[HD] CPKC’s Rock Train and More! Railfanning Artesia & Columbus, Mississippi 2-22-24

Ballast trains visit our area only a few times a year. On a warm winter's day, we get a close look at one of these trains pouring fresh rocks on the Tuscaloosa sub between Artesia and Columbus. Enjoy!

[@hillbillyrailfan]

Great Video. Love the old MILW Ballast Cars.

[@firefighterrailfan4life]

Awesome video! Glad someone was able to get some great footage of that rock train before it left!

[@RFMCabooseNP1713]

Nice video. The gravel cars were cool.

[@BadgerlandRailVideos]

Cool catches. The leader on that Golden Triangle train is an MP15AC. Nice that it has a Leslie horn, too! Between the CP/Soo Line/Milwaukee Road ballast cars and all the ex-WC boxcars on the GTRA train, railfanning in Mississippi doesn't look that much different from that in Wisconsin, apparently! We have a ballast transload here in southern Wisconsin where ballast is trucked in from the quarry and then loaded onto CPKC trains; those "company" sets are one of the types we usually see along with Herzog sets and Georgetown Rail (GREX) conveyor sets. Lately those KCS SD70MACs have been common taking the trains over the road, west to the Twin Cities or east to Milwaukee/Chicago. Usually a local crew based at Portage will take them to and from the loading site or "Pit" as we call it with standard cab power such as SD40-2s and SD30C-ECOs.

[@trainguy1792]

Yea that's interesting, after the CKPC merger our area has started seeing CP power on the manifests from Shreveport. CN had been running oil trains from Alberta for years and they usually keep CN power when they transfer in Jackson. I've yet to see a CP standard cab geep come in to work the Artesia locals, but that may be a matter of time as well.