So what's up with on the Villa Grove Sub?

[tsinoms]

The crew situation getting any better? Any new trains comin to the sub?

[Mr. Tops]

The crew situation getting any better?

No.

Any new trains comin to the sub?

No.

Crew situation won't get any better until newbs get qualified. No new trains but the work trains on the Springfield Sub will start back up on April 5th and freight and the Texas Eagle will rerouted on the VG and Pana Subs.

[Wright]

Any idea how long the texas eagle will be getting rerouted? I photgraphed it in Papinoux in October and would like to shoot it again if the weather ever cooperates. TIA

[Mr. Tops]

Should be all summer. I've heard until atleast August.

[Typhoon]

The Danville crews for CSX are not getting any better either. More often than not it is taking 2 crews to get a train from Danville to Chicago, which is burning up the crew base. CSX had people sitting in with the Villa Grove dispatcher at Proviso for the last week, as some weird dispatching things have going on there...

[Mr. Tops]

Good, maybe they can learn a few things. We only have two or three good dispatchers and one of those rarely works as he regularly works in the Chicago command center and just fills in when there are no xtra board dispatchers available. Our best regular dispatcher works 3rd trick. The rest of them are pretty sorry. The command center guy filled in the past 2 highs for the regular guy and man did he move trains. Nice for a change.

Crew situation is much better. We have 7 borrow outs from Kansas City here now and a new hire class of seven that will be good to go in about a month. 2 more new hire classes also coming in. And that's just Villa Grove.

[tsinoms]

Any idea what this behemoth came in on?
Also any new stories from the road? Miss the ones u used to tell us about horrible dispatching and stuff like that.

[Mr. Tops]

MASCH. Coming back tomorrow night on MCHPB. First SD80MAC built in July 1995 as EMDX 8000.

[thomas]

hey tops
was at momence ill. sun 5/22 and caught the texas egale going north, how often does this happen???????

[Mr. Tops]

hey tops
was at momence ill. sun 5/22 and caught the texas egale going north, how often does this happen???????

Often. Last summer and this summer only, though. The Texas Eagles run on the Villa Grove and Pana Subs between StL and Chi while the TRT machine is working on the Springfield and Joliet Subs. The Eagles run on the VG side for 8 days and then go back on the Springfield side for 6 days while the TRT gang rests. Atleast I THINK that's how it is. That's how it was last summer. I work here and I don't even know (read as "care"...it's only Amtrak). There are WMACH, WMTIE, WBALDU, WBHAUL and WDUMP working over there now as well as a relief job. Those are machine, tie, ballast, old tie hauler and ballast dump trains, respectively. They are rebid every 8 days and all have 3 member crews. So for 8 days, they work the work trains and for 6 days they go back to their old jobs in St. Louis, Villa Grove, etc. While the work trains are running, in addition to Amtrak, grain and manifest trains detour on the Villa Grove Sub and Amtrak's Lincoln Service is curtailed a bit as well. Work should be done this summer and everything will be back to normal.

[sd70accsxt700]

I always loved the UP MOW train symbols.

[Y@]

WDUMP... Awesome.