they can be loaded. Materials that can be damaged in transit by
being exposed to the open air, such as grains, are carried in covered hoppers while materials
that do not need the extra protection, such as coal, are carried in open top hoppers. The next type of freight car is a gondola
car. These cars are similar to an open top hopper
car, except that they have a flat bottom with no hatches and the sides of a gondola are
typically much shorter. However, you should note that the only real
distinction between a gondola and a open top hopper car is that a gondola car has a flat
bottom with no openings. For example, some gondola cars used to haul
wood chips have sides that are actually taller than most open top hoppers. Gondola cars must be loaded and unloaded from
the top. They almost exclusively carry raw materials
such as rocks and scrap iron, but occasionally they carry larger finished products. Gondolas are often used for carrying large,
heavy steel coils, usually with a rounded protective covering over the top. We’ve moved slowly from freight cars with
sides and a roof to open top cars with shorter sides, so the next car we’re going to talk
about has no sides at all. These cars are called flat cars. Flatcars are used for carrying larger items
that need to be tied down. They can carry everything from construction
equipment to tractors, and even airplanes in some cases. However, one of the most common types of flat
car you will see is called a center beam. Center beam flatcars have a raised central
beam running the length of the car. The beam is used for tying down materials. These cars are used pretty much exclusively
for hauling wood products like boards of plywood. In addition to the basic types of flat cars,
modified flat cars are also used for carrying truck trailers across the country as part
of intermodal trains. Tank cars are used for transporting various
liquids. They are loaded through a round opening located
on top of the car and unloaded through piping located on the underside of the car. These cars transport a variety of different
liquids including crude oil, refined petroleum, paints, and more. Now, we come to one of two types of cars that
exclusively carry finished products. The first is a car known as an Auto Rack. These cars are used for carrying brand new
automobiles. The cars are very tall and have either two
or three levels for storing vehicles. Modern auto rack cars also have a roof and
sides for protecting the vehicles as they are being moved. Some of these cars are also articulated. Finally, we come to the last car for this
episode, the well car. Well cars are similar to flat cars, but they
are used specifically for hauling shipping containers, and are modified just for this
purpose. These cars, when loaded with shipping containers,
are used for intermodal freight service, “inter” meaning between and “modal” as in the
different modes of transportation. These are the most common freight cars you
will see today because the shipping containers they haul are so versatile. They can easily be moved from one form of
transport to another and they carry most of the finished good you buy in the store: furniture,
televisions, games, home appliances, and more. While they are the most common type of freight
car on the railroad today and their use is not likely to decline any time in the near
future, they cannot completely replace more traditional types of freight cars, as these
are all essential to the national freight rail network. Well, that does it for this episode of train
talk. Thanks for joining me! There are some unusual types of freight cars
as well, but these are often just modified versions of the basic freight car designs
I mentioned in this episode. If you enjoyed the video, let me know by liking
it and leaving a comment below. Also, if you haven’t seen it yet, be sure
to check out the episode of train talk on different types of freight trains. For those of you who haven’t already, be
sure to subscribe to the channel so you are notified every time I release a new video. That’s it for now. Until next time, I’m Mike Armstrong. I’ll see you down the line! Thanks for watching.
(toot toot train sounds) (toot toot train sounds) (toot toot train sounds) Here comes the fruit train! (toot toot train sounds) (toot toot train sounds) Apple Orange Banana Strawberry Grapes Pear Pineapple Lemon Watermelon Raspberries Blueberries Bye yummy fruit train!
