After spending time with some friends and dropping them off at their respective homes downriver, I decided to check the Fort Street camera just to see if anything was lined in or out of CN’s Flat Rock yard. There was something lined in, and I decided to run to the Van Horn Road crossing (a mile away from my friends house), and that was a smart idea.
0:00
I had already missed a train as I was pulling up to the crossing, however it was nothing special for the area, just an remote control (or RCO) job working the hump with a GTW repaint doing it’s thing. Moments later, a bright set of headlights and ditchlights appeared, NOT a hump/RCO job. I’m a complete stranger to this part of the CN, but after some research and consulting with local railfans, I figured out that it was CN L571, which is the Dearborn-Flat Rock turn. A solo SD75i leading long hood forward for power, with a long cut of 86’ autopart boxcars and a shorter cut of loaded frame cars.
4:23
While I was filming the 571, I wondered to myself, where was the train I came here for? My awnser came 5 minutes after the 571 passed. The train I was waiting on, CN L506, cleared the Fort Street camera with an Algoma Central/Wisconsin Central caboose leading the shove, and a CN SD70M-2 long hood forward powering the shove move.
Since there’s no connection track into the yard for trains that are either going to Toledo or coming from Toledo (it’s literally two trains a day that run Toledo-Flat Rock and vice verse, L506 heading to Flat Rock and then back to Toledo), trains have to reverse into the yard from the control point (Rodney I think?) on the Shoreline Subdivision all the way into the yard (5 miles or so), so CN as of late, as a peace offering to conductors and crew, has been putting a caboose of some sort on the rear of the 506 job so the conductor has something to ride other than the ladder of a railcar on for the 5 or so miles from the Control Point to the yard.
It was definitely a neat sight to see, the conductor was on the ground lining some switches (which was why there was no one on the caboose when it passed me) and then he hopped back on board just after it passed the Van Horn crossing. The conductor was quite friendly, and while he was waiting for his engineer to clear up some sort of issue with something called TALONS (EMD’s version of trip optimizer essentially) in their lead locomotive, we chatted about what it’s like running this job. He said that he’s quite glad that CN put the caboose on the rear of the train as it makes the shove moves easier, and since he’s not riding on a car, they can move quicker. He did say that they also shove out of the yard on the return trip to Toledo with the caboose, then once they get to the Control Point (again, if I remember correctly, Rodney), the locomotive leads south. He did also say he’s never seen a train he’s been running get so much attention on a regular basis because of the caboose and the shove move they make.
After he jumped back on board the caboose, the train got moving, mainly covered hoppers and tank cars, then the locomotive, a long hood forward CN SD70M-2, and a nice engineer.
I didn’t end up staying for the return trip to Toledo (an hour or so later). It was going on 1am and my girlfriend wanted to play some minecraft when I got home before she and I went to bed. I had priorities
. So I left.That’s all for now, more to come soon!