The Whistlestop
Newsletter of the
Great Northwestern Railway
Volume 1, Number 5 January 19, 2005
Scenery!
Pink fields
are disappearing! Railroad is
ecstatic! Locals playing in the
dirt!
The
first of the scenery was laid down in the Warm Springs yard! Great Northwestern announced this week the
tracks are much more stable having been firmly affixed to the substrate. “No longer are the engineers concerned with
the stability of the roadbed; our insurance premiums have dropped, too,” stated
the Railway. And so it is. Trains are rolling on a firm foundation.
Still,
several of the employees have another opinion.
“Sure, they put down roadbed. But
shoot, the yard tracks are buried up the rails in soil; ballast is all but a
joke. The tracks look like they have
been here for years!” Railway officials
declined to comment why the less used tracks are not up to
New
Motive Power!
Booming
Business Demands Additional Equipment
The Great Northwestern
announced this week the third locomotives arrived on-site this week. A GP-38 was purchased, used, from the
This
is the third unit added to the GNW roster.
The first unit is a leased GP-35 from the Southern Pacific; the second
unit is a 1500 HP SW-1500, the railways first GNW owned unit on the property.
“The
business demands precluded the opportunity to repaint the engine, we just
rattle-canned over the old engine markings and stenciled on our road and
number,” commented the Warm Springs shop foreman. Ugly or not may be in the eye of the beholder. For now, the railroad sees the new unit as
nothing but welcome!
Chenango
Generating Station Reached!
Coal Reaches
Starving Plant
The
Great Northwestern Railway reached the end of the Warm Springs District this month,
providing service to the Chenango Generating Station. Due to the lower cost of fuel deliveries, the
local utility is offering rebates to its customers. “We used to have to truck in all our
coal. Now with the railroad, we can save
quite a bit on our transportation costs,” commented the utility’s PR
director. “This break on the electric
bill will be welcomed by many this winter.”
The
spikes had hardly been set before the first of the trains started delivering
fuel. “This is one of the gems in our
business plan. A solid customer with
commodity materials is the bread and butter for our company,” remarked the Sr.
Marketing VP of the Railway at the opening ceremony.
Trains
will deliver coal and limestone (for SO2 reduction) to the plant on a daily
basis. “Now we need to find crews for
all this business,” commented one of the engineers for the railway. “Seems like it’s just one of us running this
whole railroad out here.” Only time will
tell if the railroad grew too big too fast.
For now, both customers and the community are happy.
