ATN Santa Train!!

12-4-10 (Please read description!!)

I was completely unaware of this event or this video would have been much better!

I was awakened this Saturday morning by a train horn. Not just any horn, a Leslie RS5T! My thoughts were "A train? Here? On a Saturday? The train doesn't run through here on Saturday!!! Go back to sleep!! You have a 13 hour shift ahead! Must have been a truck on the nearby highway or PRSX 1975 (more on that unit to come) doing work over at Progress Rail." I thought. I live about 1/2 mile from the tracks and, although Progress Rail is over 2 mile from my house, it was cold this morning and the sound carries very well in cold weather. Many times the train sounds like it is in my back yard! With that in mind i drifted back to sleep only to hear the horn again? Not just the Leslie this time, but a P3 as well? A horn dual?!?! It has to be the the Blues Brothers as their horns are quite unique on this line. HBR 2001 GP38-2 w/P3 horn and FCR 2002 GP20 w/ RS5T horn. But why are they running separately?? My curiosity was thoroughly peaked now! I quickly got dressed and headed out to see what was up.

Arriving in town, I quickly became aware of the situation. Units 2001 and 2002 were sitting idle at the depot in Albertville in slight, yet obvious Christmas decor. The ATN ran a Christmas Train! And I missed it!!!!! Grr!! :( Turns out the town had a "Breakfast with Santa" event this day and Santa arrived by train! They had given cab tours to the kids on both units and had let them blow the horns and such. Cool!

After a short wait, several folks (including some little kids) boarded the locomotives. Knowing now that they had done a few cab tours earlier, I thought maybe they were doing rides now as well. I found out later that day that it was the crew's families that had come with them for this event.

Now on with the video details. Shortly after my arrival, and after the crew's families had boarded, I caught the train heading out of town to the North. Knowing that there was an out of service signal and stop and flag order at the US HWY 431 crossing and still thinking that this was just a short cabride for some lucky folks, I waited a bit before finally realizing the train had gone all the way down to the Guntersville wye.

Now, with a realization of what was going on, I headed down to Guntersville and set up for this shot of the train moving slowly over old jointed rail and beginning the uphill run back to Albertville. The line changes to CWR at the location I was set up at.

A final, departing shot. The train makes it's way back through Northern Albertville, stopping and flagging the US431 crossing, and headed towards downtown and ultimately back to Gadsden. I had to end the chase here as I had to go to work. :(

Thanks for watching!!

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Alabama
• Tennessee
• River
• Railroad
• ATN
• Railfan
• Train
• Electro
• Motive
• Diesel
• EMD
• GP20
• GP38-2
• GP40
• OmniTrax
• Hudson
• Bay
• HBR
• Fulton
• County
• FCR
• Nathan
• Airchime
• P3
• Leslie
• Typhon
• RS5T
• Christmas
• Santa
• BamaRailfan
• Albertville
• Guntersville
• trains
• rail
• locomotive
• railfan

[izzwardo]

Wow you sure are lucky to have heard all of these cool horns on a locomotive in person. The only horns that come through here are K3's and K5's. The short line BNSF usually sport a RS3L which puts a smile on my face!

[BamaRailfan]

@izzwardo As long as they are in good shape and in tune, I like almost all of the horns. I favor the Leslies though. ;) Thanks for the comment!

[JgordonAmtrak1]

awesome! that horn was great, wish it came here

[BamaRailfan]

@JgordonAmtrak1 I think it does go down there on occasion actually. :)

[UFO151]

Beautiful S5T horn!

[BamaRailfan]

@UFO151 Absolutely! I am spoiled as there are 2 locomotives here that have that horn. :)

[BamaRailfan]

@WhoSaidTyler That might work. It has for "The Recorder" at least! ;)

[biggdaddy2001]

man did u see thw tracks sink at 2:43 man that is some rotted ties

[WhoSaidTyler]

LOL, forgot that one. Well, why not mount a camera on the pilot? I wonder if that still counts as "in the cab"?

[BamaRailfan]

@WhoSaidTyler Thanks!

Yeah at 2:45 it is hairy for sure! That transition area from jointed to CWR is in bad shape!

I know the area you talk about very well. Too bad that whole neighborhood had degraded significantly over the years...

A cabride video would be nice, but ATN policy now is no electronic devices in the cab. Still, maybe one day. ;)

There are indeed two old trestles on the grade down to G'ville. They are in rough shape from what I hear..