Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

The GRPress says on MLive today that Amtrak is releasing a new schedule for the Grand Rapids-Chicago Pere Marquette passenger train (PDF).

Effective Monday 4 May 2015:

New schedule:
• Depart Grand Rapids at 6 a.m., arrive in Chicago at 9:11 a.m.
• Depart Chicago at 6:30 p.m., arrive in Grand Rapids at 11:39 p.m.

Old schedule:
• Depart Grand Rapids at 7:40 a.m., arrive in Chicago at 10:47 a.m.
• Depart Chicago at 4:55 p.m., arrive in Grand Rapids at 9:58 p.m.

The changes allow for nine hours on a Chicago day trip, instead of six hours currently -- I once did a Chicago day trip to a computer show at McCormick Place. Of more interest is that it will add "eight to 10 crew jobs based in Grand Rapids' new Vernon J. Ehlers Amtrak Station, the company says". I wonder if they might be combined with discussions previously of adding a second round trip? They're running around 103,000 passengers a year currently.

Of course, this makes the Holland stops earlier in the morning and later in the evening, as well. Let's just hope this schedule gets honored better by CSX than the old one.

Effective 5/4/2015 Mon

Dr. Phil

Posted on Dreamwidth
Crossposted on LiveJournal

Back in March I was able to score a double -- one of the coal unit trains and part of the M-231 construction (DW). Amazingly almost a month later I did it again.

On Easter Eve, while traveling from seeing Transcendence to the D&W gorcery store in Holland, I saw a pair of BNSF diesels heading slowly west along Lakewood Boulevard leading a full unit coal train -- as opposed to the southbound empties I had shot in March. I knew it was going slowly as it would have to take the cutoff to go north, so I kept going, but where to shoot?

Practically speaking I am all about the head end of trains, so I needed to be over the grade crossing, so that after I got my shot we could go on grocery shopping. After all, this is a long train, maybe 50-100 hopper cars. So there's a no-name gas station just past there, big modern slab of concrete and a convenience store.

Even better, it's right by the tight curve of the cutoff -- almost model railroad like. Lined up the Bravada, brought out the D100 and the 28-80mm f3.3-5.6G AF-NIKKOR and waited.


Here comes the train, tried to get the shot head-on. 75mm (about 105mm FX equivalent). (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


And close up of BNSF GE ES44AC 5964 at 28mm (42mm equivalent). If it looks like the locomotive is leaning away from me -- it is. Railroad curves have a superelevated outside rail. This was the hero shot of the cover of my Spring 2014 PHYS-1070 Final Exam [Form-B]. The A-exam used the shot from March. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


BNSF SD70ACe 9271. Trailing units aren't nearly as photogenic as lead locomotives, but we're counting coup here. Also, those overhangs on the back of both locomotives on the left? Those are the oversized radiators to deal with the waste heat from the massive turbocharged 4400hp and 4300hp diesels engines. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


When we parked at the grocery store, we were far enough back to see the coal crowned the open hopper cars. Here at trackside you can't tell they're full unless you inspect the springs on the trucks (wheel mountings, bogeys in Europe). Old coal hoppers had triangular chutes underneath and unloaded by opening the doors. These cars have round bottoms. At one end there's a rotary mounted coupler, so the cars are turned upside-down two-at-a-time to unload. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


When driving south to the movie, I spotted this covered hopper on the siding at the pet food elevator on US-31, so I stopped to shoot it after groceries. At 55mph, couldn't tell if this was a paint job or an elaborate graffiti tag. Appears to be the latter. But Acer UNIX Erase? It could have been an ad for an Acer computer, which comes with both Windows and Linux, where you choose which one to run. This is the standard three-quarters view favored by railfans. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


I moved the Bravada to get a better angle on the artwork. If you enlarge, I think you can guess that the Jetsons characters are tags, not commercial art. It's not too different from the previous shot, but there's a cool diagonal lens flare -- even without a lens hood, it's hard to get modern multicoated Nikon lenses to flare like older lenses. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)


When the M-231 bypass around the Grand Haven US-31 lift bridge and Holland was first proposed, probably forty years ago, it was supposed to go from I-196 in the south to I-96 just north of a new Grand River crossing. Currently, if the Grand Haven lift bridge jams in the UP position, the detour is to 68th Avenue in Allendale -- a forty mile detour. The new as-built M-231 crossing will cut that in half when in gets finished in 2016.


View of M-231 construction looking north from M-45. You can see the overpass over Rich Street under construction in the distance. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Half a mile east of here they are widening the intersection with 120th Avenue which gets close to the US-31 freeway in Holland by the Chicago Avenue interchange. So the M-231 bypass doesn't actually connect with either US-31 or I-196 at the southern end.


Another way they're cheapening this project after farbling around for forty years putting it off is to make the southern end of M-231 just a grade level intersection with turn lanes under construction here, presumably with a traffic light at M-45. (Click on photo for larger.)
©2014 Dr. Philip Edward Kaldon (All Rights Reserved)

Still, it is exciting to see progress on this. Next up, the northern end of the construction project.

