While on my way to work in the late afternoon, I snapped this pic at the Callahan Junction of a lone CSX company passenger car being pulled by a single locomotive chugging southbound on the A-Line toward Jacksonville. Perhaps it was full of company execs?
Shortly thereafter, CSX locomotive 3096 leads a quartet of engines pulling a northbound manifest train around the final curve of the Callahan sub (milepost 9.98) and onto the A line (milepost 624.37)
Bathed in the light of the low winter sun, CSX 3096 crosses the CR 108 grade crossing at the Callahan Junction of the A line and the Callahan-Baldwin Sub.
The next day aound 3 pm, I found myself at the Baldwin diamond of the Callahan-Baldwin sub (milepost 0.14). Northbound CSX locomotive 8848 leads another quartet of engines and a manifest out of the Baldwin yard and through the new Darth-Vader signal towers that guard the newly expanded double diamond with the Tallahassee sub.
CSX engines 8848 and 8817 clamber loudly across the new double diamond as they pull a manifest northbound on the Callahan-Baldwin sub toward Callahan. Trains from enter the northbound sub from 3 directions now: either from the Baldwin yard on the newly added double track, west from Tallahassee on the upgraded single turnout (foreground) or east from Jacksonville on the rebuilt 100-degree single turnout.
After the CSX 8848-led train clears the US 90 grade crossing in Baldwin, I drive through Bryceville to Crawford. [no evidence of construction of the 2nd track through Bryceville (mm 16) yet, possibly because they want to compete the 2nd double-track link from Sandy Ford crossing (mm 18) to south of Brooks Road crossing (mm 13) first]. The second track is down but not firmly ballasted yet nor have they attempted to add the 2nd diamond at the NS Valdosta line (mm 15.64). It wont be long before the upgrade the Crawford Road grade crossing (mm 16.08) to handle two tracks.
After I take a pic in Crawford, I drive northward to the Callahan Junction and caught CSX 8848 as it crosses the CR 108 grade crossing (mm 19.96) and heads toward the west track on the A line (mm 20). As I cross the US 301 viaduct over the A-line, I look to my left and notice a green light on the south facing signal tower of the main line. I knew that a NB train would be coming from Jax but did not know when.
After I took the final pic of 8848, I heard the familiar rumbling of the other train as it approached Callahan Junction from the south. I took a pic of the northbound inter modal led by CSX 3050 as it crossed the grade crossing and paralleled the first manifest train. 3050 probably caught the slower moving 8848 somewhere north of the Old Dixie Highway grade crossing (often referred to on the scanners as the "school house" crossing because of its proximity with Callahan Middle School).
