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The Iowa State Railroad Club held our annual 24 hours even from 5pm 4/25/14 to 5pm 4/26/14 in Ames, IA. We saw 61 movements and 60 trains. I took over 50 pictures so it's going to take some time to get them all on here so stay tuned.
1. Power move lead by 5007 with the front door open and the ditchlights out.
2. UP 7137 leads a westbound intermodal.
3 & 4. A unit train of Case IH combines out of Grand Island, NE heads east.
9. UP 5853 streaks by near midnight.
10. 5 units lead an intermodal at dawn.
11. UP 4303 leading MEADM (Eagle Grove to Des Moines, IA) down the Jewell Sub.
12. MEADM joining the mainline.
The East/West line is the Boone/Clinton Subdivisions (I'm not sure where the line is between the two) which is part of the Overland Route. The line that connects to the mainline is the Jewell Sub that goes North out of Ames to Jewell, Eagle Grove, and connects several other UP branch lines in Northern Iowa.
13. UP 8570 leading a westbound intermodal
14. Westbound coal train lead by UP 7238
15. UP 7956 rolling under the signal bridge at West Ames.
16. UP 6881 leading a loaded coal drag.
The East/West line is the Boone/Clinton Subdivisions (I'm not sure where the line is between the two) which is part of the Overland Route. The line that connects to the mainline is the Jewell Sub that goes North out of Ames to Jewell, Eagle Grove, and connects several other UP branch lines in Northern Iowa.
Clinton Subdivision here. The dividing line between the Boone and Clinton subdivisions is near the west end of Boone yard, where the old yard office used to be.
25. A special treat was on the end of an intermodal as the two DPU units were a GE C-40-8 9262 and a patched SP unit 6386. I wish I could have gotten a better picture but, I was lucky enough to snap this one real quick.
26. UP 7612 and two other GE's pull an eastbound salad shooter.
27. 7524 a very rare clean UP unit was second in line.
28. UP 8730 leads an eastbound intermodal.
33 & 34. UP 8099 leading an eastbound intermodal. It looks like this unit got a little burned up at some point.
35. UP 7361 leading a unit DDG train.
36. DPU UP 8437 on the DDG train.
Ames is a great place to railfan! I grew up in North Iowa and remember the first time seeing a Falcon piggyback flying through the ISU campus. I was blown away at the speed after growing up in a town with a 10 mph Rock Island branch line. That was back in the late 70's early 80's.
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