Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Mainline Steam comes to St Peters, Missouri


In its celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Norfolk Southern Railroad, the railroad had 20 new diesel locomotives painted in the color style of its predecessor railroads.

Here is a link to a family photo shot of all these heritage engines when all 20 of the units gathered for the anniversary celebration on July 4, 2012 at the North Caroline Transportation Museum roundhouse. 

Even though trackage of one of the predecessor railroads runs thru St. Peters, I did not think I would ever see one of these heritage engines run thru here.

However as part of the 30th anniversary Norfolk Southern was doing employee appreciation excursions behind a steam locomotive. They used Nickel Plate 765 which is a  2-8-4 Berkshire Steam Locomotive. This locomotive is owned and operated by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. The 765 was built in 1944 and retired from the Nickel Plate Railroad in 1963 and donated to the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society.  It was in static display at their museum until it was restored to active steam service in 1979.  It went through another rebuild restoration in 2001.

In September the Norfolk Southern Railroad brought the employee appreciation steam excursions to former Wabash Railroad trackage in St. Louis.  On September 8 and 9 they ran two excursions each day that came out to St Peters on the Norfolk Railroad tracks that was once Wabash Railroad tracks.  There was not a place in St. Peters to turn the train or a siding long enough to unhook the engine from the cars and move it to the other end for the reverse trip.  Therefore they had two of the new Norfolk Southern Heritage diesel locomotives on the rear that was used to pull the train back to its starting point in St. Louis County about 15 miles east of St. Peters. They used the Wabash Heritage unit 1070 and the Illinois Terminal unit 1072. Illinois Terminal was a local terminal railroad that operated in the St. Louis area until 1981 when it became part of the Norfolk & Western Railroad which became  Norfolk Southern Railroad in 1982. So I got see two of the new Norfolk Southern Heritage diesel locomotives. Plus a steam locomotive.

These are the photos I took of the train.

Here is photos of the Wabash Heritage unit on the rear.


 
Here is video I took with my iPhone with the steam engine under power.


This video is with the heritage units pulling the train.

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Crop Circles?

In early June we were visiting with family in Cross County Arkansas.  One of the things I did for two days was riding with my brother-in law in a pickup truck while surveying levees for soybean irrigation. The levee system is used to contain the water for flood irrigation.. Flood irrigation involves pumping large volumes of water in the field to completely cover it to provide good irrigation. The first step in levee preparation is to survey where the levees will be placed in the field. The modern method of levee surveying is by use of a laser. A laser generator is placed at the edge or center of a large field.  The laser beam that is generated is kept level by a spinning gyroscope. The photo below shows the laser generator.
Here is a close up of the generator head.
 The laser generator is powered by a 12 volt battery.  It generates a continuous rotating laser beam. A receiver mounted on the front of the truck picks up the beam.
This is the truck mounted receiver.
At the base of the receiver is a gauge that the operator watches for determining what the elevation is.

The operator drives around the field watching this readout and keeps the readout on the same meter number. A turn to the right would increase the number and would indicate that you are at a higher elevation, to the left would be a lower elevation.  Each readout change is a increase or decrease of 0.1 foot elevation in the field. Typically a new levee is placed at every 0.2 foot change in elevation. At the the edge of the field, you drive along the edge until you get to another 0.2 foot change in elevation then start back across the field for marking another levee. To make steering easier and faster a steering wheel spinner knob is used.
 Steering wheel spinners  or suicide knobs as they were called were popular on cars in the '50 and '60s but is not legal today in many areas.They are still popular on farm vehicles - tractors and combines - to facilitate faster turning.

Staying at the same elevation requires a lot of twists and turns throughout the field (keeping on the same gauge readout). As the operator is driving around in the field he is marking the location of the levee by use of a plow that is mounted on the back of the truck. The plow can be raised at the field edge by use of a toggle switch that the operator uses to control a electrically operated hydraulic that raises or lowers the plow.
Here is the rear mounted plow.
  Here are several photos of the leveling operation.

