The final RJ Corman op that I had left to shoot around the area was the twice-a-month SPEG operation between Lima and Elgin, OH. This section serves two customers; a foam place in Spencerville and Mercer-Landmark in Elgin. Because it is only the two customers, the train is not ran very often and can be hard to predict when it will run. It seems to be the 1st or 2nd and 4th Wednesday or Thursday of every month though. I picked the very first Wednesday of the month based on some info I had gotten, and sure enough when I arrived the engine was fired up in Lima and ready to head west. I went down to the crossing just west of where it was parked. Soon enough, I heard it blow for the crossing, but there was no movement. The engineer keyed up the conductor who was driving in his car and told him that he couldnt build any amps on the engine so he was going to restart. The restart did not work either. And with that, the conductor came back and grabbed the engineer, the train was tied down, and it didnt move the rest of the day. As disappointing as that was, Lima still has plenty of other action going on around it usually, and CSX seemed fairly busy at the moment, so I decided to head north to get some CPL shots. Thankfully, I did manage to get one shot of the Corman spilling exhaust where it was parked at East Town Road. |