In Baltimore, we take a taxi to the Wyndham Hotel where we
will be staying for the next week, and then go to the Convention Registration
Desk to pick up our tickets for the next six days. We see Frances Mohr working
in the registration area, sign up on the banquet seating chart for Thursday
evening, and run into Russell Hogue and Wayne Saunders of PRS, who had come
over on the PRS-sponsored excursion on National Forum, Silver Lariat
and Colonial Crafts. Out in the hallway, we run into Helen and “Smoke”
Shaak. Soon after returning to our room on the 5th floor of the
south tower (the hotel has two, on the northeast and southwest corners), we go
to bed.
NRHS/RLHS 2003 (7/1-7/7)
Tuesday, July 1st, 2003
As I arise around 6:30 am (Eastern) on Tuesday morning I
realize that my internal clock has successfully made the annual transition to
Railfan Excursion Time. Today, we’re taking a bus ride to Gettysburg for a ride
on the Gettysburg Scenic Railroad, with the last bus leaving at 7:30 am. In the
line for the buses, we greet Whayne McGinnis and his grandson Arrik, as well as
Russell Hogue and Wayne Saunders again. The buses start out north through
downtown Baltimore. The hotel is on the northern edge of the area that has been
revived by the Inner Harbor developments of the last twenty years. Apart from
an area around the University of Baltimore and Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, just
below Penn Station, the rest of downtown Baltimore, even the areas with the
revolutionary era civic monuments, is scruffy at best and approaching skid-row
standards at worst. Due to the one-way street system in the downtown area, we
eventually traverse all of the north-south streets across the whole area, and
the verdict seems the same for all of them.
Near Penn. Station we enter Interstate 83, take it out to
the Interstate 695 ring road which we take to the west and then head north on
I-795. Leaving the latter when it runs out at Maryland 140, we continue into
Pennsylvania on route 97, arriving in Gettysburg, 90 minutes after departing
from the hotel, via the Baltimore Turnpike familiar from descriptions of the
1863 Civil War battle here at this exact time of year. Those of us on the second
bus are intrigued to note that the first bus arrives at the depot considerable
later than we do, apparently due to turning the wrong way on highway 140 when
the interstate ended.
Gettysburg Scenic Route Description
The Gettysburg Scenic uses old passenger cars
with walkover seats and openable windows. No other form of climate control is
available in any of the cars. After what have apparently been weeks of wet
weather, today is sunny, humid, and hot. This affects the environment along the
line (with rotting vegetable matter—apple waste—at a number of points along the
route) as well as the comfort of the travelers. In fact those chasing the train
(such as Alex Mayes and Teresa Renner) in air-conditioned cars are arguably
much more comfortable than those traveling in the train.
On this train, we see John Bawden (from
Philadelphia) and Ed Miller (“Tex”). One of the things we notice in the
countryside, both alongside the railroad and along the highway, is the lack of
fencing between properties—almost nothing seems to mark the property line!
At the end of the train ride, after time to use the
facilities in the depot and patronize the gift shop, the buses leave for the
90-minute ride back to the hotel, retracing our route of this morning. After
another visit to the Registration Room, where Chris again fails to get time to
talk to Frances but does talk to her husband Michael, Chris and I walk over to
the Inner Harbor and have an expensive crab cake dinner. (It appears that local
crab supplies are no longer available and the traditional recipes now use
expensively transported crab from other areas.)
Wednesday, July 2nd, 2003
Baltimore is one of the original seaports on the Eastern
Seaboard, protected from the weather of the Atlantic Ocean by its location on a
natural harbor on the western side of the Chesapeake Bay, a hundred miles or so
from the ocean mouth of the bay. It’s status as one of the premier seaports of
the early United States have rise to it’s interest in developing a railroad to
connect that port to the interior of the Unites States, in competition with the
abuilding Chesapeake & Ohio Canal running up the Potomac from Washington
DC, and thus its participation in the earliest railroad activity in the country
in 1828 (175 years ago this year), the start of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
At the peak of railroad activity, Baltimore was served by three of the major
railroads of the mid-Atlantic region—the Pennsylvania Railroad, the Baltimore
& Ohio, and the Western Maryland—and a number of smaller railroads, serving
both the region and the city/harbor area itself. In the course of this convention,
we will ride directly from Baltimore on lines built and operated by all three
of the major railroads. Today’s excursion covers portions of line once owned
and operated by two of them: the Baltimore & Ohio and the Western Maryland.
Saturday’s excursion covers lines once owned and operated the Pennsylvania
Railroad, and Sunday’s runs over different portions of lines once owned and
operated by the Western Maryland.
Today’s excursion to the Western Maryland Scenic is using a
train of private cars to get us back and forth from Baltimore Penn. Station to
the former Western Maryland depot in Cumberland. We’re up at 6:30 again, to
make sure we catch the last shuttle bus from the hotel, slated for 7:30 am. At
Penn Station, there’s another wait. A northbound Amtrak Florida train is over
an hour late, and is occupying the slot our trainset should be using to get
here from the Ivy City yard in Washington DC. During the wait, Joe Williams
comes up to say hello. I don’t recognize him at first, because he has grown a
beard since we last saw him at the end of the 3751 trip in 2002. In fact, he
has grown more beard in less than ten months than I have in the 34 years since
I last shaved! (I don’t have much of a chance to chat with Joe at this
convention, since everything time I see him he seems to be in a group with the
other ‘National Convention Committee’ members, such as Carl Jensen and Greg
Molloy.) We also see Russell Hogue and Wayne Saunders again.
Eventually, we’re allowed down on the
platform and our train appears from the Washington direction. It has two Amtrak
P40s on the north end, and a “Regional” electric on the south end. We’re
traveling in Dover Harbor, which is second from the rear of the train,
with only an open-platform car not available to conventioneers (even those
paying for first class) behind it. The 1924 Pullman sleeper-lounge Dover Harbor, owned by the Washington DC
Chapter of NRHS, has seating for 24 people in its lounge area, including twelve
at tables and twelve in movable armchairs and love seats. There is also seating
available in four of the six bedrooms. Dover Harbor is today crewed by
the Washington DC Chapter crew—Kevin Tankersley, Mike Crockett and Ken Brooks—
who maintain the car on a regular basis. There will be two sittings for
breakfast, exchanging places at the tables, so we choose to sit in the
armchairs initially. The four cars in front of us are also first class cars,
all others being coach.
For the first leg of the journey, to Washington Union
Station, the train travels backwards with the electric locomotive leading. In
Washington, the electric locomotive is removed and the train heads out forwards
over the ex-B&O line to Cumberland. (We’re never told why the train
couldn’t take the ex-B&O “Old Main Line” directly west from Baltimore to
Point of Rocks, but I suspect that this was due more to CSX reluctance than to
Amtrak operational convenience.)
For the second sitting for breakfast, we take our place at
one of the tables, seated with a couple from Texas who have been married for 62
years! During the trip along the ex-B&O (whose route is the same as we took
with the incoming Capitol Limited on Monday), I again record the trains
we meet and/or pass:
This is a total of 14 trains, one of them passenger, eight
manifests, two auto racks and only one double stack or intermodal. Approaching
Cumberland, we take the track around the back of the Cumberland yard from
Mexico Tower. Since we’re allowed no more than 15 miles per hour on this track,
the last five or six miles into Cumberland take about half an hour. When we’re
almost all the way past the yard, and in sight of the main tracks again (we had
seen this spot during lunch on Monday), the train turns away on the connector
track over to the old Western Maryland line and stops in the depot now used by
the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad. Due to the length of the train, those of
us at the rear have to walk forward about ten cars to get to a place where we
might detrain.