This a levee survey mark as seen from the edge of the field.
Here you can see three different levee survey marks that are very close to each other at the field edge. Thus the elevation of this field is changing 0.4 foot from the far right mark to the far left mark.
In soybean fields levee survey marking there may be several weeks between the time of the levee marking and the actual levee plowing so a small tractor may be used to follow the marks and plow a four foot wide mark that will not be destroyed by rain before the levee is plowed. Some operators use the laser equipment on the tractor that is making the wide mark as they survey.  The use of the truck makes it more comfortable as you can do it from the comfort of an air conditioned cab. It can still be a bumpy ride over the field as there are drainage ditches (to keep down flooding of fields from excessive rain) to cross and a lot of uneven ground. Once I was trying to drink soda while we moving. We hit one of those ditches and I ended up wearing a lot of the soda.

Soybean levee surveying and levee plowing is typically done after the beans are up and growing as water is not needed right away. Rice field levee contruction is done immediately after the field has been planted as water is needed when the plants are 3-4 inches tall.

The finished levee is made by using a levee plow. The levee plow operator follows the previously made marks in the field. A levee is also plowed around the field edge to inclose all the interior levees.
 The finished levee is a continuous dike (about 2 ft. high) that holds back water. It took about 4-4.5 hours to mark a 75 acre field. This is a lot of twisting and turning in the field. This field started out on a laser receiver gauge reading of 34 at the high edge of the field and dropped to 00 then to 96 (a 38X0.1 foot or 3.8 feet change in elevation from the high edge to the low edge). This meant about 19 levees in this field. At the rate of about 150 acres per day and 1500 acres of soybean land to survey, this meant 10 days of boring but necessary work.  He had already surveyed about 1500 acres of rice land in April.

My brother-in-law tells me that when the wind is high during the day it can make it difficult for the laser generator to maintain a steady laser level in spite of the gyroscope. He says he will run sometimes at night when the wind is not as bad.  Can you imagine watching this operation from a road and seeing someone driving circles in a field with headlights on. You would think a drunk driver has got into a farm field and creating a mess.

 Here is some Google Earth view of fields in the area we were in.  You can see the levees in the fields and see their many twists. If you click on an individual photo it will enlarge it and you can see the levees easier.


Here are some photos of rice fields showing close up of the levees. The orange plastic is where gates (opening in a levee) are located. When flooding a field at the start of adding water the gates are down so water can flow freely from higher to lower levee areas.  When the field is totally flooded at the desired depth, the gates are closed (a long 2X4 board is placed on top of the levee at the opening and the orange plastic tarp is draped over it and held down by dirt to close the gap). The flag is denoting a particular variety of rice or soybeans that is planted in the field. Different color flags for different varieties.


This photo shows a water riser where water is pouring into a field from an underground pipe. The underground pipe is coming from a electric submersible irrigation pump (8-10 inch flow) that may supply several different fields. Some may be rice and others soybeans. The fields rotate from rice to soybeans from year to year.
 In this photo you can see a crop duster that is applying fertilizer or herbicide to a nearby field.
Here is a rice field where the water flooding has just been started. You can still see water free ground around the young plants.
Irrigation of rice is necessary but for soybeans it is used to provide good water for increased yield. Research has shown that irrigation of soybeans with proper level of water during the growing season can increase yields up to 10-20 bushels per acre. A good irrigated field should yield 50 bushels/acre. At today's current price of soybeans ($15.00/bushel) irrigation can increase a farmers return up to about $150 to 300 per acre.  This is considerably below the cost of levee preparation labor cost and electricity cost for pumping the water (total combined cost of $2-5/acre). In many areas the crop is rotated from rice to soybeans from year to year.  Since the irrigation equipment and facilities are already in place and it makes since to irrigate soybeans for the increased yield,
Here is a video of a typical irrigation pumping system in Arkansas.  This operation uses a diesel engine. My brother-in-law uses electric submersible irrigation pumps for all of his fields.

Here are two good websites from the University of Arkansas that discusses rice and soybean water management.
Soybeans
Rice





Monday, November 14, 2011

What Me Retire?

The Union Pacific Railroad in March 2011 conducted a contest for an Union Pacific Great Excursion Adventure. The contest was conducted via Facebook for individuals to vote on four different excursion routes: Tuscola Turn, Baton Rouge Rambler and Boise Express, and The Little Rock Express. The Little Rock Express route won with 76,217 votes vs. Tuscola Turn (73,175), Baton Rouge Rambler (18,0870) and Boise Express (11,213).