(slow orchestral music) – [Voiceover] The following
program is a production of Pioneer Public Television. (slow orchestral music) This program on Pioneer
Public Television is funded by the Minnesota Arts and
Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the
vote of the people of Minnesota on
November 4, 2008. Additional support provided by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural
education retreat center in a beautiful prairie
setting near Windom in southwestern Minnesota,
shalomhillfarm.org. The Arrowwood Resort
and Conference Center, your ideal choice for
Minnesota resorts, offering luxury townhomes,
18 holes of golf, Darling Reflections Spa, Big Splash Waterpark,
and much more. Alexandria, Minnesota,
a relaxing vacation or great location for an
event, explorealex.com. Easy to get to, hard to leave. (slow orchestral music) – Welcome to Postcards,
our weekly look at the arts, history,
and cultural heritage of western Minnesota and beyond. I’m your host, Dana Johnson. This week we’ll learn
about steam engines with local engineers from
Willmar and ride the rails with Twin Cities and
Western Railroad. First, Tom Steinman,
Elmond Ekblad, and Bob Feichtinger
share with us their legendary
tales from the track. (moderately slow guitar music) (steam train whistle blows) (diesel train horn blares) – The railroad had
a certain romantic fascination, I think,
with a lot of kids. – Well, it’s probably
an odd term to use, but I think most
railroad men would agree that there was a certain romance with the steam engine,
you got to love ’em. – [Elmond] It was the idea
that you were on the move, there was something
about a steam engine that when you got it going,
if you worked it right, it put out a sound
like a sewing machine. (steam engine chugs) When you get in a diesel,
it’s just like getting in a truck and
going, there’s no, there’s no momentum there that there is when you
have a steam engine. – Diesel is much more
comfortable, of course, but there was something
romantic about a steam engine. – Not only the thrill of
that, either, but the thrill of the people off the track,
children, they just love the steam engines, they’d
come out along the track. A lot of places
where we see new kids would be, we’d
always have candy, there was always a
lot of entertainment. My interest in working
on the railroad, I guess I would have
to say it was a moment in Fulda, Minnesota, when
a locomotive engineer looked out of his cab down at
me, as a little five-year-old, and tossed a pack of
Black Jack gum down there. And when I saw
that, I told myself, “I would really like to be an
engineer driving locomotives.” And that stuck with
me for my entire life. And so in a way I sort
of was living a life of something that started
when I was just a young boy. – [Bob] Well, I started,
I started right after I got out of the
military, up in St. Cloud. And then I came to visit
a friend in Willmar, and he talked me
into hiring out here on the engine train,
engine service. – [Elmond] Then he
asked me if I wanted to go railroading,
and I said “Yeah.” Well, he says, he says,
“How old are you?” I says, “I’m 16.” Oh, he says, “You gotta
be 21.” (chuckles) Well, the next year, then
he came, and the boss down at the roundhouse,
they come back to me again and ask me if
I want to go railroading. And I says, “Yeah, but age.” He says, “We’ve
taken care of that.” I found out later
that they’d filled out a birth certificate, in
place of me being born in 1918, they showed
1915. (laughs) So I went to work, I was only
17 years old in place of 21. – [Tom] Actually, my first
job on the train itself was a fireman, and
the fireman was the assistant to the
locomotive engineer. I guess you could call
it an apprenticeship. And you had to get
the steam engine out of the roundhouse
in the morning, get it ready for the
engineer and the conductor and the crew to get on, and then when the day’s work was
done, it was your job to take the steam
engine to the roundhouse and, as we would call it,
put it to bed for the night. And after going out
and about in the world, uh, 1977, I came
back to the railroad, and I made a career
of it, and I just recently retired after
34 years on the railroad. – [Bob] There were many
interesting things. Four, five o’clock in the
morning, the sun come up, you’d be going across
the countryside, you’d see animals,
probably some farmer didn’t know he had a
fox in his backyard. The sun coming up, and… The crops waving in the wind. It was very picturesque to see. Just every trip was different,
every trip was different. Something unusual or
different would happen. It was, you never
knew what to expect. – [Elmond] Craziest
thing I’ve ever seen is, we come into
Charlesville, Minnesota, that’s between here
and Breckenridge. And we seen some
cattle on the track, and we figured, well, that’s
kind of usual, you know. But we got a little
closer, then I could see there was a red bull,
and this red bull, he kinda stood and
looked at us, and then when we got, I’d say,
about a hundred yards from it, he started
putting his head down, you know, and he
got a little closer. He started using
his hoof, and was, he was, he was gonna
show us who was boss! Well, we hit him, and we
just pulverized him. (laughs) And then, we had a new brakeman, and he had never, had never
worked on a trip before, and the first thing he
did, he put his head out the window, and wanted
to see what happened. Well, good thing I grabbed him and pulled him back in,
because one of the legs of the bull went right
by and broke the window, and he maybe would have
got killed. (laughs) That was pretty
unusual. (chuckles) That’s one thing I
never did forget. – [Tom] With the Barnum
and Bailey Circus trains, when the train would
actually park at Midway over in the Twin Cities,
it was quite an event. The animals in their
cages would be, wagons, wooden-wheeled wagons, and the elephants
would head down the main streets of St.
