I see the  spreader  still

I see the  spreader  still hasn't moved, maybe its  rusted to the rails.... I'm always amazed at the different  colour of  tanks cars, from  showroom shine to faded blue. Looks like they use Woodland Scenics Light  grey ballast...

Regards Phil

Looks like a lot of model

Looks like a lot of model railroad layouts, 5 engines and 30 to 35 cars in the train. It would seem to be a great prototype to model if you wanted to go for lots of realism with out long trains in the modern era. Nice video work as well. How long has it been since that station saw passengers or freight shipped to it?

IAIS power

That train was actually only 12 cars upon arriving Atlantic.  The Rover shoved 13 cars of that cut that was on yard track 1 (two over from the main) in the first portion of the video west to the Atlantic Spur to make it easier for the road train to make their pickup without blocking crossings in town.

The amount of power on the road train was unusual.  IAIS 601 and 650, the slug set that was #4 and #5 in the consist, were just being moved east to South Amana for a test.  That train was only about 1000 tons coming into Atlantic, plus about 1700 max for the 13 cars it picked up there, and that assumes that all were loads.  They had 25 grain loads to pickup further east at Booneville, but even with that, they would have topped out at around 6000 tons.  Just a single ES44AC is rated for 7600 tons eastbound on this portion of the railroad.

I don't recall exactly, but I think the RI continued to run it's own passenger trains after the Amtrak startup.  My best guess is that they stopped around 1974.

Love that video!

 Very interesting view of a small Yard. Thanks for sharing!

I was referring to the second

I was referring to the second train Joe, and it's similarity to so many trains on model railroads we see in videos today. I still think it would make an excellent prototype to model if one was in the modern era, I am going out on a limb here, and think you do too.

Second train

I was too Rob.   That second train with the five units left Council Bluffs with just 12 cars.  Upon arriving at Atlantic, it made its 13-car pickup there from the Atlantic Spur, shown at the far right in the diagram below, but out of sight at the far left in the video, so the pickup was already done by the time they train is shown arriving in "downtown" Atlantic in the second portion of the video.

(Ignore the track lengths in the diagram, and the presence of additional tracks not seen in the video.  This schematic is from 2005, and the lengths are adjusted to represent those of my layout tracks.  The IAIS has done a lot of cleanup at Atlantic in the last 10 years, removing the Stock, Transfer, and Wye tracks, as well as yard tracks 2 and 3 and the east end of 4, where the Rover was spotting those tank cars at the beginning of the video.)  

If you notice as the train passes, 13 of the cars in it were also seen in the first video segment, sitting in the yard.  What happened was that, after the first segment was filmed, the Rover shoved those 13 cars from the yard out to the Atlantic Spur.  This is done so the road train can make their pickup without blocking busy crossings in Atlantic itself, since there's about a half-mile between the Atlantic Spur switch and Buck Creek Road in the diagram above, giving plenty of headroom for their work.  If they made the pickup from the yard itself, they'd block 2-3 crossings in town while doing so.

You know, you're right Rob!  Someone should model it! 

Phil

Could be!  We've had a couple mild winters recently, and they don't seem to do a lot of ditching these days.

I hope so!  That's what I used.   I wonder if, like me, they wish they'd used Arizona Rock & Mineral so it didn't float away during application? 

I had the  same problem, when

I had the  same problem, when i  first used  WS Ballast. Now I just  use ballast  made here in NZ by a  company called  Scenic Textures.  Doesn't float  away and cheaper than WS.