Bag lunches are being given out in the
station. I’m very annoyed to discover that the choices for beverage are Coke
and Diet Coke, so that those who don’t drink caffeine (or like the taste of
Coke) are not being served properly. (Naturally, water is available, but that
isn’t really comparable.) About the time we’re finished with lunch, our incoming
train has backed out of the station onto the connector track and the WM Scenic
train is pulling in, first pulling all the way through the station, then backing
onto the platform track to align with the ramp for boarding handicapped passengers.
The train seems to be very full, and thus there is the usual fuss with every
‘single’ wanting a window seat and half of them being forced to sit with a
stranger who already has the window seat. Nonetheless, the train sets off at
its expected time to head west along its route to Frostburg. The steam
locomotive is a former Lake Superior & Ishpeming (LS&I) 2-8-0 (Consolidation)
that was a sister to the 2-8-0s now operated by the Grand Canyon Railway before
being modified to more closely resemble Western Maryland practice.
Western Maryland Scenic Route Description
At Helmstetter’s Curve, the train stops and all the photographers
pile out for a photo runby. The best places for photos are up the hillside,
beyond a locked gate, so many of us climb the gate to get to photo spots. Up on
the hillside, I meet Alex Mayes and we chat while we’re waiting for the train
to back up.
The farmer who owns this land was in a field inside the
curve as the train arrived, with a young puppy alongside him. This puppy sees
400 people getting off the train and races over to get the available attention.
It disappears under the train to get to those of us debarking on the outside of
the curve, followed by the farmer chasing it. This drives those who have
remained on the train to distraction, but eventually the puppy is reunited with
the farmer, who also unlocks the gate to the field up the hillside.
The weather is now quite dark with heavy clouds, apparently
due to the remnants of a tropical storm, but the runby come off all right, with
lots of smoke and steam, and spectacular sound for those with audio-video
capability. Almost as soon as the train has stopped following the runby, the
rain starts, but most of us make it back on the train before getting too wet.
The on-board commentator describes other scenic points on the route until the
train reaches its destination. In Frostburg, we watch the locomotive being
turned on the turntable. The return journey is over the same route as the
outward, with the difference that it is all downhill!
We swap seats with someone else for the return trip, to get
the view out of the other side of the train. We’re also facing the other way,
so have different passengers in view. A couple of rows in front of us, a boy
less than ten or twelve years old is expounding on the various locomotives
under the control of Doyle McCormick in Portland, OR (site of the 2005 NRHS
Convention). His mother, a good-looking platinum blond, has the name Bonnie
Hill on her registration badge, but I don’t manage to read the chapter name to
see if these people are from the Portland area. (I don’t see these people on
any other excursion at this convention, either.) Bonnie is interesting in
another aspect, too—she’s the first person I can remember wearing “heels” on
this type of railroad excursion!
Back at Cumberland, on the platform, I see a family
(husband, wife, infant) that includes a striking young woman with copper-colored
hair and lots of facial makeup, who two weeks later I will see again when she
checks us in at the Holiday Inn here in Cumberland—her name tag on that
occasion says “Julia”.
Eventually, our train (now with the P42s on
the east end of the train) pulls into the station for loading. Again, we have
to walk through the train to get to Dover Harbor, which is now (almost)
at the front of the train. Once there, we sit at the table on which the snacks
are deployed, waiting for the second sitting for dinner, later in the trip. On
departure, the crew discusses with the Dispatcher how we should get out onto
the main line from this connecting track. After pulling forward onto the yard
track, we reverse out onto the main track heading westward, as far as Viaduct
Junction, where we then pull forward onto the main track before heading east.
Amazingly, this takes just as long as hard running along the yard track on the
way in!
One of the people riding in Dover Harbor turns out to
be Carl Loucks, the railroad timetable dealer with whom I have done mail order
and e-mail business in the past. I introduce myself to him so that we can each
put the face to the name, since we had known each other only electronically in
the past. At Martinsburg, we stop for the local paramedics to attend to a
passenger.
On the way back, as long as I can see them, I record the
trains that we meet and pass:
Before we reach Washington Union Station, Dover Harbor
has run out of water, both for dishwashing and for the toilets. In Washington,
Martin O’Rourke (head of the team that runs the car, and also head of the
Convention Committee for this Convention) arranges for the car to be watered.
This might have delayed our departure, except that the night crew at Union Station
(this is around 11 pm) seems not to be able to figure our how to approve the
makeup of a train that has added an electric locomotive on one end while retaining
the diesel locomotives on the other, and takes over an hour to make a static
brake test and agree that it has succeeded. (The night crew doesn’t usually
deal with changing locomotives, much less having different sets of them at each
end of the train.)
As a result of this, we get back to Baltimore at 1 am, and
back to the hotel at 1:30 am, where we go directly to bed!
Thursday, July 3rd, 2003
Fortunately, our first activity today starts at 11 am, so we
can sleep in for a normal night’s sleep, just a little delayed. When we do get
started, there are shuttle busses running over to the Inner Harbor for our
lunchtime boat cruise throughout Baltimore Harbor. After boarding the boat, and
an initial mix-up on seating arrangements for conventioneers versus others, we
have lunch in the main cabin while getting a railroad-themed commentary on the
harbor.
Baltimore Harbor has deepwater terminals for each of the
railroads that served the area, as well as a couple of small switching
railroads that serve(d) only the harbor facilities. As railroads have combined,
but traffic types have diverged, there are now separate deepwater terminals for
containers, bulk grain, bulk chemicals, and bulk coal, as well as other types
of lading. On the east side of the Inner Harbor, east of the aquarium, is
President Street Station, the original railroad station in Baltimore, built by
the North Central railroad. On the southwest side of the Northwest Harbor,
passageway out from the Inner Harbor, are the former B&O Grain Storage
facilities at Locust Point, the largest grain storage facilities on the east
coast in 2003.
At the eastern end of the Northwest Harbor is the
Consolidated Caol Company in Canton, followed by the piers connected to the
Canton Railroad’s Yard just behind them. Opposite Fort McHenry, south of the Canton
Yard, is Lazaretto Point, followed by the piers served by the Canton Railroad’s
Penn Mary Yard, just behind. Further east is the former PRR Pier 1, now used
for the Naval Reserve, beyond which is an Evergreen container shop at the
Seagirt Marine Terminal container terminal. There are also Wallenius Wilhemsen
container ships at this terminal (all on the northeast side of the Patapsco
River below the Northwest Branch from the Inner Harbor).
If we had gone up the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River,
south of Fort McHenry, we would have passed the CSX (ex-B&O) Locust Point
Yard and then further west, the abandoned Western Maryland Port Covington Yard
and its associated piers. On the southwest side of the Patapsco River, below
the junction with the Northwest Passage,
is Curtis Bay, on the west end of which the ex-B&O coal piers are
located, worked today by electric mules (automated locomotives). We turnaround
at Francis Scott Key Bridge, and return, so we don’t get out as far as Sparrows
Point, with its steel mills (barely operating, in 2003). There also appears to
be a grain terminal on the south side Curtis Bay, adjacent to Sledds Point.
After lunch, we go up onto the upper deck to take some
photographs. While we’re doing this, Bob Heavenrich comes up to say hello. He
and Diane had been on the two-day excursion down to West Virginia (to places we
will visit on our own) on Tuesday and Wednesday, so this is our first chance to
see Bob and Diane. Bob, among others who took the West Virginia trip, tells us
about how they got back to the hotel at 1 am, and is disconcerted to hear that
we didn’t get back until 1:30 am! Later, we have an extended discussion with
Nina Lawford-Juviler as we return to the docking location. Chris and I opt to
walk back to the hotel.
At the ‘cocktail party’ before the banquet, I ask Russ
Davies (whom we see for the first time) to introduce me to Adrian Ettlinger,
whom I know so far only electronically. In a short discussion with Adrian, I
agree that we will have dinner with him on Friday evening to discuss my Traffic
and Infrastructure database project that Adrian (as R&LHS Webmaster) is
supporting. At the banquet, we sit with Al Weber from St. Louis (who had led
the 2001 NRHS Convention) and his wife, as well as others. The after dinner speaker
is Gil Mallery, once head of Amtrak West and now responsible for Business
Development for Amtrak. Kevin Tankersley makes some special presentations to
people who have helped with the convention arrangements.
