wildfire19861987's video: UP Herington and Lost Springs subs - 9-11-11 Part 3

Part 3 of the video. Once again me and Eccentriceric pooled our resorces and went railfanning. This time we covered UP's former Cotton Belt/Rock Island line between Herington and Topeka. We started at Alta Vista, where we caught 3 trains: A manifest with a C-40-8W leading, a unit ethanol train, and a doublestack. The last 2 had to wait at the end of double track at Dwight for 2 Eastbounds. We moved a couple miles West of town to catch them. The first EB was an auto/doublestack led by a 3 window SD-60M. The 2nd one was a HUGE manifest being pulled by 2 struggling C-40-8's: one CSX and one UP! After that we were able to catch the WB doublestack as it got underway again. Thanks to a 10MPH slow order over a frog that was being worked on at White City we were able to get ahead of it and the ethanol train East of Herington I didn't get it on video because I wanted stills of them). While there we caught an EB manifest with a patched SP C-44. We were planning on hanging around Herington, but then heard a UP freight would be heading down the Lost Springs sub, so we went after it. We got to Lost Springs in time to see a Northbound BNSF unit crude oil train heading onto their Strong City sub (which connects to the UP there) on it's way back to Nebraska. The UP train turned out to be the 1st manifest we had first caught at Alta Vista. We beat it to Marion and to a crossing North of Peabody. While there an off work UP conductor happened to show up at the crossing and we talked to him as the train went by. With the sun lowering we headed to the UP/BNSF crossing at Peabody, and found a empty BNSF OGEX coal waiting for another SB UP freight to get to Peabody so it could go up to Nebraska. While there an EB grain on BNSF's Newton sub went by. With the sun setting the UP freight appeared (the ethanol train!) and stopped short of the crossing. I swung my camcorder around in time to catch an EB BNSF doublestack clatter across the diamonds. After that the UP train took off, followed by the OGEX coal. Alltogether an excelent day of railfanning (wish there had been more daylight). Oh and yes we did take the fact it was the 10th anniversary of 9/11 into consideration. The only incident was a guy who stood in his yard and watched us for a bit while we were waiting at Alta Vista. Otherwise we didn't even see any cops, and all of the train crews were friendly.