Paul or Minneapolis, headed to their big circus tent or the state fairgrounds
from the railroad siding, where they would park the
train, ’cause everybody wanted to come and see the circus
heading down the street from the railroad
yard, off to the tent. (diesel train engine roars) – [Elmond] Willmar is one
of the best railroad towns, smaller railroad towns in
Minnesota, and it’s been noted for that, as kind of a
headquarters, because trains went to St. Cloud and
they went to Sioux City, and we had locals
going out of here, they went to a lot of
towns, it was kind of a hub. And people always,
even people that lived in West Coast, they always
talked about Willmar. – I can’t imagine a town like
Willmar without a railroad. This railroad that
runs through Willmar, the railroads that run through other towns in
western Minnesota, are the through points of a lot of products that
are passing through, from the West Coast
of the United States to Chicago and the East
Coast, and vice versa. (connecting train cars clang) – [Elmond] And I like to,
and I like to be busy, and I like to have a challenge. And the biggest challenge we had on the railroad was the weather. We had to put up with
all kinds of weather. Snowstorms and, we went
out and plowed snow, you know, or left
Willmar and the snowbanks were four
or five feet high, but if we could get a
pretty good speed on, we could go quite a
ways through a drift. – [Tom] 1997 was
memorable in Willmar for being a winter of
ferocious blizzards. And in particular I remember,
one memorable night, going to Clara City,
that we not only went into the snowbank, but
we went through the snowbank and came
out the other end. And the train was
covered in snow by the time we came
out the other end. (diesel train hums) I guess the fondest
memories come from the camaraderie
of the other, fellow employees I
worked with, and talking about the good trips
we had, and of course grumbling about the
bad trips we had. – You miss the men, and
that’s why to this day I have coffee with
Elmond and some other railroad men, you
miss the camaraderie. – [Elmond] I never
had any trouble with the men working
with me on the railroad. They were very cooperative,
and out in a snowstorm, they tried to get
signals to me so I could see ’em when we
didn’t have radios. But between the
brakemen and myself, it seemed like there
wasn’t a situation that we couldn’t get
through some way. – If I would have to tell
anyone one particular thing that has had a lasting
memory for me as an employee of the railroad, was
the predictability that I was gonna
have a job tomorrow. I was very fortunate
that I was able to spend my entire
career with one employer. Most of the towns
across America are here because the railroad came
through that part of the state. In southern Minnesota and
particularly in Willmar. Willmar was a major
stopping-off point for trains, there’s a
lot of grain shipped out of Willmar, a lot of
ethanol, and a lot of lumber and
fertilizer that travels through Willmar on
its destinations, either near Chicago
or south to Iowa. A lot of these cars
and the entire train, which is called a
unit train, will stay in one piece all the way
to its final destination. And if it’s grain,
most commonly it goes all the way to Seattle or
Long Beach, California. Other trains go to
the Mississippi River to be unloaded on barges. It’s a diesel-electric
locomotive, and they’re extremely efficient. They’re so much more
efficient than trucks hauling products across
the country that a lot of trucks now are hauled
on railroad flatcars rather than a
tractor-trailer rig going across the country on the
interstate highway system. In 1920, as I recall, I think 2,000,000 people
worked on the railroad. And in 2010, it
was 200,000 people. So that’s one-tenth
the number of people. But the railroads are hauling
more than they ever have. There’s an efficiency
there that was missing for many, many years
until the 1980s. Trains are bigger, they’re
longer, they’re faster, and there’s fewer
people that are on the trains and
repairing the track. (moderate tempo piano music) – [Elmond] The reason
why I think this one is special, because this
was the first engine, steam engine, that
had pulled the Empire Builder
through the mountains. This was a, it wasn’t
big, it’s not small according to today,
but it was big enough, and was the first one,
on the Empire Builder. The superintendent, he
said we could have it, so we built a
track from the yard out here at a
curve, and hooked… Right where it stands right now. This historical society
would not be what it is today if we hadn’t gotten
that locomotive moved out here, because
that, people go by and they see that locomotive,
they’ve never been in Willmar, and
they’ll still stop in. – When I was a young boy, the passenger
trains did operate. My hometown,
Chandler, Minnesota. I can remember it just
like it was yesterday. My mother would take me
down to the train station, and I would get on the