Friday, July 4th, 2003
Friday had once been intended for the conventioneers to
visit the pageant that was to have accompanied the 2003 Fair of the Iron Horse
at the B&O Railroad Museum. Unfortunately, the February, 2003, snow-driven
collapse of about half of the roof of the roundhouse portion of that museum’s
physical plant resulted in the cancellation of the Fair and thus of today’s
intended activities. What’s left, today, is a tour of Baltimore’s mass transit
facilities—it’s subway and light-rail systems. We’re on the “9 am” version of
that tour.
The tour starts with a bus ride out to the Wabash Avenue
Subway shops. On the way, we pass the Pimlico horseracing track where the
Preakness (second race of US horse-racing’s triple crown) is run every May.
Road traffic is almost non-existent thus far on this holiday morning. At the
Subway shops we see the areas where electrical repairs are performed, where powered
trucks are assembled and disassembled, removed from trains and returned to
trains, gearboxes refurbished, wheel refurbished, and motors repaired and refurbished,
where wheels are trued on the in-floor wheel lathe every two years or so, and
where cars are repaired. We tour an original-condition subway car, including
looking at it’s relay-based control systems and operator’s console, and then a
refurbished subway vehicle, with completely solid-state control systems and
console. We see subway cars up on lifts so the bottom can be seen, and the pit
area where Preventative maintenance is performed. Down in the pit, the covers
are off all the equipment boxes so that we can see inside,
Leaving the shops, we continue on the bus north to Owings
Mills, the outer terminus of the subway line, and ride a subway train into
town, with above ground trackage initially, in the median of the Interstate we
had traveled on on Tuesday, then alongside the ex-WM line we will ride on
Sunday, followed by sub-surface trackage the rest of the way into town. One station
is just a block southeast of our hotel. At the east end of the line, at Johns
Hopkins Hospital, we go up to the surface to look at the architecturally-significant
dome on the hospital’s main building, then return to the station to ride back
to Owings Mills. At the latter, we board the bus again and travel to the
vicinity of Penn Station, where we turn down some narrow side streets alongside
the interstate highway to reach the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.
Here we have lunch and ride a couple of the museum’s
operable streetcars (including a Peter Witt car) on the wide-gauge (5’ 4”)
track alongside the street just west of the museum, passing on the way the
roundhouse buildings that once formed the Maryland & Pennsylvania’s
locomotive facilities (until 1952), but are now used by a construction contractor.
Leaving the museum, we head across the interstate to the nearby shops of the
light-rail system. These are on the site of a onetime freight yard of the
Western Maryland (?), alongside a small river and, naturally,
adjacent to the light rail line as it heads north out of town.
The light rail shop tour is not quite as comprehensive as
that at the subway shops, perhaps because this is now the afternoon of the
Fourth of July holiday, and perhaps because there’s less to see. One difference
in the electrical systems is that the light rail uses overhead pantograph
current collections, compared to the third rail of the subway system. We’re
shown the crane that lifts the Pantograph and the HVAC (heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning) assemblies right off the roof of a car in one assembled
piece. We see the machine shop and the coupler shop, the wheel turner in the
floor, and the car washer
After a short bus hop to the nearby light rail station, we
board a northbound light rail train and ride out to the northern terminus,
which is several miles further than Chris and I had ridden back in 1996. There
are several single-line sections on this track, and at each one we wait for an
opposing car to pass before proceeding. The weather has turned steamily hot,
and Chris and I opt to ride our bus directly back to the hotel rather than continue
with our light rail ride. This will give us more time at the Railroadiana show
than we would otherwise have had, and we both have items we’re looking for at
that show. We will have time on Monday to ride the rest of the light rail
system, which has additional trackage that we didn’t manage to ride back in
1996.
Back at the hotel, we have something ice-cold to drink and
then head for the Railroadiana show (in the same room we had used for the
banquet last night). Among other things, I’m supposed to touch base with Adrian
about our arrangements for this evening; he’s working with Seth Bramson at the
latter’s stand. Inside the show, I see no sign of Adrian, and I have no idea
what Seth looks like (another person that I know only electronically). Meanwhile,
Chris finds some Chessie items and I find some of the eastern-railroading books
I had on my list, at the stand of “Ron’s Books” with whom I had previously done
business by Internet means. During the show, I get someone to point out Seth
Bramson’s stand, but no one is there. I do see Adrian at one point, but he’s
discussing R&LHS affairs with Bill Howes (president of that organization),
and then disappears. We also manage to have a chat with Russ Davies, who is
performing “research” for his book project by acquiring materials here at the
show.
I look for some railroad employee timetables for the
Appalachian coal lines we’re going to be visiting next week, but find one only
for the ex-B&O West End. (I already have one from the ex-N&W Pocahontas
line, obtained from Carl Loucks.) However, I do mange to add to my collection
of ETTs for the Cincinnati area in the 1940s/50s, adding the remainder of the
B&O lines and all the NYC lines to those I had obtained from Carl Loucks,
previously. Now I only need one for the N&W peavine from Portsmouth, OH, as
well as that for Cincinnati Union Terminal. The ETTs I obtain here are not in
as good condition as those I have obtained from Carl in the past, but are much
cheaper than Carl’s prices!
At 7 pm, we meet Adrian in the hotel lobby. He is facing
imminent hip replacement surgery (Monday!) and doesn’t want to walk far. He has
asked the hotel staff for a recommendation for a source of crab cakes, and they
have recommended a restaurant that turns out to be in the Inner Harbor area,
further than I (from personal experience) would have thought Adrian should be
walking. Before getting that far, we realize that the crowds in the Inner
Harbor areas awaiting the holiday fireworks show are just too much for timely
restaurant service—in fact, the one restaurant we do try is offering a two hour
wait! I suggest we try the tavern/restaurant just below the hotel that I had
thought or originally, and we walk slowly over there. They can seat us
immediately, and provide reasonable prices on crab cakes as well! A walk here directly
from the hotel would have been much better for all of us. Chris and I make
other menu choices, having already had our expensive crab cake meals for this
trip.
During the course of the meal, I explain the current status
of my project, with e-mail assistance from John Miles Smith, and Adrian relates
how he has an expert in putting database applications up on web pages who
should be able to help when we get that far. We reach a reasonable agreement on
how to proceed, and Adrian agrees to post (on the R&LHS website) revised
versions of the HTML documents that currently embody the results of my
data-populating efforts, when they are ready.
After dinner, we walk slowly back to the hotel and say our
goodbyes. We will not be seeing Adrian again before he leaves for home and his
date with the surgeon.
Saturday, July 5th, 2003
Today’s excursion, using the same trainset of private cars
as on Wednesday, will head in the other direction our of Baltimore’s Penn
Station, then turn north away from the Amtrak line to head for Enola Yard and
Harrisburg, PA, returning directly from Harrisburg to rejoin the outward route
about halfway back to the NEC. As before, there are bus shuttles up to Penn
Station, and the trainset is coming up from Washington in the same time slot it
should have used on Wednesday. Today, however, our train is shown on the departure
board at Penn Station, reducing at least some of Wednesday’s confusion.
Today’s train only has two diesel locomotives, since it will
not be reversing direction while on the NEC, but is otherwise arranged the same
way as on Wednesday, with a few additional coaches at the front. Once again,
we’re riding on Dover Harbor, with Kevin once again acting as cook, but
with different servers from Wednesday. The meal procedures are the same, so
once again we sit in a couple of armchairs awaiting the second sitting for
breakfast.
