Due to my current work schedule, I found it tough to rise early enough in the morning to venture out to shoot the arrival of this Southern Belle gem on the Selkirk Sub into the yard. Luckily, a fresh crew was called by noon at Selkirk Yard and this handsome KCS Southern Belle 4035 ACE was cut loose to travel down the River Sub with another big oil load for Philly. I had recently staked out the big curve south of Ravena along Route 9W as a text message and the Facebook/Yahoo media alert awakened legions of photographers to make plans to get trackside south of me. This colorful ACE was making it's second daylight pass through the region in the last two weeks. The unusual KCS Belle (and yesterdays Mexican FXE colors) photographed on the SD70ACe model(all in the BNSF oil pool) are normally strangers for this line which is dominated with the far less photogenic Dark Future YN3 colors of CSXT. Thanks to the oil boom however, that all radically began to change by 2012 as a 'steady' stream of visiting foreign power the likes of BNSF, NS, UP, & CP began to arrive into upstate NY from the west. The recently paved out area beside the train is proof that contractors are getting close to installing the new doubletrack here which will extend from Coxsackie (CP-121) to Ravena (CP-128) with a new set of crossovers installed at CP-124 in New Baltimore. This will hopefully help with some of the current daily traffic crunch headaches and delays on this vital line.
