A westbound stacker kicks up the snow near Ames, IA. Canon Digital Rebel

UP 6025 leads a K-Line stacker towards Boone, IA this evening.

UP GEVO 5698 is the DPU on a Wisconsin-bound WPSX coal train. This is the first time I have seen a GEVO come out of the Blue Mountains to the midwest. Heads up for this unit, it went up the Spin... (more)

UP 4337 heads up a westbound manifest on the E/W main near Ames.

UP 4662 leads what is obviously a CSX-bound stacker over Squaw Creek.

UPY 741 backs across the Squaw Creek bridge while switching Skei Coal in downtown Ames.

UP 6653 leads the same coal train that I photographed a week ago back to the mines this time with 6727 in the rear.

CP 3102 leads SOO 6018 headed south past the M-KSIT ("Kiss It") with the short "A Hawks" train. Don't you just love Spine Line nicknames? This train almost exclusively uses CP run through power.... (more)

Newly repainted UP 6727, ex-CNW 8825, heads up a coal train at Jordan (near Boone), IA.

UP 9030 brings a manifest eastward into the morning light.

SP 121 heads up SSDM just south of Fernald, IA in the late afternoon sun on the Spine Line. Canon Digital Rebel

UP 5915 leads an Oak Creek, WI bound coal train past College Farm Hill in Ames, IA. The location is called College Farm because off to the left in the distance is the campus of Iowa State Univers... (more)

A UP C44ACCTE leads a coal load towards Hazel Ave. in Ames, IA. Canon Digital Rebel

These hearty Iowa cattle pay no attention to the coal empty as it glides to a stop east of Bertram, IA. The temperature was in the single digits and the wind was howling, making the wind chills w... (more)

BNSF 5348 leads a run-through "Earthworm" grain train on the CNIC through Independence, IA on the last beautiful sunny morning of 2003.