Dr. Phil

The End of the World is Coming

No, not that Mayan calendar nonsense. You do understand that just as our calendar ends on December 31st, you just roll over to a new calendar, right?

In this case I'm talking about the imminent winter storm. Oh look, The Weather Channel is naming them now. Welcome to Winter Storm Draco. It's been nearly 300 days since we had any appreciable snow -- and while there are blizzard conditions in some places, West Michigan isn't expected to get more than a few inches.

But that's for Friday. Here on Thursday it was just wet. Lots and lots of wet. Cold and raining.

A Day Trip to Chicago

Mrs. Dr. Phil ventured off to see Pat and Will and meet Emma (from New Zealand by way of Siem Reap). We could've driven, but it's a lot of driving, and well, the rain with threat of snow at the time we had to make plans. The day trip via Amtrak gives you about five hours plus on the ground. Given that I'd slow them down, and if I didn't have my vehicle, I doubt we'd all fit in their car, I dropped Debbie off at the Holland Amtrak station in the cold rain and dark.

Then I drove around to the Paragon bank parking lot and maneuvered the Bravada so that I could briefly open a window and keep the Nikon D1X and lens dry. It turned out to be pretty challenging to get pictures. At ISO 800 and shooting wide open at 55mm f5.6, I was running long shutter speeds. Then the autofocus was getting confused by the large rain drops, so I had to go to manual focus. And the bright headlights and side ditch lights of the locomotive threatened to mess up the exposures, so I switch to Manual mode. If it wasn't for the outstanding Vibration Reduction of the 18-55mm f3.5-5.6G VR DX AF-Nikkor, I doubt I'd have gotten anything this good.


Ten minutes before train time and I was struck by the bright red color of the berries on this tree out my front windshield lit up by my headlights. 1/8th of a second exposure. (Click on photo for larger.)


Amtrak's Pere Marquette coming into Holland MI from Grand Rapids. By 8:29am EST I got the exposure up to 1/30th of a second. (Click on photo for larger.)


I had the longer 70-300mm lens, but it isn't VR, so I never put it on. This stuff is a lot easier to shoot in the summertime. (Click on photo for larger.)


Former Amtrak EMD F40PH locomotive, turned into a cab control baggage car (known as a "cabbage"). The actual locomotive is a GE P40DC pushing on the rear of the train. With the train in the station, the front fouls the grade crossing at 8th Street and so the gates and lights continue running until after the train leaves. I wanted to move to a different angle, but forgot that when the lights were flashing, the idiots dive out of 8th Street and carom through the slalom curves of the Paragon bank parking lot I was in like they were running some damned Grand Prix race. So I managed to turn the Bravada around and shoot out of the driver's window instead of the passenger window, but didn't get a chance to do the wide angle shot I'd planned. (Click on photo for larger.)


Before the Amtrak train left, I could see a headlight in the distant siding. I thought it was the CSX freight that often runs either before or after the Pere Marquette, but it turned out to be some local switching run. (Click on photo for larger.)

Pictures Or It Didn't Happen

As for Mrs. Dr. Phil's trip, she had a great time and it sounds like they spent hours having lunch at the Russian Tea Time before wandering by the Land's End store in Sears so she could look for a new winter jacket.


Pat, Mrs. Dr. Phil, Will and Emma at Sears in Chicago, taken by a helpful salesperson. (Click on photo for larger.)

No pictures of the arrival of the evening train on account of darkness. On the other hand, the rain had stopped, which made the rendezvous all much easier. (grin)

Dr. Phil

All In A Day's Work

Just about exactly two years ago, Mrs. Dr. Phil did a day trip to Chicago (DW) and I got a couple of train pictures out of it.

Well, Mrs. Dr. Phil had a chance to visit with her same grade school friend, and I had an opportunity to (a) shoot trains and (b) visit with a college friend -- so we jumped at it!

This time the plan was to drive to Michigan City IN, backtrack to South Haven MI, then pick up Mrs. Dr. Phil and drive home. (grin)


The morning run from Michigan City to Chicago, crossing over from the South Shore yard to the station track. (Click on photo for larger.)


Mrs. Dr. Phil boarding. Why does SHE get to ride all these trains? Oh, because I'm taking the pictures. Duh. (Click on photo for larger.)


The fairly nice and new, but low-level platform. There is a building, but the ticket machines are on the outside. It's like $8.50 each way for about a two-hour train ride to the Windy City. (Click on photo for larger.)


It took a little monkeying around in Ulead PhotoImpact, but I managed to tease Mrs. Dr. Phil out of the glare of the window as the train rolled by. (Click on photo for larger.)


And off they go. (Click on photo for larger.)


I had about 15-20 minutes before the evening train arrived. A pair of orange South Short EMD GP-38-2 diesels were switching some cars around against the late bright sun. (Click on photo for larger.)


