Heavy Trains, MP15DCs and a Meet on the Union Railroad

I just recently returned from a four day trip out to Pittsburgh, PA with a friend to see what kind of short-line action we could find. One of the top goals of the trip was the Union Railroad, which is operated by Transtar, a subsidiary of US Steel. The Union, which was founded way back in 1896 interchanges with CSX, NS and the Wheeling & Lake Erie and operates between the three remaining steel plants in the Steel City, Edgar Thomson in Braddock, Irvin Works in West Mifflin and the Clairton Coke works in Clairton. Many different types of locomotives have come and go, the railroad now rosters 33 locomotives, 24 MP15DCs and 9 SW1500s which are mostly used within the plants..

Sunday July 12th was our Union Day, and we found ourselves outside of the Edgar Thomson works to see the 76ET crew shoving up the low grade, caboose first with MP15DCs 18, 29 and 15 with hot slabs for Irvin works, and I mean hot! After catching them here, we catch them tackling the Bull Run Grade at Grant Avenue and just barely beating them to the north portal of the 1919-built Dravosburg Tunnel, as this location and Grant Ave are very close..
A few hours later, the trio of pups return towards ET with scrap loads ahead of empty slab racks..

Later in the evening after a good burning on the W&LE, we found the 9 Crew, a classification yard crew based in Duquense as they ran a solid train of steel coils for Irvin Works. Another MP15DC pair powered this train, blue and yellow painted 17 and rare green painted 14. We beat them to Dravosburg by the skin of our teeth, and were surprised to have a meet here too. 10 crew charges outta the tunnel with a quintet of MP15DCs, 27, 28, 30, 19 and 31 bringing loaded coke hoppers from Clairton for ET and CSX loads for interchange. We catch up to them at Grant Avenue and at DK Interlocking in Duquense, were the train will wye before heading across the Monongahela River, where we just beat them. A little later, the evening 76ET crew returns from Irvin once more with the trio of pups again..

Enjoy! Thanks for watching!