Port Road, Enola and Royalton Branch Descriptions
NS Pittsburgh Line Route Description
(CP Hip-CP Harris)
At breakfast/lunch/brunch, we sit with Chris’
friend Linda and her husband, from Davis, CA (he’s retired from the University
there), who enquire if we know any other railfans from Davis. I respond that I
remember from 1999 that one of Tom Glover, Steve Miller, and Steve’s friend
Stan Hunter seemed to live in Davis back then.
On arrival in Harrisburg, after refueling on the on-line
fuel pad, we detrain, cross the station footbridge, and walk back towards the
former PRR Harris Tower now restored by the NRHS Harrisburg Chapter, slips denoting
the time assigned for our visit in hand. While waiting at the tower, we
patronize the sales tables manned by the Harrisburg Chapter. The tower itself
comprises the interlocking hardware, controls and model board for the west end
of Harrisburg Station, installed by the PRR back at the time it electrified the
Harrisburg area, the Rockville bridge, and Enola Yard, back in the late 1930s.
All of this is still in good physical condition, and most of it is still in
good working order, except that it no longer connects to the physical devices
(signals, switches, track circuits) that it once controlled.
By the time we walk back to the station, the ambient
temperature, and especially the humidity, has increased to uncomfortable
levels. Chris, understandable, wants to do nothing but sit in the
air-conditioned waiting room or the air-conditioned train. I, however, want to
finish capturing the consist of the train, and get to where I can photograph
the front of the train. I accomplish this, in among some violent thunderstorms
and heavy rain showers, as well as some additional conversation with Bob Heavenrich,
who turns out to be an exert at reading the weather, having had much practice
at his family’s cabin on Lake Superior in the summers of his youth. I also get
a chance to talk to Kevin Tankersley outside of his role as cook, thanking him
for the assistance he had provided by e-mail while we were making our plans for
this trip.
As we prepare to leave Harrisburg for the return trip, the
Dispatchers announces that the storm has been much more violent down along the
Susquehanna, where we’re headed, that the power is out on many of his signals
and switches, and that his computer remains up only because the emergency
batteries have not yet run down! We will have to head off using standard
stop-and-proceed operations, limiting our speed to 10 or 15 mph at best, and
much less than that for some stretches, especially that between Harrisburg
station and the divergence between the Amtrak Philadelphia main line and the
Norfolk Southern branch down the river. After considerable time getting track
warrants manually, some of the dispatching equipment comes back on and we get
different instructions.
By the time we reach that divergence, dinner is on the
second sitting and we’ve lost over an hour on our indicative schedule. We’re
eating dinner with another couple whose last name is also Winter! As we pass
alongside the river, copious evidence of wind damage to vegetation comes into
view. The worst damage seems to be immediately adjacent to the Three Mile Island
Nuclear Power Station (which would explain why the power is out in the area, I
suppose). Eventually, we’re able to resume the normal (relatively slow) speed
on the branch, but we’re a couple of hours ‘late’ getting back to Baltimore. In
Baltimore, we see Doug Walsch, with Diane, inside Penn Station. They’re evidently
not staying at the convention hotel.
During the course of the day, I record a number of
observations on the trains we pass, or that pass us (e.g. in Harrisburg):
Amtrak train 40 had a couple of riders between Roadrailers,
who fled at Lewistown, causing an 18-minute delay to that train.
Sunday, July 6th, 2003
The
Sunday trip runs from Camden Station, which is within walking distance of the
hotel, and takes us out on the former Western Maryland mainline and then branch
northwest to New Oxford, PA, a small town with many antique stores, about ten
miles east of Gettysburg. Today’s trip uses a MARC (Maryland commuter rail
agency) trainset, including a couple of their Parlor Cars that are no longer in
regular use. The car we’re assigned to has both parlor seats and seats at
tables; by the time we board, there are no adjacent parlor seats remaining, so
we take seats at one of the tables. Donald Bishop and Nina Lawford-Juviler are
among those seated in the parlor seats in this car. The staff serves
continental breakfast after we’re under way.
CSX Camden Line Route Description
Western Maryland Route Description
From Camden station, the train reverses out
onto the CSX mainline, and then almost immediately off again onto one of the
harbor branches. From the latter, it proceeds forward out onto the former WM
main. After passing under the CSX main and then later the NEC on a large
viaduct above us, the location of the one time WM passenger line out of Penn
Station is reached. This is no longer extant, or I’m sure we would have used it
for this trip! A little further north, the line comes alongside the Baltimore
Subway line that we had traversed on Friday (and the Interstate that we had
used on Tuesday). At Emory Grove, we leave the former Western Maryland main
line to Hagerstown (even though there’s no longer a junction here) and continue
on the still extant line via Gettysburg. We continue north into Pennsylvania,
through Hanover to New Oxford.
We will spend over four hours in New Oxford. This will prove
to be way too much time for thus of us who are not interested in patronizing
antique shops, or even for those of us who are simply not interested in being
outside in the heat and humidity! There is a small railroad museum in the
former WM depot, adjacent to where the train has parked, so we start out by
visiting it. Many people had purchased barbecue lunches for today, but we had
not because there were supposed to be a number of good restaurants in the town.
Well, the largest of these seems to be closed this weekend, so most of us not
doing the barbecue lunch are forced to patronize a pizza parlor on the far side
of the town center from the train dept. After lunch, Chris and I read for a
while in the grassy area in the center of the main square before we get too hot
to continue doing that. I spend some time talking to Bob Heavenrich, who has
left Diane to visit additional antique shops on her own. An ice cream in the
ice-cream parlor located in an old railroad car adjacent to the station helps
with some of our overheatedness, but can’t occupy enough of the remaining time.
So, we retreat to our parlor car, where we take a table on the other side of
the car (which hasn’t been turned) for the return trip.
Some time after we sit down there, Chris knocks over her
glass of icewater, flooding the table on which my notebook and magazine are
sitting, soaking both of them. I utter an expletive, and after alerting the
staff, Chris disappears instead of helping with the cleanup. Fortunately, the
side of the notebook that had got wet was the side with nothing written in it
yet! (I had visions of all the notes taken so far on the trip being rendered illegible.)
Before we leave New Oxford, two passengers appear who had been driven out from
Baltimore after missing the outward leg of the trip. Their presence, and the
fact that they were told they could sit anywhere in the car and have thus taken
parlor seats that had been used by others on the outward leg, distresses the
two ‘displaced’ passengers, who are quite vocal about their opinion of this for
some time afterwards. During this time period, Rob McGonigal, editor of Classic
Trains, walks through the car with a MARC escort who is explaining the
parlor cars to him.
Nina comes over to talk to me, mostly to find out what had
happened to Chris, and remains chatting with us after Chris returns. Dinner is
excellent and we return to Camden Station at a reasonable time. Here, we’re
instructed to remain in the cars until medical staff can take off a passenger.
This proves to be Whayne McGinnis’ grandson Arrik, who has suffered heat
prostration sometime during the day (as reported to us later by Steve Miller,
who was sitting in the same car as he was).
We walk back to the hotel, having completed the formal
convention activities for this year. Chris repacks the suitcases for our
departure on Monday before we go to bed.
Monday, July 7th, 2003
Our departing train today doesn’t leave until very late
afternoon (which will prove to be early evening), so we spend some time reading
in our room until its just about the noon checkout time. We checkout and leave
our luggage with the bell captain, then walk over to the same tavern we had
patronized on Friday evening (and during our 1996 visit) for lunch. After
lunch, we purchase all day passes on the light rail system, and ride south to
the two southernmost destinations on the line (on two separate branches, so
there’s a little backtracking involved), the first at Cromwell and the second
at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport (BWI), switching between them
at Linthicum. On the way north again, some young military personnel who have an
afternoon’s liberty, and are quite boisterous, occupy seats right behind us.