train, and actually it was a steam-engine-powered
train, and I would go to Iona, Minnesota, to
stay with my grandparents. And it was 14 miles,
and it cost seven cents. And my mother would pin a
little note on my pocket, and the note would
say to the conductor, “Please make sure Tommy
gets off at Iona.” And then she would give me
10 cents for the ride back. Well, those days are long gone. (moderately slow guitar music) – To find out more
about these stories and other local
history, visit the Kandiyohi County Museum
in Willmar, Minnesota. Now let’s hop on board with
Twin Cities and Western Railroad and learn about its impact
on local communities. (train rumbles and hums) – [Ken] I love it
all, ’cause you learn something new every day,
every day is different. Every day is a
different day, you know. And you work with
different people all the time, and
it’s, it’s just fun. – Oh yeah, when I was
in, like, a little kid, I always wanted to be
a railroad engineer, and then I end up working
on this section here. Didn’t fall far from
the tree, I guess. – It’s pretty much
different every day, but this is, what
we’re doing now is one of the more
routine jobs that we do. – [Dana] Twin Cities and
Western Railroad has been a major part of transporting
goods across Minnesota. President Mark Wegner
provides rail service across southwestern Minnesota,
into the Twin Cities. – [Mark] Well, the history
is, it was originally built by the Hastings and
Dakota back in the 1870s. The Hastings and
Dakota became part of the Milwaukee Road,
and Milwaukee Road built the Pacific
extension in 1909. So this line here was
part of a main line from Chicago to
Tacoma, Washington. At one point it
boasted 80-mile-an-hour
passenger trains. (train wheels
rumble on the track) The rail industry
started to decline in the, after World War
II, a gradual decline, which accelerated during
the 1960s and ’70s, and by 1980 the Milwaukee
Road declared bankruptcy. They abandoned from
Montana to the West Coast. The Montana to the
Minnesota border was acquired by the
state of South Dakota, and the Milwaukee
retained from Ortonville into the Twin Cities,
as part of their system. They were sold in 1985 to
the Soo Line, and in 1991 the Soo Line sold the
segment from the Twin Cities out to Appleton to the
Twin Cities and Western, and hence we were
formed July 26, 1991. We serve south-central
Minnesota, basically our draw area is maybe 30 miles either side
of the main line. We go through Glencoe,
Olivia, Montevideo, out to Appleton,
along 212, primarily. We are like a spoke
in a great big hub. We connect in St. Paul
to the Canadian Pacific, the Burlington
Northern Santa Fe, the Union Pacific,
which serve the North American continent,
so we’re basically giving our customers a
gateway to the world. (train chugs and hums) – Today we’ll be spotting
in the grain cars for these elevators,
and we’ll go out to the Renville
sugar-beet plant, and get them empty
for their sugar. And today we got some
coal, coke on there and coal, and empty
sugar cars, and then we go out to Granite Falls,
the ethanol plant, we service that daily, and… (train bell rings) (train horn blares) – [Mark] The unique
thing about the Twin Cities and Western
is, we do connect with three major railroads
in the Twin Cities, so our customers
have competition to go on the North
American continent, which isn’t always true
of other railroads. They’re captive to
one single railroad. I think the railroad
will be important because the
steel-on-steel technology, steel wheels and steel rails,
is very low resistance, hence we achieve some great fuel economies for
the tonnage we move. Moving one ton of
freight 435 miles on one gallon of
fuel is often quoted. We’re roughly anywhere
between four times to 10 times more fuel
efficient than trucks, depending on whose
study you look at. But I think the nation
didn’t realize how important the railroads were
up until about 2003, when gas started to
go up and diesel hit five dollars a gallon,
then all of a sudden everybody wanted to ship rail. So if you think there’s
an unlimited supply of oil in the world,
yeah, we’ll go away, but I don’t think
that’s the case. – [Dana] Twin Cities
and Western Railroad also owns the
Minnesota Prairie Line. Julie Rath talks
about the efforts of the Minnesota Valley
Regional Railroad Authority, and their efforts to
restore the tracks. – And I’m sure it was
founded on the basis to provide services
for the ag community. We have an elevator
right behind us, and I don’t know the
year of that, but it says “number two” on it, so
it’s got quite a history. And it’s a vibrant
corridor for the communities that are along here. There are 16 communities
in the five counties that are dependent
on this rail service, and the actual railroad itself was revitalized again in 2002. It had various owners and
actually went inactive for two years, and
then the five counties took the ownership
back and formed the Minnesota Valley
