Tolga's Railroad Repository

It is Thanksgiving morning in 2018 (Fall vibes!)... and Nelson Acosta and I are venturing about the area railfanning our way up to the US Sugar Fields meeting a railfan, Laurence, who visited from the UK. The first catch is in my wheelhouse - CSX Y322. Miami Iron and Metal and Ferrous Processing and Trading can only put out up to about a combined 10 loads of scrap metal due to size, and push this arbitrary limit with the graveyard shift job in addition to there being a cut of empties from Sungas and Family & Son. This leads to making heavy work of CSXT 2051, a GP38-3. The acoustics become one for the books as the engineer throttles the 2000hp locomotive out of the spur proper onto the RTA mainline, sparing no minute to get the job done swiftly.  CSX's GP38-3 is a railroad unique rebuild analogous to the SD40-3 and GP40-3, using new electronics and a Wabtec cab, affectionately nicknamed the "LEGO Cab". Aside from the frontal rebuild, the rear receives a new ratchet bra...

June 25, 2009 (per Flickr) - likely running as Y322 in summer morning light the job crosses N River Drive heading railroad north. Tom K photo   Tom Klimoski, a famous model railroader in northeast Georgia and forever-member of ECHOES, was very kind to share pictures of the CSX Downtown Spur in its last heyday before the downturn following the 2008 economic recession took a toll on much of the line's business. He has allowed me permission to share them on this blog and by doing so there are plenty of takeaways from the camera roll. To add to the latest discussion of the Downtown Spur operations. I had the honor of being able to finally visit Lance Mindheim's layout after quite a few years; he's done so much to the Downtown Spur setup since the May 2019 visit. Probably one of the most comprehensive operation sessions was conducted impromptu as well, where a lot of the recent railfanning experiences were reenacted and a couple blasts from the past were sprinkled in. But as I ...

Just like the old days, a heavy duty CSX rock train with big six axle power comes off the Homestead Sub, passing the Hialeah Market Tri-Rail Station. After documenting mostly YN3(b) power lately, it was nice to find a YN2-painted original CW44AC on the point. Take away the sliver of Metrorail extension, and the YN3s, and this would be little different than a vantage from the new millennium, the heart of the Anything and Everything era. This is the mainline portion of the inspiration for Lance Mindheim's layouts, and I can never get enough of documenting trains in the Hialeah area despite it being my backyard for all intents and purposes. I have a couple treats for the area coming soon so as 99 Jamz would say, "Keep it locked!" CSX O92109 w/ 19, 5305, 476 hustles by Tri-Rail's Hialeah Market station northward to Hialeah Yard.

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I finished an ops session at Gold Coast Models. It was then that, unexpectedly, I received an email from Lance Mindheim saying he was going to come down to Miami! As some may know, Lance is a talented model railroader responsible for very efficient shelf model layouts. In fact, he runs a business called the Shelf Layouts Company, and does commissions for customers. On the side, he has done three very awesome layouts, the Downtown Spur, East Rail, and the new Los Angeles Junction. His visit to Miami was set for a Wednesday afternoon, which for the first time ever worked for me. The purpose was much like past trips, a day trip from DC to do recon and railfanning of the local rails. The last time he came down here I was still in high school; that was back in 2013. Taking a day off was practically out of the question. Two things just so happened to fall beautifully into place. One was that Anthony Reyes, known by some as "Train Hunters" (t...