Sunday, May 13, 2012

Virtual Railfanning

I've known of this before, but never really got into it until the other day.  I have been railfanning the former Rock Island line from Davenport to Chicago and down to Peoria via Bing maps.  Awesome stuff!  For a person that has never seen much of this area, it has been a great resource.  My favorite find of today is the Ottawa Silica Plant in Ottawa, IL.  I love it!

Ottawa Silica Company, Ottawa, Illinois

Operated with Larry today.  We talked about operations on both of our layouts mostly, but we each ran a local.

Larry ran the Ottawa local.  This was the first run since moving sand from the mine to the Libbey-Owens-Ford plant.  Larry found it quite interesting to work and was reminded to never break his cardinal rule of moving cars unnecessarily.  The local kept him busy and out of trouble for a while.

I ran the Blue Island local.  Good thing we didn't have any through freights today.  I had cars everywhere!  Who designed this industrial area anyway?  Oh, nevermind!

Earlier during the week, my girls and I had run all the through freights.  I even had to run an extra #2 Tucumcari to Chicago freight.  I have found the last couple of sessions that has been required.  I will run the three remaining locals this coming week.

It was a good time.  Followed up by lunch at Porkys BBQ and a run to the local hobby shop.  It is always good to have friends over to run some trains and socialize.


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