We ride all the way to the short spur into Penn Station,
where Chris sits in the air-conditioned space in the waiting room, and I sit
down on the light rail platform observing and photographing the trains in the
main part of the station. After an hour or so, we ride the light rail back to
the hotel (getting off at Baltimore Street), collect our luggage and return to
the station by taxi, where we check most of the luggage to Charlottesville so
we don’t have to handle it. Chris again sits in the waiting room, while I
return to the light rail platform for more observations and photographs. While
I’m there, a couple of conventioneers stop to say hello. They’re returning to
the hotel for another night, after taking the Acela Express to and from
Washington for a day’s ‘fruitless’ research into signaling at the Library of Congress
When we had arrived here about 3 pm, southbound trains on
the NEC were about 20 minutes late. By the time we returned, this had increased
to 40 minutes late, and our train proves to be just about an hour late by the
time it arrives here. No explanation for the lateness is ever offered.
During the time at Baltimore Penn Station, I record the
traffic:
There are 11 MARC trains, 5 Acela Expresses and 9 Amtrak
Regionals on this list, in about 2¾ hours of observation.
Eventually, our train arrives, I manage to record most of
the consist as it pulls in to the station, and we board our Viewliner for the
four hour trip to Charlottesville. Because of the time, we repair immediately
to the diner to eat dinner before the locomotive change (from electric to diesel
power) in Washington DC. During the Washington stop, I record the rest of the
consist and the two new locomotives, returning to the diner for my dessert. As
far as Washington, the route is the same stretch of NEC that we have traversed
three time already this trip.
Crescent Limited Route Description
At 7:56 pm, while we’re still in DC, the northbound CXS
Tropicana Juice train passes us, followed by a northbound CSX manifest. South
of Alexandria, we see strings of loaded NS coal cars alongside the Washington
Metro depot. Further south, there are parked loaded coal trains (or at least,
cars with locomotives). On arrival in Charlottesville, we take a cab over to
the Hampton Inn, just two or three blocks away but too far to drag the luggage,
check in and go to bed.
Appalachian Mountains (7/8-7/15)
Tuesday, July 8th, 2003
This morning, we have the hotel van take us out to US 29 and
Greenbrier Drive, where we rent a Mitsubishi Galant (identical to a Ford
Taurus) from National Car Rental. We drive back to the hotel, load our luggage
into the car, check out of the hotel (telling them we’ll be back in eight days)
and drive out to Monticello, southeast of town, following the excellent
directions we had received at the hotel.
Monticello is the hilltop house that Thomas Jefferson
architected and built for himself in the late 18th and early 19th-centuries,
based on what he had seen while representing his fledgling country in France
following the Declaration of Independence. It is also the house that he retired
to and lived in for the rest of his life after concluding his service to his
country as President in 1809. The house is located within a large estate that
was worked by slave labor as long as Jefferson owned it (as was the house
itself). For many years, now, the house and grounds have been open to the
public for tours, which start at a parking area and ticketing center at the
base of the hill.
As we arrive at the parking area, rain begins and continues
until just about the time we’re ready to leave the house and go out into the
gardens at the end of our tour. We buy our tickets and are soon transported up
the hill in a van that carries a group just large enough for one guide to
handle around the house. We have to wait outside on the front porch for a few
minutes (but out of the rain) until the previous group has cleared the entrance
hall, and are then let in to begin our tour. Our stylishly-dressed female guide
tells the story of the house and the rooms we go through in a clear and
comprehensive, yet interesting manner. We proceed around the ground floor of
the house in a clockwise manner, starting with the entrance hall, with its
various maps and old master paintings on the walls, as well as the clock above
the entrance door with the weights that descend into the dependencies below,
and continuing through the sitting room into the book room, where Jefferson
kept the various iterations of his library. From the latter, we walk past the
“greenhouse (as glassed in porch area) and through the cabinet, Jefferson’s
study, where he wrote letters and conducted scientific experiments. Some of the
most interesting sights to me include the device, called a polygraph, that
Jefferson designed and built to allow him to write two copies of a letter or
other document at once, as well as his other scientific gadgets. We observe the
cabinet from Jefferson’s bedroom, where the bed is located in the space between
rooms such that it could be accessed from either side.
From the bedroom, we walk back through the entrance hall,
where another group is beginning its visit, to the parlor, with its magnificent
view of the whole sweep of the gardens, followed by the dining room and tea
room. Among the artifacts in these two rooms are the wine elevator and the
serving shelves mounted in a door that permitted service without disturbing the
conversation at the table. Finally, we cross the hall to the octagonal guest
bedroom where James Madison often slept. We’re now back on the front (east)
wall of the house, in the diagonally opposite corner from the cabinet.
We don’t get to tour the upper rooms in the house due to
modern fire regulations regarding the stairways, which have nine-inch risers
and are only a foot or so wide as they curve upwards—clearly not something down
which to evacuate several dozen tourists in the event of an emergency. On
leaving the house, we guide ourselves around the “dependencies”, where the
house slaves lived and worked, including the basement to which the clock
weights descend, and then around the ornamental and kitchen gardens. (Guided
tours of these are available, and included in our tickets, but their scheduling
is such that we would have to take another two hours for these tours beyond
what it takes us to do them by ourselves.) Once we’re done with the kitchen
garden, we walk past the cemetery where Jefferson and his family are buried and
then down the trail to the gift shop and parking area.
Bob Heavenrich had recommended that we have lunch at
Michie’s Tavern while in the area. We had seen it on the way out to Monticello,
so we follow his advice as lunchtime approaches on the way. Michie’s Tavern
(pronounced “Mickey’s”) is a revolutionary era tavern that today is a museum,
which also serves food in the historical style using historical menus (but not
preparation techniques). Because this is already lunchtime, we decide to eat
first. The food is served on pewter dishes and drink in pewter mugs, and
comprises fried chicken and a number of vegetables. It is excellent. After
lunch, we take the audio-guided tour (loudspeakers in each room, not individual
tape players) of the old tavern, which includes the Gentleman’s Parlor, Ladies
Parlor, Assembly Room, Keeping Room, and the outdoor Dependencies. Following
the tour, we visit the old gristmill and general store, and then head off on
the highway for Roanoke, our destination for tonight.
We cross the Blue Ridge to Staunton on Interstate 64, which
uses the same gap in the ridge used by the ex-C&O Washington branch that we
will be riding next week on The Cardinal, then turn south on Interstate
81 up the interior valley. Once we’re in the valley, the truck traffic on the
highway increases heavily, and I find that we’re running at around 80 mph
(where the speed limit is 65) just to stop being run over by tracks, on the downhill
stretches. This abates somewhat after I-64 swings off to the west into West
Virginia, but traffic remains heavy even south of that intersection. The
ex-C&O line from Newport News to the west crosses the valley at about the
same point I-64 goes off to the west, joining with the ex-C&O Washington
Branch at Clifton Forge, west of the highway we’re traveling on.
As we get further south, the midday sunshine (that replaced
the morning rain) is, itself, replaced by sporadic thundershowers. However, the
promise of these is not met as we arrive in Roanoke, where both temperature and
humidity are higher than anything we’ve experienced so far. We arrive in
Roanoke just as the yard area at the Virginia Museum of Transportation is
closing for the day (3:30 pm), so we can’t manage that visit this afternoon. We
do patronize the gift shop, however. Then we head over to the Hotel Roanoke and
Conference Center, where we’re staying for the night. This is the former
Norfolk & Western Station Hotel, built in 1882, and is, indeed, immediately
adjacent to the location of the former N&W Roanoke Station now being
converted into the O. Winston Link Museum Center. The hotel was donated to
Virginia tech in 1985 and reopened in the 1990s.
Eventually, we get into our room on the “concierge floor”,
overlooking the ex-N&W main line past that station. This line is east of
the ex-N&W Shaffers Crossing Yard, and is thus on the line east between
Roanoke and Norfolk, on the coast. We’re on the special floor because these
were the only rooms available for this date when we booked, back in March!
