Trackside Log for Saturday, July 30, 2011

Marcus and I hadn't made it trackside together in quite some time. Today we decided to head back to New York again for what promised to be a very sunny albeit somewhat hot summer day. Marcus was unfortunately delayed by the closure of the Queen Elizabeth Way so our departure was a bit delayed. Nevertheless, after a reasonable wait at the border for a holiday weekend, we made it to the former New York Central tracks. We exited Interstate 90 at Dunkirk and after finding nothing to photograph proceeded toward Westfield. We attempted to catch an ethanol train in Portland but narrowly missed the pair of BSNF SD40-2s pulling it eastward. We did stick around for another pair though.

• 1151 Van Buren Bay, NY - CSX eastbound - CSXT 552-CSXT 467
  
• 1200 Van Buren Bay, NY - CSX K849 west - CSXT 390-CSXT 674
  

The radio grew quiet and we were getting hungry so we drove to Westfield, picked up a bite to eat, and headed trackside. After only a few bites the first eastbound drew near.

• 1249 Westfield, NY - CSX Q140 east - CSXT 4850-CSXT 7314-CSXT 7900
  
• 1301 Westfield, NY - CSX Q114 east - CSXT 7392-CSXT 4543
  
• 1312 Westfield, NY - Amtrak 48 east - CSXT 6094-AMTK 54-AMTK 58
  

We were not expecting the CSX GP40-2 to be a very late Amtrak train. I can imagine there were some disgruntled passengers today.

• 1321 Westfield, NY - CSX Q115 west - CSXT 5208-CSXT 229-CSXT 247-CSXT 10
  
• 1336 Westfield, NY - CSX Q157 west - CSXT 671-CSXT 5332 (video)
  

Once the angle of the sun became problematic Marcus and I decided to make a little side trip to visit the Western New York & Pennsylvania and the New York & Lake Erie. First up was Falconer where we discovered a C-424 coupled to a spreader. WNYP 4223 is ex-Morristown & Erie 4223 and originally Canadian Pacific 4223.

• 1435 Falconer, NY - Western New York and Pennsylvania power - WNYP 4223
  

After a few photograph we drove north to Gowanda to see what might be strewn around the former Erie tracks.

• 1534 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie power - NYLE 1013-NYLE 6764-NYLE 6758
  
• 1540 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie power - NYLE 77
  
• 1541 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie power - CR 5067
  
• 1545 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie equipment - NYLE 7
  
• 1548 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie equipment - Contrack coach
  

The above ex-Amtrak coach still wears its "Contrack" paint from the movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

• 1554 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie power - NYLE 76
  
• 1555 Gowanda, NY - New York and Lake Erie power - NYLE 78
  

After baking in the sun while photographing the collection of rather sad looking equipment we headed back toward the former New York Central and Nickel Plate main lines. First we stopped by Dunkirk again to see if anything had changed. Nothing had although we discovered that one of the parked coal trains actually had a pair of Union Pacific GE locomotives on the east end. With impossible lighting we drove on for Silver Creek where we determined that a train was lifting out of track 3. Before we could photograph what turned out to be a ballast train a pair of eastbounds rolled through.

• 1708 Silver Creek, NY - CSX eastbound - CITX 2792-CSXT 8138
  
• 1723 Silver Creek, NY - CSX K694 east - HLCX 6206-HLCX 6340
  
• 1735 Silver Creek, NY - CSX ballast train west - HLCX 6302-CSXT 8848
  

The day was getting on so Marcus and I proceeded toward home again. We stopped off in Blasdell where we caught a pair of westbounds leaving the Buffalo area.

• 1926 Blasdell, NY - CSX V818 west - CSXT 315-CSXT 75
  
• 1938 Blasdell, NY - CSX westbound - CSXT 5304-CSXT 5436-CSXT 7884
  

The shadows were quickly deepening so we decided to end our quest and drove back to Canada and to Kelsey's in Fort Erie for supper.