UNION PACIFIC

What could be better? A UP stack train southbound, a BNSF coal train northbound, both meeting on the tracks at Cohutta! I've got my camera set, i've got my video camera running. I catch this train heading south on the west track, the video camera is catching the two running by each other on the east track. But alas, it is not to be. When both trains have passed, I find that the video camera ran out of tape before the two trains even neared Cohutta. D'oh!

The draw of railroading is the machine - big, loud, high-horsepower machines that haul thousands of tons of cargo thousands of miles over thin ribbons of steel. It's sometimes easy to forget that those machines are ran by flesh and blood people.

The conductor of this UP Stack train inspects a passing auto-rack near Oostanaula, GA.

A UP stack train comes off the siding at Oostanaula.

On an overcast morning, a transcontinental freight treads it's way over the diamond in downtown Dalton, GA.

Union Pacific approaches the signal at 97.4 (Shannon, GA), also known as Dairy Barn.

Union Pacific unit leads a container train on Norfolk Southern rails south of Dalton, GA.

A UP unit and it's CSX counterpart wait on the siding at Resaca for a passing train.

Beaten and burned but still rollin', a couple of GE's finest make Union Pacific's presence felt in north Georgia.

A southbound general merchandise train takes a rest on the siding at Resaca, Georgia.

Union Pacific makes it's presense known on the East Coast with a stack train rolling through downtown Calhoun, Georgia.

An SD70, SD40-2T, and SD60 head for the crossing at Hermitage Road, just south of Shannon, GA.

A Union Pacific SD70MAC and a primer gray Norfolk Southern unit head up a northbound container train at the Etowah Turn on CSX's Western & Atlantic Subdivision.

In 1994, railroads were still retreating in North America. Naysayers were calling for the doom of the rail lines. It was very unusual to see foreign power on the home rails, and even more unusual to see experimental units mucking around the country side. These UP SD40-2 "Long Snoots" were one of the railroads early attempts at remote controlled units. The longer noses held extra radio equipment.

The mainline signal goes caution as a Norfolk Southern freight train, headed by U-Pac power takes Pinsion Siding, just south of Plainville, GA.

No, this is not a Photoshop trick - the skies really ARE that blue in January in Georgia. The temps however, were a balmy 65 F as I snapped this photo of a southbound CSX intermodal blasting through the crossing at McDaniel Station, GA.