Overland Western Lines - Members Hoot: MILW 261 6/24 (part 1)

Sunday, August 06, 2006

MILW 261 6/24 (part 1)

Broke camp at 7:40 Saturday 6/24, fueled at Portage at 10:10 driving straight through from the apartment (168 miles). Looked around the yard, saw the coal train BNSFs laying over, and noted that foamers, daisy-pickers and looky-lou's were still around, so I'd not missed Steve Sandberg's show. Drove west, and set up at the location of the former rainbow bridge just west of Lewiston East about 11:10.
Was vindicated by hearing the detector at 159.9 go off at 11:15, so I put on the sunscreen, knowing I had a wait in front of me.

The 261 and consist rolled through about 60 per at 11:47, and they got to the Dells right on the advertised at 11:59.

I set up at Kilbourn East (the I90/94 embankment), and they got out of the Dells on time at 12:28, and by me at 12:35.

I hopped on the superslab to bypass the parade on STH16, had a momentary thought of jumping off at Mauston, but when I'd barely caught up to the tail end of the train by Lyndon Station exit (doing 74-ish), I pressed on to New Lisbon.

They arrived there at 13:00, and pulled at 1/2 walking speed up the wye's east leg, stopping eventually by the Legion hall (clearing the wye switch and distant approach signal, but not fouling STH 80) where they filled both water tenders.

While they were filling the tender, Wisconsin Dispatcher sent a freight through eastbound.

They'd used more water than expected, so it took an extra ten minutes, but they were backing around the wye westward by 14:15, with an eastbound departure around 14:25. (I haven't yet applied the "Keith Schmidt Filter" in Paint Shop Pro to these. :>) )