Norfolk Southern Surprise: High Hood GP38-2 on the GR&I Branch

Sometimes, chance encounters on the railroad are the best.

On July 17th, 2018, we were traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana for another rail-related project and decided to make a pit-stop at Chick-Fil-A in Fort Wayne before continuing south on I-69. After stopping for lemonade, we noticed what appeared to be the headlight of a locomotive as we traveled over the W. Coliseum Blvd grade crossing. Sure enough, Norfolk Southern’s LF14 local was working the industries along the former Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad mainline.

To our surprise, Norfolk Southern High Hood GP38-2 no. 5196 was in charge of today’s LF14. Less than a week earlier, on July 11th, we captured the very same EMD locomotive on the Amtrak Michigan Line - leading train B33 between Kalamazoo and Jackson. We even had the opportunity to capture the locomotive operating long hood forward, a Southern Railway tradition that is becoming harder and harder to see in 2018.

Norfolk Southern no. 5196 was built in October of 1976 for the Southern Railway by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. The 2,000 horsepower locomotive Served the South on the Southern Railway System for six years prior to the Norfolk Southern merger in 1982. Equipped with a high short hood and set up to run long hood forward, the 5196 is one of 256 such examples of high hood GP38-2 locomotives ordered by the Southern Railway.

In August of 2017, many of these locomotives were sold off in a Roanoke, VA auction, leaving 126 active units on the current NS roster. To date, 32 of the remaining 126 locomotives have been rebuilt with Admiral-style cabs, making it even harder to see high hood locomotives on Norfolk Southern. Most of the remaining high hoods are equipped with radio control equipment, which allows the crews to remotely switch yard and industry trackage without being present in the locomotive cab.

In Fort Wayne, we captured the 5196 in remote control operation on the GR&I Branch as it switched out Buzzi Unicem’s (pronounced Boozy Unichem) cement plant off Investment Drive. Today’s three man crew included a conductor trainee who was learning the ropes of local switching out of East Wayne Yard.

The GR&I Branch, as it is called today, extends north out of Fort Wayne from Runnion Junction to an industrial park near I-69 on the north side of town. The GR&I is the former Grand Rapids & Indiana Railroad Company.

Subscribers: help support us by crowdfunding through Patreon or PayPal. With your support, we can continue to produce high-quality railroad media for you to enjoy. Even just $1 per month is a huge help.

Contribute via Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DelayInBlock
Contribute via PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/delayinblock

Check out our web store: http://www.delayinblock.com

Thanks for watching! Please comment, rate, and Subscribe!

Copyright 2017. Any illegal reproduction of this video and its content is strictly prohibited. Full legal action will take place if necessary if reproduced or licensed without expressed written permission from Delay In Block Productions.

Note:

Please excuse the advertisements. Through the Google Adsense program, the advertisements help me pay for the trips I take to capture the trains.

Thanks,

-DIB

Видео Norfolk Southern Surprise: High Hood GP38-2 on the GR&I Branch канала Delay In Block® Productions