Manchester, Ga March 2004 Part 1 I leave town for Manchester, Ga very early in the morning to fully
take advantage of a beautiful day. I intercept my first train of the day
at Charing RR crossing a little bit before sunrise. It has a crapy radio
and a conductor with soar throat. After carefully listenning clearing several
signals, I am betting on K922 the Midway-Marianna, Fl rock train. It meets
Q237 at Brownsand then heads for the siding in Talboton. On the way to
Talboton, I see a van that typically carry crews around, but don't think
much of it. I wait for another SB but the conductor gets down and unhook
the power to run around the train to head south. After further thinking,
this might be how K922 heads back as K921. I don't stick around, as I am
anxious to see how many trains get stuck in Woodland and Manchester. I
head north and find nothing in Woodland, then onto Manchester. As I get
to the platform, Q179 gets in from its run from Birmingham. I expect a
fresh crew to hop on and head for Talboton to meet K921. Instead, they
cut the train at the street on the east side and let it sit: no crew available.
From the platform, there also is a coal train, Q 685 and a hopper train
waiting for crews. I get to look for the first time at the new track alignment.
Y101 with 6065 and 5897 gets a call to push and shove some cars. I head
for the bridge and listen the interesting EMD-GE power combination. The bypass has the tail end of the coal train and Q685 waiting for
crews. Three trains in one shot was the norm of the day at the yard. As I watch the yard job in action, I also get a shot of Q685 fully
lit. The action dies down so I head for Breakfast. I come back right
on time for Q142. It comes with a regular Dash 8 in the lead and the not
so regular HLCX 7149 ex BN. I run north of town to get the shot on the
old ACL bridge. Unfortunately, the place is getting more and more overgrown
as not even 2 engines fit without some obstruction. Note that 7149 has
flares. I chase it all the way to Harralson for some close up of the BN
and the Tropicana cars.
