On January 16th at about 19:00 hrs. a westbound CSX container train derailed in the town of East Rochester, N.Y.. I first heard about it at 9pm that night, but I was home with the kids so I couldn't get out to shoot that night. The next morning after dropping the baby off at daycare I headed to the scene to see what was going on.
The first thing I saw was the trailing unit still coupled to the first platform of the train. Next I noticed the shredded and twisted containers tossed about the scene. Some of the containers look to have been empty and a few were carrying large rolls of paper. After leaving the north side of the tracks on Despatch drive, named after the N.Y.C. R.R.'s car shops that were located here, I went to the south side of the tracks to get a better view.
On the south side I got a close up look of the trucks and wheels stacked here and there, most of them were packed with dirt, mud and evergreen tree branches that were torn from trees along the right of way. Also surprising to me was the sight of a double stack car actually torn into 2 or 3 pieces! I tried to count how many platforms were on the ground but they were so mangled and piled up that it was impossible.
I have been to a few wrecks in my few years but this one by far was the most impressive and terrible. I hope events like this remain few and far between.

Today at Rochester there was a lot going on, track workers at the west end, 10 mile an hour speed restrictions at both the east and west ends, a large 4 axle wheeled doing something to a GE unit on the "old hole" and 2 yard jobs working simultaneously! So to add to the excitement was what #48 had behind it! A pair of Genesis engines were hauling 6 Superliner, 2 level cars! I have had people tell me they've seen them but I figured they were mistaken!

The Livonia, Avon & Lakeville, in my opinion, operates probably the most meticulously maintined fleet of Alcos in the world! With that being said, today I was lucky enough to catch two of their units operating a rail train between Avon and Rush, New York.

(top) This is #420, an Alco C-420, leading the train on this cold January morning!

(middle) The second unit is #425, an Alco C-425.

(bottom) This last shot shows the pair and the lead flat of the CWR train. The Continuous Welded Rail, or CWR, will be a great improvment over the lighter rail that is in use now on the LA&L.

On Tuesday 1-09-07, I decided to head to the westside of the county to check out the action over there. To say the least I was not disappointed! I was only able to sit for 20 minutes but my daughter and I were treated to 3 trains in the first 15 minutes.

(top) The first train was a EB TV lead by a UP patched former SP GE unit that took the main line through the city.

(bottom left) The next train was about 5 minutes later, a nice pair of "standard cab" EMD's headed east down the shore. At CP 382 a segment of the old West Shore splits off from the Chicago Line to avoid some off the bottle-neck created by the yard in Rochester, N.Y.

(bottom right) The last train we saw was a WB mixed freight under the charge of a brace of UP units, with the leader displaying the striking American Flag logo.