Recent Digital Photos
by Mike Condren

54 Years of Railroad Photography 1960-2014

Mike's Main Railroad Web Site

Jan 29, 2014

I got a call on Jan 28 from a friend for over 40 years that he was the flagman at a power line construction sit passing over the KCS just south of Decatur, AR. I decided to go see it the next day. Here we see the construction people working on the lines, attaching the insulators and removing the pulleys used to stretch the wire on this newly constructed power line. To protect the railway and another power line running along the east side of AR 59 highway, two vertical poles,with horizontal poles between them, keep the wires from dropping onto the tracks or other power lines during the construction.

This was the first train through the site after my arrival, a northbound general freight.

The wire crews were working in buckets in some of the cranes with the highest reach that I ever had seen. The image at right was taken with the normal lens. The next image was taken with my 300mm lens of the same crew. The last image is of the crew working on the line east of the tracks, again with the 300mm lens.

The next action was an empty unit coal train which had been at the Flint Creek SWEPCO power plant at Gentry, AR, the town just south of my site.

Work on the west side of the tracks are done.

As long as the workers are not working within 5 feet of the tracks, they may work without "Track & Time" from the railroad. With the work on the west side done, except for removal of the poles protecting the tracks, "Track & Time" is needed from the KCS. Flagman J R Christenberry coordinates this between the constractors doing the work on the power line and the railroad via radio. Here we see Jim sitting in his red GMC Yukon.

Need I say that we are HAWG fans? I tell people I have to be a HAWG fan as my great grandmother was a Pigg!

The construction workers positioned there auger truck and small bucket crane in position to remove the poles on the west side of the tracks. One of the crane trucks is seen leaving the east side work area. Flagman Christenberry got "Track & Time" after this southbound general freight train and a loaded unit coal train.

Here is the southbound loaded unit coal train passing our site.

The battery in my SLR was getting low so I switched to my "smart phone" for the rest of the pictures of the construction site, namely the removal of the protection poles. With the trucks in position and "Track & Time" until after the dispatcher shift change after 3pm, work began on the removal of the poles, first on the west side of the tracks.

After removing the poles on the west side they moved to the east side, next to the highway.

With the poles all down, I went back to shooting my SLR camera, and I headed to the first crossing south of the pole line to shoot this southbound loaded unit coal train. The wires above the coal train are at the construction site where I had been.

I then headed back toward Tahlequah and home but caught the coal train at Watts and headed for the feed mill between Watts and Westville, OK.

Feb. 6, 2014

When I arrived at the site of the former MKT station in Muskogee, it was snowing. I got out my 300mm lens and grabbed this shot.

After a few moments I heard a horn blowing for the MLK crossing north of my location and this train appeared from the yard. This train will be seen switching that yard over the next 2+ hours.

The freight is then seen passing under the famous Court Street bridge over the tracks. Martin Luther King, Broadway and Okmulgee Street crossings off and on for the time I watched over the next 2 hours.

During one of the times the freight was backed into the yard, this hi-railer passed my location.

These units were parked near the UP yard office near MLK street.

These units were in the engine terminal area of the UP yard.

While crossing the tracks on MLK, I noticed a train on the mainline north of that crossing. I repositioned myself at the east side of the blocked Broadway crossing and got these shots of the southbound vehicle train with this "patched" former SP unit with UP heralds on the locomotive "cheeks".

After the vehicle train had cleared, I got this shot from the east side of the train I first shot some 2 hours earlier, still blocking the Broadway crossing because the gates were down.

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