However, being on this floor will provide everything we need for breakfast in
the morning, to the extent that we won’t need to stop anywhere for lunch
tomorrow.
After sunset, when the heat is off, we walk around the
center of Roanoke, and eat at an Indian Restaurant. On the way back, we pass
the ex-N&W locomotive repair shops and the station building that is under
construction for the new museum. There is also heavy construction equipment at
the hotel, blocking vehicular access to the main hotel entrance, participating
in painting the upper floors of the hotel
The trains we observe from the hotel on Tuesday evening and
Wednesday morning include the following
Wednesday, July 9th, 2003
The Virginia Museum Of Transportation doesn’t open until 11
am, so we’re in no hurry to leave the room, again, today. However, we do make
good use of the breakfast materials available as a result of being on the
concierge floor. I also record the passing trains while we’re still in the
room.
Just before 11 am, we check out and take the luggage out to
the car. We then drive over to the museum, located in the erstwhile Norfolk
& Western Freight Station in Roanoke, and go in. We start out by going out
into the covered yard area, where the stalwarts of the erstwhile Norfolk
Southern Steam Program—Class J 4-8-4 611 and class A 2-8-8-2 1218—are now to be
seen, stuffed and mounted, along with a goodly number of other locomotives, including
ex-Nickel Plate 2-8-4 ‘Berkshire’ 763,
ex-Virginian class EL-C electric locomotive 135 and ex-PRR GG-1 electric
locomotive 4919, as well as a Large number of freight and passenger cars. (Yes,
the PRR ran in Virginia—at Potomac Yard.) While we’re in the yard, Carol Jensen
(Carl’s wife) appears with grandson in tow, and says hello to Chris (we had
seen her during the convention in Baltimore). After viewing all the outdoor
equipment, climbing in appropriate cabs and the like, we visit the indoor segments
of the museum.
The eastern portion of the United States is divided between
the Eastern Seaboard and the Midwestern Heartland by the undulating ridges of
the Appalachian Mountains, angled roughly from northeast to southwest, but by
no means following a straight line on a map. From northeastern Pennsylvania
southwest into Kentucky and Tennessee, these mountain ridges are filled with
coal seams: hard coal (anthracite) in the far northeast; softer coal further to
the southwest; some of it in deep relatively ancient seams; some of it closer
to or even on the surface of the very mountaintops themselves.
In 1995, at the Lancaster NRHS Convention of that year, and
to a lesser extent in 1998, on a precursor excursion to the Syracuse NRHS
Convention, we visited the anthracite coal regions of northeastern
Pennsylvania, riding on the rail lines in some of the areas, riding on buses
between rail excursions in others. In 2000, prior to the Stamford NRHS
Convention, we visited the lines in south central Pennsylvania: the former
Pennsylvania Railroad main line over the Alleghenies west of Altoona; the
erstwhile coal lines of Broad Top Mountain; and the former Baltimore & Ohio
Pittsburgh line over Sand Patch grade.
This year, we’re visiting the four Appalachian crossings in
West Virginia and far southwestern Virginia, and the coal branches that feed
them, to further our acquaintance with the rail crossings of Appalachia and the
coalfields that provide most of their 21st-century traffic. These
four crossings, from northeast to southwest, are: the ex-B&O West End from
Cumberland, MD/Keyser. WV to Grafton, WV; the ex-Chesapeake & Ohio New
River/Kanawha River line (on which it is possible to travel by Amtrak, as we
will do on our departure from the region); the ex-Norfolk & Western
Pocahontas line from Bluefield, WV to Williamson, WV; and the northern part of
the erstwhile Clinchfield from north of Kingsport, TN, to Shelby Yard in far
eastern Kentucky. We shall visit these in a sequence determined more by driving
time and the availability of accommodations than by any rail-related logical
sequence.
Around noon, we set off southward from Roanoke, driving
first past Shaffers Crossing Yard and then taking I-81 southward again. When we
pass a sign saying that a bridge crosses the New River, I realize that we have
crossed the eastern continental divide, and are now on the west side of the
Appalachians, where all rivers flow ultimately into the Ohio River. As far as
Radford, we parallel the ex-N&W main. At Radford, the main line turns west
towards Bluefield, with a secondary main continuing south towards Bristol, VA.
The fastest highway route to Bluefield is along I-81, so we remain on that road
until I-77 leaves it to the west, and we take that route. After crossing one
ridge in a tunnel, we approach the ridge demarking the West Virginia state
line, crossed in another tunnel, and see that bad weather appears on the other
side of that ridge. Sure enough, when we emerge on the WV side, we’re in a
torrential downpour with very limited visibility as we leave the interstate highway
to joint US 52 into Bluefield.
Bluefield is a city (1990 pop. 12,756) in Mercer County, in
extreme SW W.Va., in the Allegheny Mts. adjacent to Bluefield, Va.. It was
settled in 1777 and incorporated in 1889. Lumber, transportation equipment, and
machinery are produced, and there are quarries and coal mines. Bluefield State
College is in the city, and nearby are two state parks. Most of the streets in
the center of the town look unchanged from the early 20th-century,
except for the traffic lights and one-way traffic flows. Modern hotels and
restaurants are located on the bypass highway, halfway up the ridge behind the town.
It’s only 2 pm, so there’s no point stopping at the hotel as
yet. Instead, we’ll take US 52 through town and out to the west as far as
Iaeger, WV, where we will turn around and follow the Pocahontas line of the
former Norfolk & Western back to Bluefield, railfanning along the way. The
rain has abated by the time we turn off the divided highway across the back of
town and head down into Bluefield, making navigation easier. In the center of
town, we cross the ex-N&W Bluefield Yard on a road overbridge and head on
through the rain. On the Welch bypass, we stop for more lemonade and then
continue on to Iaeger. As we approach Roderfield, we see that the former
N&W Premier Branch is in the process of being dismantled, and halfway from
Roderfield to Iaeger, we cross the line of the Clear Fork Branch, which has
already been dismantled.
Pocahontas District Route Description
Today’s
weather naturally makes these valleys seem gloomier than others we encounter
during this week, but the relative narrowness of the valleys and the thick
woods also contribute to this.
In Iaeger, where there is also an on-line coaling tower
still standing, we turn into the community to start following the line, and see
our first complete train—an eastbound loaded coal train—with photography
possible. For a while, we pace that train as we head back west. At Roderfield,
we drive around to the east entrance of the tunnels, where we capture a
westbound train. There is a maintenance crew here repairing a hi-rail truck that
it then takes onto the remaining stub of the branch that we had observed being
dismantled, earlier. Following the line around in the back roads, we see
another of the still extant on-line coal loading stations at CP Farm, a
location with several sidings immediately west of the Hemphill tunnels. In
steam days, eastbound trains reduced tonnage here and added helpers for the
climb to Elkhorn tunnel at the summit of great Flattop Mountain. In Welch,
after we find our way through downtown, observing as we do so the magnificent
double-track sweeping curve that the railroad makes through the center of town,
we attempt to leave to the east, only to be blocked by a police blockade. It
seems that the earlier rainstorm has brought down power lines, and the whole town
is without power. The railroad’s equipment will continue to operate only until
its batteries run down.
We turn around, thread our way back through Welch, and go up
to the west end of the bypass, where we turn and head east. We try to refuel
the car, but the first gas station we try has no power, so we continue east.
Five miles further, there is power and we can refuel the car. We stop to take
photographs at a coal loadout at Keystone and the bridge at Maybeury and see
several other places featured in our videos of this line. Later, we follow the
line past Bramwell Heritage Park into Virginia and back again.
While following this route, we see the following trains:
Back in Bluefield, we try in vain to find the hotel.
