Single NS engine pulls unused train... Backwards!

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Erika's Stream Overflow

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Published on January 6, 2011 3:05:19 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv7orVzjNkg

Duration: 12:59

6,476 views

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So, I happen to live about 100 feet or so away from a main line belonging to Norfolk Southern. Years ago, it belonged to Chicago and Northwestern before selling to Union Pacific for a short time and finally NS. Back then, we had freight trains, and I loved watching them go by when I was a kid. Nowadays, only coal trains go by, so it's not such a big deal anymore.

Anyway, a couple years back, Norfolk Southern's mines weren't doing too well, and so they decided to dump miles of autoracks on the main line. They sat there for a year and a half. Certainly not the first time unused railroad cars sat here, but usually they'd sit in the siding (which by this point is probably unusable in itself). This was also the first time they stored autoracks on the line, which was really cool, 'cause I got the chance to take a good look at them and take some pictures, which you can find here:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/5049227

So finally, during summer last year, they decided to start picking them all up. Already some cars had been pulled away, likely while I slept. This time, though, I was able to catch this engine pulling in to pull away some more cars... which basically occurred right outside my house! I didn't want to miss this, so I grabbed my camera (a dinky little one) and started recording.

Took a while for them to get going. At one point, it seemed like they were pulling away, but then they crawled to a stop (shown in video). And they just sat there for a while. Then I got the idea to head uptown to the railroad crossing and railfan there, as it'd possibly be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: to watch and record a single engine pulling a not-coal train across the railroad crossing... backwards!

I waited there for a while, let me tell you. To my understanding, they were pulling and pushing the train back and forth a little at a time, I assume to get the kinks worked out (I heard something about a brake being stuck). When the train finally started pulling out, the crossing signal didn't seem to work right at first, either because they didn't get used much for over a year (you can see the engine knock down some tall grass as it approaches), or because it got confused due to how slowly the train was moving. They had to have a couple flaggers to let people know whether they could pass.

But, I got it recorded. And now, I finally show it off. Sorry for the very amateurish recording. I'm rather lacking in steady hands, and this was my first attempt at railfanning.