The Little Rock Express began May 29 with the arrival of Union Pacific's steam locomotive No. 844 in Kansas City, Mo., and concluded June 9 in Little Rock, Ark. UP 844 departed Cheyenne, WY, its home base, May 2 and arrived back in Cheyenne in late June.
The route from Little Rock back to Cheyenne was delayed and changed due to flooding from the Missouri River in Kansas. The display time in Little Rock was cut short so the excursion could get back to Cheyenne near it's planned return date.

Excursion Route.

The UP 844 is part of Union Pacific Railroad’s unique and historic Steam Locomotive fleet which consist of UP 844 and UP 3895. UP 844 significance is that it is the only steam locomotive that has never retired from active service. It was saved from being scrapped in 1960. It was chosen for restoration and is now used on company and public excursion trains. Most of them were equipped with distinctive smoke deflectors, sometimes called "elephant ears," on the front of the boiler. These were designed to help lift the smoke above the engine so the engine crew's visibility wasn't impaired when the train was drifting at light throttle.

The UP 844 is a Northern class steam locomotives, with a wheel arrangement of 4-8-4, and were used by most large U.S. railroads in dual passenger and freight service.

The other Union Pacific steam locomotive is UP 3895 Challenger. (See my blog titled" Largest Operating Steam Locomotive in the World - Union Pacific 3985 Challenger") It is unique in that it is the largest and most powerful steam locomotive in the world that is still in operation.

Union Pacific at one time owned 105 Challenger locomotives. Built between 1936 and 1943, the Challengers were nearly 122 feet long and weighed more than one million pounds. Articulated like their big brother, the Big Boy, the Challengers had a 4-6-6-4 wheel arrangement. It could run at top speeds of 120 MPH.

I took a lot of photos of the UP 844 during it's stop in St. Louis for t
he Little Rock Express Excursion on June 2, 2011. I was in Little Rock on June 3-6 but the UP 844 was still on it's route from St. Louis to Little Rock.

There was a large crowd of rail fans out to see and photograph the big locomotive.



Here is a good photo from the front. Notice the "elephant ears".

While stopped for display in St. Louis it was also serviced. Here water is being loaded to the water tender car from a fire hydrant.

Greasing the locomotive.
When an engine is stopped for display or servicing, it has a "Blue Flag" hung by the window which means this engine cannot be moved until the flag is removed.

Here is a close up photo of the large 80 inch driving wheels.
Close up of front.
Bell

Coal train rolling by UP 844.
See my blog titled" Largest Operating Steam Locomotive in the World - Union Pacific 3985 Challenger" for photos of the fleet of heritage cars that travel with Union Pacific Steam Excursions.

Since the entire route of the The Little Rock Express (Kansas City-St. Louis-Little Rock) followed the former Missouri Pacific Railroad route the excursion was accompanied by the Union Pacific Heritage engine UP 1982.
There are six Union Pacific Heritage deisels that are painted in the colors of the former railroads that were merged into the Union Pacific system. The engine is numbered with the year of merger of that railroad with Union Pacific. Thus UP 1982 for the year that the Missouri Pacific railroad was merged into Union Pacific. All these heritage engines are EMD SD70ACe engines which have AC traction motors providing a total of 4500 HP of power.

The other five heritage engines are:

Western Pacific UP 1983

Missouri-Kansas-Texas KATY UP 1988Chicago & North Western UP 1995
Southern Pacific UP 1996
Denver & Rio Grande 1989

There are several other special Union Pacific SD70ACe diesels that recognize people or events.

Breast Cancer Awareness UP 7400


Olympic Torch UP 2002
100th Anniversary of the Boy Scouts UP 2010
President George H. W. Bush, 41st President UP 4141
Here are some good Youtube action videos of the UP 844 in action during
The Little Rock Express excursion. Good sounds of steam engine bark, steam whistles, bells and smoke! (Click on the link names to view the video - Turn up your sound!)

Leaving Kansas City UP 844 Highball Kansas City - 6-1-11

UP 844 Highball @ 75 MPH



UP 844 Arriving Kirkwood, MO - 6-2-11
Notice the carnival atmosphere at the historic Kirkwood Depot with many rail fans - Young and old!!

Union Pacific 844 leaves Kirkwood after a short stop. Notice the wheelspin and the black smoke.

UP 844 at Webster Groves - 6/2/2011

Union Pacific #844 leaving North Little Rock on June 9, 2011