Eventually, on our second set of instructions, we discover it is directly
across the divided highway from where we had first turned into town, and where
we had turned into town on our return coming the other way across that stretch
of road. We check in to the Holiday Inn, and eat dinner there before turning in
early.
Thursday, July 10th, 2003
On Thursday, we’re going to take a look at the northern part
of the former Clinchfield line, now owned by CSX. To get there, we head back
south on I-77, then turn southwest on I-81 through Bristol, VA, to Kingsport,
TN, a drive that occupies the first quarter of the day. At 9:06 am, we pass an eastbound NS manifest
at Marion, VA. Because we’ve got a lot of ground to cover today, I elect not to
go look at Erwin Yard or the Tennessee Eastman plant in Kingsport, even though
we hear on the radio that today’s time freight is working that plant as we
pass. Instead, we head back into Virginia to the Copper Creek Trestles, reached
at 10:45 am. At this location, there are two trestles over the Copper Creek,
just off the Clinch River (which is near flood stage). The upper, high trestle
carries the former Clinchfield line—from the surface of the stream to the track
or rails on top of the trestle the height is 185 feet, and its length is 1,160
feet; the lower trestle, almost directly below the upper one, carries the NS
ex-Southern line that also runs through Natural Tunnel, as short distance to
the north. These trestles are fascinating, but unfortunately no train comes by
during the short time we can spend here.
We leave Copper Creek and head north to Natural Tunnel State
Park, reached at 11:07 am, where we use the chair lift to descend to track
level and look into the mouth of the natural tunnel itself. This is, in effect,
a cavern through several miles of mountain that is large enough to carry the
former Southern Railway branch line to the Virginia coalfields. NS has provided
access to its facilities to the Virginia Parks system, to permit the creation
of this state park. Once we’re done here, we set off to follow the Clinchfield
line north.
Clinchfield Route Description
We follow the line north from the
Copper Creek area through Starnes (12:11 pm) and Dungannon. We see a southbound
loaded coal train at the latter, but are unable to get to the head end in time
for photographs or recording of the power. North of Dungannon, we inadvertently
drive away from the line, failing to take the road going directly northeast to
St. Paul. (The mistake was one I made when I was marking up printed maps from
my decade-old road atlas CD-ROM, not one Chris made while navigating from those
maps today.) During our diversion, we find a place to have lunch, and then
reach St. Paul from the northwest, alongside the NS line to Norton, VA, instead
of from the southwest alongside the Clinchfield.
St. Paul is interesting because of
the crossing of the NS Norton line and the CSX Clinchfield line, and the
intersections and trackage rights between them that permit trains of either
railroad to enter and leave St. Paul on the lines of either railroad! We see
the intersections, and the place where the two lines run parallel to one
another, but don’t see any trains while we’re doing this. We leave St. Paul to
the northeast, following the Clinchfield through Boody, where we stop to look
at a rail train in the sidings there.
The next site of interest is Dante
Yard, which to our surprise starts several miles south of Dante itself
(pronounced “Dant” hereabouts). At the south end of the yard are two loaded
coal trains getting ready to depart. I stop rather hurriedly on the west side
of the road and walk back to where I can photograph these trains, enduring some
rather derisive questioning from members of a utility repair crew sheltering
from the heat of the day as I do so. Further north, we drive down into Dante
itself, finding the Union Baptist Church (3:00 pm), shown on all the videos of
the line, the yard office and the road that follows the line around until it
disappears into a tunnel. From my hardcopy maps, it looks as if we can get
directly across the mountain to the north end of the tunnel, but actual
conditions (muddy dirt roads) preclude this. While trying to find the roads
here, however, we pass a location where a house has recently burnt down and is
still smoking (not just smoldering) quite heavily, with some small flames still
visible. No fire crews are in evidence, however.
Until the Elkhorn Extension was finished in 1915,
Dante was the northern terminus of the Clinchfield, then known as the Carolina,
Clinchfield, and Ohio. (CCO reporting marks could still be found on Clinchfield
equipment into the 1980's.) Clinchfield's builder and visionary, George Carter,
knew his railroad would have to connect with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad
in Elkhorn City, Kentucky, in order to actually be a true bridge route from the
south to the Midwest. Unfortunately, two miles north of Dante lay the ominous
Sandy Ridge—the main barrier to northern expansion. Carter presided over the
creation of an 8,000-foot bore known as the Sandy Ridge Tunnel. The remaining
30 miles to Elkhorn City were some of the most difficult and expensive railroad
construction efforts ever undertaken in North America! In 1915, George Carter
himself drove the golden spike at Trammel, Virginia. Today, the Elkhorn
Extension produces trainload after trainload of coal from the surrounding
mountains, and allows CSX to profit from the well-engineered line as a true
bridge route. There are still a few
mine branches and literally dozens of small- and medium-sized tipples along the
mainline north of Dante.
At 3:25 pm, we cross the summit from
the Tennessee River watershed to the Ohio River watershed. At 3:43 pm, we see
the Clinchfield Coal Company’s Warehouse no. 6 at McClure. At 3:52, we pass the
tunnels at MP 18, south of Clinchco, and at 3:56 the bridge in Clinchco itself.
The trains we observe during
our trip along the Clinchfield are:
As we head north from Shelbiana to Pikeville, KY, the heavy
rain turns into another torrential downpour. My maps lead me to believe that
the route northeast to Williamson is a tortuous winding road, so I opt to keep
going in this limited visibility daylight rather than wait and have to go over
the mountain after dark. In Pikeville, at 6:50 pm, we turn away from the Big
Sandy River valley on US 119 to head for Williamson. There’s a lot of heavy
road construction going on (not at this time of night) along this road as it
climbs into the hills, and beyond the sections that is under construction, it
becomes clear that a lot of heavy engineering and route diversion has taken
place on this stretch of highway. The work certainly facilitates the travel of
the heavy coal trucks that we see along the road, even after 6 pm, even if that
isn’t why the reconstruction has taken place, and it will advance our arrival
at tonight’s hotel by at least half an hour if not an hour. The rain slackens
considerably, but doesn’t stop entirely. Between Meta and Sydney we pass a
large coal loadout at 7:17 pm, which may be served only by trucks. Our detailed
maps are clearly not reflective of the current situation, so we just follow the
new divided highway until almost into Williamson, where we turn off to reach
our hotel, crossing into West Virginia by a different bridge from that used by
the reconstructed highway. As we arrive, at 7:36 pm, we see an NS westbound
loaded coal train passing the road crossing ahead.
I had hoped that we would have time to visit Matewan, a few
miles southeast along the ex-N&W Pocahontas line, tonight, but darkness and
rainstorm have precluded that so we go directly to the hotel. The hotel is
right alongside the ex-N&W line, but our room is on the wrong side of the
building, which doesn’t seem to have good sightlines to the railroad anyway. We
eat dinner and go directly to bed, planning on an early start in the morning
since we now have to go to Matewan first before starting on our planned trip
for the day.
Friday, July 11th, 2003
Williamson, WV, is located on the Tug Fork River in Mingo
County in far western West Virginia, just across the river from far eastern
Kentucky. The area was first settled in the 1790s and the town established in
1888, as the Norfolk & Western Railroad was built through the area. It was
incorporated as a town in 1892 and as a city in 1905. Williamson is declining in population and business today. The town's
peak years were in the 1920's and 1930's when the population was over 10,000.
By 1960, the population had dropped to 6,659. Today, the population is around
5,000. Although many of the old buildings in town have been demolished due to
deterioration or flood damage, much of the fabric in town still dates from the
early part of the 20th century. Today, as in years past, the biggest
industry in town is the railroad, with its major yard handling both trains
along the main line and staging the coal trains as the loaded cars are brought
in from the mines and the coal loadouts, by the mine shifters, for making up
into trains to head both east and west, and as the trains of empty coal hoppers
returning from east and west are broken down into the strings needed by the
various mines and loadouts for reloading. The large roundhouse (a complete
semi-circle) is still extant, although no longer used for steam locomotive storage
and repair.