From my platform bench seat, I noticed this large expansion gap where a switch connected to the mainline. Interesting that the gap is so large in the summer and that only two bolts are holding it in place. After peak temperatures of 104°F just the other day up in West Michigan, Sunday afternoon it was just in the 80s and there was a pleasant breeze under the brilliant sunshine. I'll use this picture when I talk about expansion joints in my Fall class... (Click on photo for larger.)


Now arriving... (Click on photo for larger.)


I just had enough time to walk back to my camera bags and swap the D1X and 70-300mm zoom for the D1 and the 12-24mm wide angle zoom. I normally use motor drives on Single frame, but in order to get the older D1 to buffer multiple images, I had preset it for Continuous, and it rattled off three shots at 4.5fps. This is the last shot, heavily backlit, and the best one. Good anticipation! (Click on photo for larger.)


Here she is! Back from a visit and a Chicago River boat architectural tour. (Click on photo for larger.)

A fun time was had by all. I had lunch at the Thirsty Perch in South Haven MI with Cole and John -- and because they had all sorts of lovely spicy offerings, dinner with Mrs. Dr. Phil at the Thirsty Perch in South Haven MI on the way home. Funny Thing 1: I had the same waitress, who was delighted to have a repeat customer on the same day. Funny Thing 2: As we exited the restaurant at about 9:45pm EDT (the Michigan City IN trains run on CDT), Mrs. Dr. Phil practically walked into someone she knew from graduate school the other year. None of us actually live in South Haven IN. (grin)

The world can be a very small place at times.

Dr. Phil

Plan C

Mrs. Dr. Phil took a day trip to Chicago to visit with a grade school classmate before they go back to Germany. Chicago is just on the other side of Lake Michigan, but getting there is another problem. There are two ferries which cross the lake, but one goes to Milwaukee and the other much further north in Wisconsin. (I'd love it if there was a direct ferry to Chicago.) I don't remember what Plan A was, but Plan B was to drive Mrs. Dr. Phil to Michigan City IN and take the South Shore electric train to/from Chicago -- particularly handy because that line also serves the Illinois Central/Metra line to Hyde Park. Then I pointed out that she could take the Amtrak train from Holland in the morning and the South Shore coming back, and we wouldn't have to get up nearly so early, so that became Plan C.


Spectacular weather for the 8:20am EDT arrival of the Pere Marquette, making its first stop in Holland after starting in Grand Rapids. Heavily funded by the State of Michigan, the Pere Marquette not only gets Superliner coaches, it gets a lot of passengers. Lots of people crowding the platform and the parking lot looked full. So I dropped Mrs. Dr. Phil off and then circled back to the lot to sit and wait to photograph the train.

A Strange Visitor

But what's this hanging on the end of the train? A private dome car?

A former Burlington Route stainless steel streamliner dome car, Silver Splendor.

Turned out it was being used by some group -- they were loading on a bunch of coolers and looked to be ready to make a party out of it.

The platform at Holland isn't all that long, so after they boarded the Amtrak passengers, they pulled ahead, blocking 8th Street, and then boarded the private dome car. There's a guy who's a regular railfan and sometime stringer for the local newspapers that I've met before at the Holland station -- and he was really surprised that the grapevine hadn't alerted anyone about the CB&Q dome car. (grin)

And Later That Night

There are two Michigan City IN South Shore stations -- and I've never been to either one. Or ridden the South Shore for that matter, despite all the years I was in Chicagoland. However, the Caroll Avenue station not only had many more parking spaces, it was closer to the freeway, so we decided to rendezvous there. Mrs. Dr. Phil's train was scheduled to arrive at 11:05pm CDT. Google Maps pegged the drive from Allendale at 119 miles and 2 hours 16 minutes. So I left around 9:30pm EDT and with stops for gas and slowdowns for all manners of construction, I arrived in Michigan City just after some rain about 20-25 minutes to spare.

The South Shore has always struck me as a very practical little railroad. The parking lots for 200+ cars are stuffed around a series of crossing railroad tracks and late at night on a Saturday were surprisingly full.


I turned the flash off to get this arriving blurred shot -- the guy in the reflective safety vest is from the car shops down the track. The four-car train was split in two and he took the back half to park overnight, while the remaining two cars went on to South Bend. He said they run over 80% on time, with a ±4 minute window, and they were right on the outside edge.

Anyway, Mrs. Dr. Phil had a lovely time. Amtrak was delayed twice on the way to Chicago -- once to wait for a long coal train to pass on the hill south of St. Joseph MI and once for the inevitable delays at the complex interlocking at Porter IN -- getting in about an hour late. So by the time she got home, she joked she was already running on about Plan G. (grin)

Just past midnight Eastern and it was still near 80°F and muggy. Got home around 2:30am. Nice to see some trains. (double-track-grin)

Dr. Phil