Regional Rail Authority. You know, our rail line starts at Norwood Young America
and goes all the way to Hanley Falls, that’s
94 miles of track. And we’re currently
doing a rail restoration, a rehab project, and so
we’ve done 24 miles so far, and so we’re getting
there inch by inch. We always say, “I think
I can, I think I can,” and we will get that done. Well, we have a big
vision in that area, we have a group in
the Redwood area that’s called Tatanka
Bluffs, and our goal is to use the rail for vintage
passenger rail service, to bring people out
from Hopkins Depot for the weekend,
bring your bike with, and explore the southern
part of Minnesota, for biking, camping,
horseback riding, to see where Minnesota
history really happened. And we think that’s
key, ’cause a lot of the historic sites
that you learn about in your sixth-grade
history are really here, and we want to share that
with students, especially. There’s a big plan
for the future, and it’s all dependent
on this railway. I mean, it’s pretty
unique, aside from Amtrak, you just don’t hop on a train. So if we can get this
vintage rail service put together, that was
a very good attraction for some of the people
that are forming the history learning
center concept, just because it’s a
unique experience. It’s more authentic
travel, as you could say, and it takes the past and
brings it into the future. We’re seeing increased
traffic as we do the rehab. This past year we had
just under 7,000 cars, carloads that were
shipped on our line. Our funding that
we’re receiving, either through the
state of Minnesota or federal government,
is a huge investment in this type of
transportation corridor, which is key to the area. And for us to have that
kind of investment, we need to make sure
that we can leverage those dollars for
future development, whether it’s new manufacturers
that come out here, I see this as a
renewable-energy corridor because of the amount of biomass that we have in our
five-county area. And so personally, right
now we’re working on several bio-renewable
fuel projects that are dependent on this
rail getting restored. And what we’re doing
is replacing rail that’s from 1880, 1912, which is 80 or 85-pound rail,
with 115-pound rail. The new train cars are
286,000 pounds, and so we need a heavier rail for
them to run on, for safety. – Well, I guess I’m
kind of a historian by nature, and
realizing that railroads were the cause of
many town formations in Minnesota particularly,
yeah, I did follow the rail industry, and
if you look at some of the towns where the
rail has disappeared, you know, the towns are
kinda disappearing as well. So here, fortunately, we’re able to run a good
railroad, which in turn injects vibrancy into
the communities we serve. So, and we continue to do that. – Well, it’s
allowed the elevator in town here to
expand, which increases the employment base,
which brings more families to the communities, which
increases the schools, and grocery stores,
retail trade, everything is improved
because of the rail. – The builders of the
railroad tended to plant towns anywhere between seven
to 10 miles apart, basically a day trip
with a horse and buggy, to bring the grain
into town, so that’s kinda how the
towns were planted. We see ourselves as
renewing the towns’ economic bases, we
have relationships with the economic development
agencies, things like that. If we grow jobs in
south-central Minnesota and grow the communities we
serve, then we’ve done our job. – [Dana] In 2008, Twin
Cities and Western was named the Short Line
Railroad of the Year. With its ability to reach
the corners of the country, it’s no wonder people enjoy
being part of this rail service. – [Josh] I don’t know,
it’s something that not everybody gets to do. You know, you can
tell people stories about this stuff
that they don’t know anything about, so
they’re kinda interested in hearing what you have to say. – [Julie] I believe
that we will have additional expansion
happen in the future. Winthrop is an
excellent example, about 20 miles to the
east of us, that has had, because the rail’s
getting closer to that, the community can actually
see, feel, and touch the improvements, and are
planning for the future. They’ve added a new
fertilizer facility, they’ve had a new, um… WinField Ag Solutions
moved to the community, combining into a larger
distribution center. The ethanol plant
expanded, with the hope that the rail would expand. And yeah, UFC’s
congregated there, so they’ve got great
things going on. Dairy Farmers of America
is doing an expansion, they’re all dependent
on transporting
their goods by rail. (train horn blares) (diesel train engine rumbles) – Local author
Brent Olson shares his memories of
traveling by train. – I like railroads. It’s funny, but even though
my hometown of Clinton hasn’t even had a railroad
for 20 years or more, railroads have a large
place in my memory. An early memory is
dropping my sister off at the station in
