Included:
1) UP/Rio Grande 1900
2) UP 1356, 6654, 6803, 3957, new SD70ACe locomotives 8743, 8744, 8745
3) MKT green hoppers 545, 558, 502, all built 4-88
4) ADN 9770 Ashley Drew & Northern boxcar
5) Unripe bright red blackberry
6) "Arkansas Queen" riverboat
7) Information on the Arkansas River and ghost town of Napoleon, Arkansas, which used to have a railroad
UP/Rio Grande 1900, in local service here in the Little Rock/North Little Rock/Pine Bluff area.
MKT 545 green hopper, new in 4-88.
MKT 558 green hopper. Printed on the side:
NEW 4-88
LD LMT 208,400
LT WT 54,600
New 4-88
EXW 10-9 H 13-8
EW 8-8 H 14-7
CU FT 3000
1 IN. HF Comp shoes.
MKT 502 green hopper.
ADN 9770 Ashley Drew & Northern boxcar.
UP 1356 and GMTX 2116, 12:26 p.m.
UP 6654 and 6803, 12:30 p.m.
New locomotives 8744, 8743 and 8745, all together. These are SD70ACe locomotives and these 3 were not on the UP roster as posted on RRPictureArchives.net as of May 13.
An unripe blackberry, next to the Amtrak platform fence.
UP 3957, 1:25 p.m.
Arkansas Queen riverboat on the Arkansas River, also taken on May 13. There is barge traffic on this river. UP's Baring Cross lift span bridge is raised several times a day for barges by the UP dispatchers in Omaha, effectively stopping all rail traffic until the bridge is lowered again. A horn sounds twice when the lift span is raised, and sounds 3 long and one short blast when the bridge is lowered.
The Arkansas Queen has dinner and scenic cruises daily. This shot was taken from the place where the Arkansas Railroad Club meets.
Wide angle shot of the Arkansas Queen and the Arkansas River. Here's some information on this river taken from the Wikipedia site:
"The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. The Arkansas generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's initial basin starts in the Western United States in Colorado, specifically the Arkansas River Valley where the headwaters derive from the snowpack in the Collegiate Peaks. Then it flows east into the Midwest via Kansas, and finally into the South through Oklahoma and Arkansas.
At 1,469 miles (2,364 km), it is the sixth longest river in the United States, the second-longest tributary in the Mississippi-Missouri system, and the 45th longest river in the world. Its origin is in the Rocky Mountains in Lake County, Colorado, near Leadville. In 1859 placer gold was discovered in the Leadville area bringing thousands seeking to strike it rich, however the easily recovered placer gold was quickly exhausted. The Arkansas River's mouth is at Napoleon, Arkansas, and its drainage basin covers nearly 170,000 sq mi (440,300 kmē). In terms of volume, the river is much smaller than both the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, with a mean discharge of roughly 41,000 cubic feet per second (1,200 m3/s)."
Here's some information on the ghost town of Napoleon, Arkansas at the mouth of the Arkansas River in southeast Arkansas:
"Napoleon is a ghost town in Desha County, Arkansas, United States, near the confluence of the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers. Once the county seat of Desha County, Napoleon was flooded when the banks of the Mississippi River burst through and destroyed the once-thriving river port town. The town was the subject of a narrative in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, in which 10,000 dollars had been hidden behind a brick in a building there. Twain says he learned of the money's whereabouts but upon trying to retrieve it discovered the entire town has been washed away. Twain reports that the early explorers De Soto, Marquette and Joliet, and La Salle visited "the site of the future town of Napoleon, Arkansas" in their pioneering journeys."
On Monday, January 26, 2009, David Hoge and I of the Arkansas Railroad Club had a guided boat tour of Napoleon, Arkansas, a pre-Civil War ghost town in eastern Arkansas at the mouth of the Arkansas River (where it runs into the Mississippi River). The tour was given by Mark McElroy, the County Judge of Desha County, Arkansas. This town flooded just after the Civil War, partly caused by Union troops when they cut a hole in a dike. It now lies under the Arkansas River, except for a 151-foot high hill on Napoleon (or Cat) Island, which has part of the old Napoleon Cemetery (the rest of this cemetery apparently washed away in the 1970s). We found one tombstone belonging to Henry Smith, who died in 1859. His wife was buried there also. Of special interest regarding this tombstone was the fact that Mr. Smith was born on January 26, 1817 - meaning we had found it on his birthday!! He'd be 192 years old.
Click this link to view photos and more details of our cold trip to Napoleon (it was in the mid 30s with cold rain):
http://thundertrain.org/napoleon-012609.html