CF&E Action/Short Line Action.

[FCIN]

Next day, headed over to Columbia, MO to the Columbia Terminal Railroad to catch the Columbia Star Dinner train operation. Took another photo of COLT 2001, a former ATSF GP9U at their transload terminal (a nice little potential model railroad facility itself)     Pretty good crowd waiting to board the dinner train for the 11:30AM Sunday run     Then the prize of the day, the two F units (greatly modified) used on the Dinner train:         They operate the dinner train with a unit on each end as there is no runaround track in Centralia, MO and the ones in Columbia are usually full of cars. Here's a video I shot of the train as it headed north to Centralia at a blazing 20mph: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MEakMBex_w The odd sound you hear from the F unit is due to the caterpillar diesel generators installed in the end of the engine to supply power to the train. Actually spoils that EMD sound.

Couple of local rail fans said that the train has been doing a good business since they started operating it a couple of months ago, but we'll have to see how successful it ends up being when the "new" wears off. With a ticket price of $69.95 a person, that's a rather expensive meal for a roughly 40 mile round trip on a train moving 20mph. Not quite the same as eating in a dining car on a train running 70mph!

The Columbia Terminal Railroad itself is doing great; delivering about 40 cars of coal a week to the municipal power plant and with quite a few customers on the line in Columbia. Great to see this former Wabash branch line continuing to thrive.