Willmar for a trip to the West Coast to
stay with cousins. I can still picture her
walking across the tracks, carrying a small suitcase
and a large guitar. It wasn’t long after that, that I had my first
experience on a train. I was about 12,
and I was supposed to catch the train
from Minneapolis to Morris after a
stay at a church camp. It was my first time
traveling alone, and I bet it (laughs)
really showed. A chubby, blond preteen
clutching his ticket and sitting on the
edge of his seat must have looked like
a tempting target to the bum who kept
coming over to me and telling me
that if I came out behind the station,
he would sell me something really
good, really cheap. Now, I was dumb, but
maybe not quite that dumb. I tried to ignore
him, and when I saw a gaggle of nuns come
in and sit in a swirl of black and white, I
went and sat with them. That experience didn’t
turn me into a Catholic, but it did lead me to
my fondness for nuns. Despite that, I do
still love trains, possibly because
when my wife and I were married, we took
every cent we had in the world and spent it
on six weeks in Europe. A lot of that time
was spent on trains, playing an endless game of
gin rummy and occasionally glancing out the window
at the passing scenery. The rocking of the cars,
the chance meetings with interesting
people, odd foods at train stations
in odd countries, along with the constant company of a beautiful young
woman, made the trip something that remains
green in my memory. I am a lot older now, and contemplating
another train trip. The odd food isn’t nearly as big a temptation, but
not having to drive in strange traffic
is a big incentive. I do still have the same
traveling companion. Some things, like
trains, go on forever. Or close enough. – That’s all for this week. For more information,
go to our Web site, at pioneer.org/postcards. Join us again next
week on Postcards. – [Voiceover] This program
on Pioneer Public Television is funded by the Minnesota Arts
and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the
vote of the people of Minnesota on
November 4, 2008. Additional support provided by Mark and Margaret Yackel-Juleen in honor of Shalom Hill Farm, a nonprofit rural
education retreat center in a beautiful prairie
setting near Windom in southwestern Minnesota,
shalomhillfarm.org. The Arrowwood Resort
and Conference Center, your ideal choice for
Minnesota resorts, offering luxury townhomes,
18 holes of golf, Darling Reflections Spa, Big Splash Waterpark,
and much more. Alexandria, Minnesota,
a relaxing vacation or great location for an
event, explorealex.com. Easy to get to, hard to leave. (slow orchestral music)
Railroad Thermite Welding and several Trains. Lots of train action so watch all of the video to see everything and Please Subscribe to me!
SPEAKER: Basically, the
railroads are a story of us. It’s important for people to
know because it’s being lost. My name’s Adam Fotta. I’ve been a lot of places. I’ve done a lot
of things in life, even though I’m not that old. I had my first job
at 10, which I don’t know if they allow anymore. So the railroad was hiring
out of Grand Junction. And it offers good money,
benefits, health care, so I jumped on it. And it was a hope
for a better future. It was the hope for
the American dream. It’s no more than
anybody else wants. But it’s the best
job I ever had. best job I ever had. It finally felt like
we were middle class. Coal was partially responsible
for me chasing work because as coal slowed
down, so did the work. And a lot of rail
traffic is actually coal traffic, for power
plants, exporting, things of that nature. As it hit the oil and
gas and then it hit us. And the coal started dropping
off immediately after that. Just absolutely amazing
to see basically 200-year industry just
shutdown overnight. They encourage employees to
take pictures of the trains. And they put it on
the company calendar. Some guys think this is
corny and dopey and stuff. But I think it’s fantastic. It’s great. And it’s pride in what you do. This furlough affected
me extremely hard. My wife was diagnosed with
cancer at the same time that I was furloughed. Found out she
definitively had cancer and I got furloughed
at that same moment, as we were stuck in
traffic and people were honking their horns. And that was kind of
like, wow, this is bottom. It’s hard being optimistic
about it all the time because I don’t know
if the coal industry is going to– I think this
might be a permanent change in this country. I hope that we
figure things out, find the balance between
the economy being viable, the environment. I’m hopeful to going back to
work somewhere for the railroad and kind of getting my life
back and get my debt paid down and getting my wife healthy. That’s all I want.
Hey All Train Fans Out There. The Gate Hits The Truck and A Train Goes By, Then More Of The Gate. Be Sure To Watch The Whole Video To See All The Good Stuff and SUBSCRIBE!
