Are you tired of the passing NS and CSX trains with the big fancy modern power made by EMD and GE?

Do you want to be able to photograph something other than wide cabs all day?

Well if so we now have the cure for you. It is our new short line section that covers the GNRR. This is a classic short line with EMD’s that are from the 1st generation of road power and into the 2nd generation as well. And best of all the line starts in Marietta and runs north into the scenic countryside of north GA.

Slamming the diamond at Howell

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OCS coming under Marietta Blvd

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Coming out of the tunnel on the Coastline Outbound

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Site News

Ok this is isnt site news but still:

As some of you probably know Mr. Broughman, the owner of the Bullsheet website has decided to pull the plug on the CSX train listings page. Thankfully a fellow Atlanta railfan Joe Hill has saved the website and reuploaded it to his Georgia Railfanning page,heres the link to bookmark

http://www.georgiarailfan.net/csxtrains/freights.html

Area news

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Bolton third main

The third main at Bolton is coming along slowly as ever, since my last report in late July the trackwork has progressed up to Parott Avenue with ties layed up to the crossing.

Heres a shot of the OCS passing the work at Bolton.

OCS passing Parrot Ave on miserably cloudy August 27th evening, more on this later in the report.

Sightings

The big news of this (or i guess last) week was the NS OCS. The OCS was scheduled to run all the way from Altoona to Jacksonville but the brass decided to cancel the Atlanta to Jax segment of the trip. As the trip date of August 27th approached many area railfans were left wondering whether the train was going to make it into town. As it turned out, the train stopped for 30 minutes at Whitaker yard in Austell to let the brass detrain before deadheading to Inman yard where it would change crews before heading up the Piedmont to Altoona. Of course on the day the special came through it was totally cloudy, and as the train popped into sight at Parrott Avenue the rain began to fall, hardly ideal weather for railfanning but having never seen the OCS before i wasnt going to miss this.

The OCS approaching Parrott Avenue

The OCS stopped at Inman for recrewing

Heading up the Piedmont behind Atlantic Station.

Not much else of interest lately, though i havnt been railfanning in over a week.

While waiting for the OCS, this 732 came by Parrott Ave with a CEFX second in tow.

Report to be updated shortly with more pictures.

David is currently MIA somewhere in Ohio so there will be no report next week unless he gets back.

Site Updates

Not much work on the actual site, my return to Athens made me feel like working on AthensRails. I have started a tour of the Atlanta Terminal (both CSX and NS) but its nowhere near complete at the moment.

I have also added a safety page to the main “about” page. Safety is often one of the biggest questions that railfans have about visiting Atlanta so i thought it was best to address that. I have also introduced the safety rating system on that page that will be used on Line tours.

Foreign Power update

A good bit of foreign power on the rails this weekend, though i missed what should have been the catch of the week. NS 220 was supposed to have a TFM SD70MAC leading on Sunday July 26th but despite waiting from 7 AM to after 12 i never caught the train, most likely it got through Bolton before daylight as Amtrak was running 4 hours late.

KCS 4024 leads NS 220 past the new signals at Bolton

A solid set of UP power passing through Bolton

Conrail Update

Just one sighting this week.

A SD60I trailing southbound on the Piedmont Division at Chamblee

Anyways just pretend it is still yesterday, and ill get on with the update.

Area news

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Bolton third main

NS has made some significant progress on their third main at Bolton since my last visit, more welded rail and ties have been layed down north of the Bolton Road bridge and a new signal bridge is going up at Parrott Ave.

Here are two shots of the progress

Third main progress, all the rail from the switch back was layed this week.

New signal at Parrott Avenue, it should make for some more interesting photos and atleast there will be a signal to check there now. I guess though last weeks shots are now historic though!

Foreign Power sightings

Nothing really special this week, (next week will be a different story though!), two UP powered trains in Austell, the normal GEVO’s on the Scherer trains though the AC44’s are seeing more use with the GEVO’s now liable to shoot parts through the carbody above run 4, i guess it gives a new meaning to BNSF’s ES44C4’s name!

UP power heading through Austell on a NS mixed freight.

A NS stacker with UP power, including a UP DPU is pulled back into Whittaker yard.

Conrail Sightings

A pretty good week as far as Conrails are concerned, three total including one in the lead, all seen on the NS North District.

NS 6772 leads a unknown train north out of Innman past Parrott Ave.

NS 6784 on light power move 994 heading towards Austell at Parott Ave.

Conrail Quality 8774 heading south on the Alabama District at Austell.

Included in this report will be unusual sightings, site updates, and whatever else is interesting from that week, the posts will be made by myself or David, if you want to contribute photos for the update post them at the Atlanta Rails yahoo group.

Site Updates

Just getting the site up and running, David has started work on a A&WP line tour and i have started one for the NS Piedmont Division, still very much WIP, hopefully we will have some significant work done by next weeks update.

Around town

This week saw a flurry of rare movements throughout the Atlanta Area, a Schnabel car moved up the Abbeville Sub headed for Bolton, Ga behind a YN1 SD40-2, as of last report the car is in Howell Yard.

On July 14th NS derailed several cars near Talapoosa, GA shutting down the mainline for one day, Amtrak was cancelled both ways that day but on the night after the derailment, Amtrak 20 and NS 220 with KCS power detoured over the A&WP sub, probably the first revenue passenger train in over 30 years. If anyone documented either move please do share!

On July 14th NS Piedmont train 153 ran with a set of KCS Grey AC44’s, on the same day a solid set of CN power was seen on NS Z1N

Joe Hill shot the Z1N passing Sandy, GA on its way to Florida, video can be seen here, the power is scheduled to return north sometime in the next week.

http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=6230

NS 153 stopped at Chamblee,GA

NS 153 entering Inman Yard

Conrail Sightings

As of yesterday there are two Conrail B40-8’s assigned to the Union City are, 5971 on the Manchester side and 5973 on the A&WP side

Ex-Conrail B40-8 5973 parked at the Doghouse in Fairburn, photo by David Stewart

Former Conrail 5973 can be seen among the power at Fairburn on the A&WP side, also new to the Fairburn fleet is GP40-2 6068

Two other Conrails were caught in the Atlanta area this week

Former LMSX engine NS 8452 is seen leading NS train 332 at Chamblee on June 13th

I wouldnt post a trailing shot in the updates normally but this one was too good, cant be too many left with the SD40E program.

The city of Atlanta is a great place to railfan but there is relatively little documentation to help visitors and people new to the area, most existing guides tend to stay away from the area which is a shame because it has so much too offer. The site will cover the main Atlanta fulton county area as well as surrounding towns such as Union City and Fairburn.

Im Nikos Kavoori and i have been railfanning Atlanta for about a month now, another area railfan, David Stewart will be contributing as well, and alot more im sure since he has a good 20 years of experience railfanning the city.

I would like to thank Dillon Hayward for setting up the site for me, and helping with hosting costs.

Also take a look at my other site, AthensRails for information about railfanning in the Athens area

For discussion of railroads in the Atlanta area, visit and register at out Yahoo group

Check back for updates!