NS OCS & Track Geometry Train

[Cody J]

Does anyone know the schedule for this years OCS and Track Geometry Train?

Thanks,
Cody

[jward]

try the yahoo group nsaltoonajohnstown there are people on there who have the inside scoop. from what i understand, the ocs will not be heading west out of altoona this year, so catching it means you will need to travel to other areas. it's a shame. i always enjoy watching it roll by my place...

as for the geometry train, nobody seems to worry much about catching it. power is just another gp38-2, with a research slug and instrument car or two. not much to look at.

[Cody J]

Okay, thank you for your info, Jeff.

[jettrainfan]

Darn, I wanted to see it pass the CV&WS. Ah well, NS has had some interesting diesels to start off the year.

[jward]

you should be where i am. we get alot of stuff going to altoona to be worked on, and with several rebuild programs going on at once, we see freshly outshopped locomotives all the time. so far to-day i have seen 10 different types from 4 different railroads. yesterday we had one train with 7 locomotives of 5 different types from 4 different railroads.

[Cody J]

Jward:
I was up in Conway on March 20, I saw NS 6900, 1002 & 1003, a CR SD38-2 along with other stuff in the Yard. At Leetsdale I saw an Ex-CR leaser leading a coal train, an Ex-SOO engine on a train along with some other cool locomotives and near New Brighton I saw a bunch of NS MoW equipment that replaces track and a CSX work train with caboose.
That's the best luck I've ever had at Conway so even with only going that far you can see awesome stuff.

Cody

[jward]

yeah conway is the place. you should have seen it in the past. when both humps were working you never knew what you'd see. you used to be able to park on the bridge over the tracks at the east end of the yard, and sit all day. one of the conrail employees would xerox the lineup sheets from the enginehouse, and put them in a mailbox mounted on the bridge railing. the sheets would tell you every locomotive on every train enroute to conway at the time the sheet was printed out, along with an eta. you could also write down car numbers off the trains, and call an 800 number and the car tracer would tell you what train they were on. we lost alot when norfolk southern took over.....

[Cody J]

Wow, that sounds like the place to be