Hello everyone and welcome to Train Talk! Today, we are going to talk about a so called
railroad “hot spot”, or great place to watch trains, that is located in Rochelle,
Illinois. So let’s visit the Rochelle Railroad Park! Rochelle is a quiet little town, located about
75 miles to the west of Chicago in the north-central portion of the state of Illinois. It is in this town where two major rail lines
cross each other, making for a great place to watch trains. Running northwest to south east is the BNSF
mainline. The other rail line, running southwest to
northeast through the town is the Union Pacific’s mainline. Both of these rail lines are major components
of the national cross country freight rail network. The BNSF line was formerly owned by the Chicago,
Burlington and Quincy railroad, and it runs from Minnesota’s Twin Cities region south
along the mississippi river into Iowa, then crossing the river into Illinois, through
Rochelle, and to Aurora, Illinois, where it joins up with the BNSF’s triple track mainline
into Chicago, known as the “race track”. The Union Pacific line is also a very important
east-west running railroad. It was once part of the Chicago and North
Western Railroad and begins as far west as Council Bluffs, Iowa. It passes through Des Moines, Iowa, Rochelle,
Illinois, and then into Chicago. The final stretch of this line into Chicago
is used by Metra commuter trains as the “Metra Union Pacific West line”. In addition to both rail lines meeting here,
Rochelle is also important because it is the location of Union Pacific’s “Global 3”
yard facility, one of 5 large intermodal container train yards used by the Union Pacific in the
greater Chicago area. The yard is located on the west side of town. It is because of all this train action that
Rochelle has become such a great place to watch trains. The Rochelle Railroad park was opened in August
of 1998 and serves as a safe and fun place for railroad enthusiasts from all around the
world to come and watch trains. The park is situated directly to the east
of the railroad junction between the Union Pacific and BNSF railroads. This kind of junction or crossover is called
a diamond because of the shape made by the rails where they meet. Because of this junction, there are over 80
trains that pass through here in a 24 hour period, making this an especially good place
to watch trains. In addition to a view of the diamonds and
the passing trains on both lines, the park also features a gift shop open every day of
the week except Tuesdays, two diesel locomotives and a demonstration piece of old fashioned
“strap track” that are on display, and a covered pavilion with benches and radios
set to the frequencies of both railroads, so you can hear the crews of approaching trains. The park is open 24 hours a day, so you can
watch trains pass by here at all hours. And, for those of you who aren’t able to
make the trip to Rochelle but still want to see the trains pass, you can go directly to
the park’s website to view real time web cams showing the passing trains. Also not far away on the BNSF rail line is
the old Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy passenger depot, built in 1921. While at one time Rochelle was served by passenger
trains on both rail lines, passenger service officially ended in 1971 with the formation
of Amtrak and since then, no regularly scheduled passenger trains have been routed through
Rochelle. While there are now several railroad parks
in various places in the United States, Rochelle was the first such park to be built. Historically, Rochelle was a well known place
to watch trains among railroad enthusiasts. Over the years, it grew in popularity to the
point where the city of Rochelle decided it would be a good idea to open up a train watching
park as a way of building tourism. So in 1995, the parcel of land located directly
to the east of the diamonds was purchased and construction began. The park was finally opened to the public
on August 30th, 1998, and it has remained a great place to watch trains every day since. Thanks for watching this episode of Train
Talk! To find out more about the Rochelle Railroad
Park and to view the park’s webcam, please visit rochellerailroadpark.org. And, if you have any questions, comments,
or suggestions, please leave those below! Until next time, I’m Mike Armstrong. I’ll see you down the line! Thanks for watching!
Hello ladies and gentlemen this here is
what I call progress. Up until recently this crossing here in Moore Haven
Florida which I’ll include a Google Maps link to was just a wood and cross buck and they are installing brand-new crossing gates here. Brand brand new They still got the covers on them. These are Progress signal base you can see
the brand new our foundation for them with the rocks and then up top, well the lights are covered but I can’t see what kind of they are. Up here see we got a
Safetran gate mechanism lights are covered and we have a mechanical
Bell actually, WC Hayes mechanical Bell Next, okay this is a track view South. This
is the SCFE line. South Florida South Central Florida Express. Mile post 40
Moore Haven Florida then here is the east side of the crossing and the same
thing brand new. You can see the
caterpillar over there and they’ve been burning the midnight oil here. Progress
signal base let’s see what kind of gate mechanism we got on this side Safe Tran covered lights WC Hayes mechanical bell awesome. Over there we
got a swing bridge which is kind of hard to see because the parking is not good so this is track view North
there we got the relay case and here we got the the brand new crossing gates
right over there so yeah this is going to look pretty
all righty guys so please subscribe like share thank you very much for viewing
over and out