22-07-08 PHOTOS: Gainesville After Dark - Part 2

One reason I make an annual Amtrak trip to Gainesville, GA via Train 79, 19 and 20 is because schedule is actually pretty convenient for this itinerary since I arrive early Friday morning and depart Sunday night. In past years the departure time of Amtrak's northbound Crescent Train 20 was a little after 9pm, and although it was often running late, the time still allowed to have dinner and get driven to the station with in time for my ride to return home by a reasonable hour. In 2021 Amtrak retimed the northbound Crescent schedule at the behest of NS to "improve reliability" and I'm not exactly sure how that worked, but the result was shifting the departure time by three hours to after midnight (plus any running delays of course). This sticks me with about three hours to kill at the Gainesville station since my ride has a firm limit on their availability. The silver lining is that Gainesville is a also an NS crew base where both local and road power is stored overnight under favorable lighting conditions. In part 2 I will take advantage of these photo opportunities then cover Train 20's return trip including the power change at Washington, DC. Also remember to check out part 1 as well as the full gallery here ( mirror ).

The ex-Southern Railroad Gainesville station serves as an NS crew and MoW base in addition to an Amtrak station. The Amtrak portion has seats, vending machines, a restroom and an automated time-locked door. In 2021 the schedule change was so recent that the door locking system had not been adjusted and the station was locked for the entire time I was there. This time the door was open when I arrived, but I had no way to tell if the door would just suddenly decide to lock itself and therefore I was forced to carry my bag wherever I went.

The downtown Gainesville area has a number of industries including a large feed mill. These are served by a series of yard and industrial tracks typically worked by a pair of road engines that are parked in front of the station when the crews are off duty. Today the local freight engines were NS SD40-2 #6087 and SD60E #6919.

C40-10W #7614 that I had previously encountered on Friday morning was also still on hand in the same location.

While I was waiting a local transfer move rolled in with NS SD40-2 #3307 leading SD60E #6904.

After the local freight train proceeded on its way, I walked down to a lash up of road power left on one of the siding tracks. Likely waiting for a large cut of grain hoppers from the feed mills, the engines included NS AC44C6M #4445, BNSF ET44AC #3908 and CS C44-9W #9958.

Walking back to the station here are #6087 and #6919 posing in front.

The northbound Crescent Train 20 eventually arrived with P42'sDC #81 and #153 leading. I was treated to upgraded sleeping gear in the sleeper.

The next morning I awoke as the train was pulling into Danville, VA.

With a baggage car on the rear I didn't have much to do until the smoke stop at Charlottesville.

Shortly after my Train 20 arrived at Washington Union Station, Train 30, the eastbound Capitol Limited, pulled into the adjacent low level track led by P42DC #98 and a surprise ALC-42 Charger, #312 running behind!

As an Acela Express trainset with power cars #2017 and #2036 pulled in past K TOWER, P42DC locomotives #81 and #153 were pulled off the front of Train 20 while a Virginia regional stood ready to depart with ACS-86 #614.

The power change process proceeded as usual with ACS-86 #630 replacing the diesels while an Acela Express led by power car #2014 departed from upper level track #20. Interestingly #81 had been on the front of my southbound Train 19 and #630 had been at the front of my Train 79 three days earlier.

Departing Washington we passed by the VRE storage yard with MP36PH-3C siblings #V58 and #V59 and, a bit later, LANDOVER tower.

I was actually purchased by ticket to Baltimore, expecting to catch whichever MARC train, from either there or Union, that would get me to BWI faster. However the attendant informed me that Train 20 had added a "secret" BWI stop that had yet to be officially added to the schedule and I immediately took advantage. Here is a quick video of Train 20 departing BWI northbound.



Anyway, that's all for my 2022 Georgia trip. Tune in next time as I make a few passes through Silver Spring, MD.