Part Three

"Dude."

Any of my Nebraska trips would not be complete without the Hippy Dippy weatherman making his usual appearance at this early stage. But he showed up this morning with this long face asking me what happened to my New York Giants last night on NBC Sunday Night Football. When I questioned Siri about it this morning, she said and I quote, "the New York Giants were crushed by the Philadelphia Eagles 27 to nothing". How perfect that she could think of that!! HD just shook his head. I mentioned the next game will be against the Dallas Cowboys....in Dallas. No response. Oh, and HD wanted to remind me to make sure my hat was on tight. The sun is out thru scattered clouds but the winds will be out of the north at 25 to 35mph due to a high wind advisory.

Anyway, good to see you around, man. Enjoy the day.

Today is a good day of train watching as only Kearney can provide. You can view trains from the 2nd Avenue Bridge’s pedestrian walkway that carries U. S. 44 over the UP mainline:

Or from the municipal parking lot on West Railroad Street.

But as much as I love stopping by here in Kearney, the only thing that tarnishes it is the black ornate fence that is between the edge of the municipal parking lot and the railroad right-of-way:

This was in place 2 years ago when I was last here. That cable fence with the old concrete posts was there when I first arrived back in 1997. And that one tilted post in that fence:

Has always been like that and it "marks" my parking spot in the lot. Whether the black fence came about by the local city fathers or the railroad's corporate council trying to avoid liability risks or a combination of both, it is a sad thing to see as far as a railfan goes. Who knows what the reason was to ruin it for the rest of us, but on any stretch of a busy railroad, a train will come on any track at any time.

Stop. Look. Listen. The life you save may be your own. Now if only there was such a thing as clear aluminum. Star Trek's Scotty would surely give his approval.

As this blog was being written this morning, the traffic on the rails continued. And I thought I would revisit the grade crossing on Central Avenue. This crossing and the one up the street at 5^th Avenue are different from those you may have seen.

As you can see, there are 2 gates that come across each lane of traffic. A brick-laid median divides the lanes. When cars come up to the gates, they stop. There is a way to get around the gates, which most likely is there for emergency vehicle egress, but you would be an absolute fool to go around lowered gates since track speed here is 45-60 mph. At the top of the pole is a weatherproof loud speaker:

Aimed in the direction of the oncoming automotive traffic. When a train approaches the crossing, the bell and lights come to life and the gates come down. Once the gates are in place, the loudspeakers emanate a long blast, another long blast, a short blast and one more long blast: railroad parlance for, “HEY!! Train Approaching!!” Once the head of the train has crossed the road, the loudspeakers go silent. This was most likely done as an ordinance to help reduce the noise created by the upwards of 120 trains that pass thru this city every 24 hours. But there is a backup plan. On top of each pole where the loudspeaker is mounted is a sign with a blinking red “X”. If the engineer sees the blinking red X, he knows that the grade crossing is working properly. If no blinking red X, then the engineer sounds the horn on the locomotive as he would do elsewhere on the railroad. It took a bit of getting used to hearing these loudspeakers some years back but if you give a friendly wave to the engineer, he most likely will toot back.

In between the trains coming thru town, I took a walk around downtown and the one thing I notice is how "small town" Kearney is. Back home in Connecticut, if you need lumber to build something, you would go to Home Depot or Lowes. But the nearest Home Depot is 62 miles to the northeast in Grand Island. And Lowes?? That would be in Lincoln. If you needed banking, you found Bank of America. Out here?? Nowhere to be found.

In Kearney, it's the local business man and woman that you deal with. A local lumber yard like Fosters where you can get hardware and then go out to the lumber shed like this one:

Banking is with a western flair. Like Great Western and Wells Fargo.

Need an electrician? You've got WinElectric:

Can't forget the local Laundromat:

Need a sign?? Five Man Electrical Band recommends these great folks:

And for the cowboy or cowgirl in you:

And I found these out front. 

Caption as you wish.

And then, there is the unique style of downtown Kearney. Diagonal front-first parking. 

None of that parallel crap. Brick streets in certain parts. And they are showing their age with numerous bumps along the way. And you know fall is in the air when the mums are out and looking pretty in the mid-day sunshine.

And one more thing: blending advertising into or on the brickwork of a building:

And now a word from our sponsor: your Central Nebraska Coca-Cola Bottlers.

Coke!! The pause that refreshes. And now, back to our blog.

After lunch, it’s up to the 30^th Avenue Bridge on the west side of the city.

In years past, I have waited on this bridge for some time to snag a pic or two of a passing train but to no avail. This year, as like two years ago, I managed to do just that.

Just before I walked up the bridge, here is this manifest freight coming into the city.

 The trailing unit behind the lead locomotive is about 1500 miles from its home railroad, CSX. This locomotive would most likely be found pulling freights thru Massachusetts or New York. Once at the summit of the bridge, a few minutes go by before another eastbound comes thru, this time a double-stack train.

 And you can’t help but notice the housing development to the north of the railroad. I certainly wouldn’t be complaining. I suspect there are a few young railrans running around down there. 

And as a railfan, you can’t help admire the pristine roadbed that the tracks are on. 

You begin to wonder what the area looked like back in the mid-1860s when the railroad was first built.

The day ends with going back to the municipal parking lot watching the trains go by. But the one thing I could not do was shoot some videos today. First, I come to find out that a rivet that holds one leg of my tripod to the center support had disappeared. I went to Fosters Hardware and thanks to Larry, he fashioned a penny nail by clipping off its point and bending it downward to put the tripod back together. No charge, thank you very much. I get to the Central Avenue crossing and the wind is not helping me. No sooner I get things squared away then some gusts of wind come along and tip over the tripod let alone remove my hat. We’ll give it a try tomorrow. At least I have a good railroad themed mystery with me that I am reading called The Wrecker by Clive Cussler with Justin Scott. Thanks to my traffic manager buddy Kerry Hayes at News 8 for the recommendation.

And speaking of tomorrow, we will be on our way to our next town which is Cozad. Considering I would like to retire there someday, as in “Win the Lottery & Retire” someday, I’m going to take a look around. My dream is to have a simple 2-story tornado-proof house with an 80-foot collapsible tower for my ham radio and railroad antennas and an old Union Pacific caboose next to the tower as my ham radio shack.

Dreams?? Why not. Reality?? Well, we’ll see what happens….some day.

I am Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Kearney, Nebraska.