After checking out of the hotel before 7:30 am, we drive
through Williamson and alongside the Williamson Yard that extends several miles
to the southeast and is full of loaded coal hoppers leaving the mines and empty
coal hoppers awaiting a return visit to the mines. Further along the road, we
reach the point where the main line of the Pocahontas crosses the Tug Fork
River into Kentucky, enters a tunnel directly on the other side, then emerges
from that tunnel and crosses the river again into West Virginia. The tunnels
(one on each of the double tracks) are known as the Hatfield Tunnels, after the
infamous feud between the Hatfields and the McCoy’s that took place here over
many decades in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
and now has a tourist trail that one can follow.
The road stays on the West Virginia side of the river, and
follows a coal branch along that side of the river. Along this branch, at
Sprouse Creek, is a massive coal loadout that has its own locomotives. We stop
and get some photographs, then continue around to where we can photograph the
east end of the Hatfield tunnels and associated bridges. Then we proceed into
Matewan at 8:15 am.
The Matewan area was settled in the early decades of the 19th
century. The town was laid out on the north (east) bank of the Tug Fork River
in 1890, on the arrival of the Norfolk & Western Railroad. Over the years
the town has suffered many devastating floods, as well as the “battle” or
“massacre” between striking coal miners and the Baldwin-Felts detectives that
took place on May 19th, 1920, that left seven detectives, the town’s
mayor, and two miners dead or dying. The town also suffered from the events of
the Hatfield & McCoy feud, mentioned above. The major insutry in the area
today is coal mining.
Of railroad interest in the Matewan area is that the line,
which passes around the back of town on a sweeping double-track curve, twice
passes through the massive flood wall that has been erected to protect the town
from floodwater, using huge floodgates that can be closed across the track when
approaching floodwaters warrant it. The railroad depot has also been restored.
Leaving Matewan, we turn away from the ex-Norfolk &
Western main line and its associated coal branches and climb over the watershed
to reach to valleys in the Kanawha River watershed whose rail lines were
naturally provided by the Chesapeake & Ohio railroad that ran along the
valley of that waterway. We will spend the next several hours inspecting the
coal loadout facilities, mine shifters (local trains from yards to mines or
loadouts and loaded return trains) and yards that service the coal branches in
these long valleys, up to a hundred miles from the ex-C&O main line.
(In most of these places, the branch line doesn’t serve a
coal mine directly, since most of the mines around here are of the opencast
variety taking the tops of the mountains with massive earth moving equipment.
Large conveyer-belt systems move the coal down from the hilltops to the valleys
below, where the coal is loaded onto trains of coal hopper cars, usually in a
single continuous pass. The facilities that load the coal onto the moving
trains are called “coal loadouts”. We will see many of them, today.)
C&O Southwestern West Virginia Coal Line Route descriptions
The lines are universally single track, with passing sidings
as needed, often maintained to standards suitable only for quite low speeds,
even though the loads they must bear are heavy coal trains. The lines are
mostly alongside the streams in the centers of the various valleys, which are
heavily wooded except where there are towns and villages, and of course coal
company facilities. In spite of casual appearances, this area comprises not
mountains arising from a plain, but rather river valleys cut into the
Appalachian Plateau, a sloping flat area rising slowly from west to east,
originating at about 800 ft. near Cincinnati and rising to over 3000 ft at the
Appalachian Front on the eastern border of West Virginia. This explains why so
many mountains in this state have flat tops! The whole area varies from quite
remote and rugged to bustling towns (Logan, Danville) that are, nonetheless,
quite remote in themselves. Obviously, there are many mines and loadouts in
these valleys that we did not see!
After climbing up the hillside behind Matewan, crossing over
US 52 on its way east from Williamson, and descending past a couple of coal
facilities that appear to be served only by road (Delbarton Plant, Spartan
Mining Company, we reach US 119 heading north from Williamson. A few miles
further northeast, the first coal loadout we reach is the Laurel Run Mine Company’s
loadout at Scarlet on the Island Creek subdivision. Although the facilities are
clearly evident and in good repair, it would seem that this facility has not
been operational for some time. No employees or employee vehicles are present
and the facility’s perimeter fence is all locked up.
Next we head for Peach Creek Yard, north of Logan, WV, on
the Logan subdivision. On the way, we pass the Holden Trace Creek Coal Company
and the Alex Energy loadout, both of which seem to be truck served in 2003.
Near Logan, we see a shopping center being built in an area that was clearly
once a strip mine, with residual coal still being cleared. It is clear that US
119 has undergone massive reconstruction in WV as well as in KY, and that it’s
present course is not what is shown on my hardcopy maps. This bites us near
Logan, since I’m expecting to find a turnoff to Peach Creek by staying on US
119 instead of going into Logan, but it turns out that I really want “Old US
119”, which we don’t encounter until several miles north of Logan, and on which
we then have to head south towards Logan before finding the turnoff to Peach
Creek. At the yard, we find a southbound empty coal train with CSX AC locomotives
on the front, idling away.
Leaving Peach Creek, we continue into Logan, buy something
to drink, and then leave town to the east. Once again, the road climbs up the
side of the mountain between one valley and the next, and then descends into that
next valley. As it does so, it turns northeast, and then almost north.
Approaching a place called Blair, we see ahead of us a mountain that is in the
process of having its top removed by the coal digging equipment. In fact, we
can see a massive dragline at the top of the mountain. I stop north of Blair,
at 10:44, and get the best photographic angle I can on this scene.
(Interestingly, this very mountain is depicted on an anti-mountaintop-mining
poster that is included in our check in material at the Inn at Snowshoe on
Saturday night, complete with a photograph showing both mountaintop mine and
the road from which I had photographed it.)
A few miles later, we take a side road off to the left to
reach the massive Monclo Preparation Plant coal loadout facilities, at the end
of the Coal River subdivision, used for loading the coal scraped off this
mountaintop into hopper cars for transportation to (most likely) electric power
plants. There are strings of hopper cars in evidence, and sounds of coal
descending the mountain by conveyor belt, but no locomotives and no hopper car
loading going on. A few miles yet further north(east), we turn southeast and
head down that road a number of miles along the Pond Fork subdivision to an
area named Robinson Creek, passing the Independence Mine loadout on the way and
reaching another at the Robinson Creek location. The facilities at the latter
seem to be in operation, but there are no actual trains present during our
short visit.
We head back north to the last road junction, and continue
north into Danville, where there is a yard serving the lines in this area.
There is switching going on, and I manage to get some photographs of the
activities. We then go to a nearby restaurant for lunch. In that restaurant,
while we’re eating, I observe one pretty young woman waiting in line greet
another who is adding condiments to her food. It appears that the two women had
until not long ago been in school together, but are seeing each other for the
first time since. When the first young woman has received her food, she stops
and looks longingly at the table at which the second young woman is seated with
another young woman, but apparently cannot bring herself to sit down with them.
We leave Danville to the north, but turn due east after only
a couple of miles. Again, we cross over a mountain into the next valley. In
that valley, we turn south at Seth along the Big Coal subdivision and slowly
climb upstream, passing a number of additional loadouts along the way (Big Dora
1:32 pm, Performance Coal Company 1:58 pm, Sundial Prep. Plant, Shumate
Contract mine 2:04 pm). Unfortunately, there is no actual train loading going
on at any of them, but we do see some loaded coal trains along here. So, we continue
up stream and then out the back end of the valley, turning eastward again and
crossing an upland flattish area to reach the largest town in the area,
Beckley. The latter seems strangely located, since it isn’t down in any of the
valleys, and apparently serves no more of the coal mining areas than do the
much smaller towns down in the valleys themselves.
Having reached this point, I decide that we do, indeed, have
time to visit the depot at Prince, where
the depot and platform canopy are in streamline moderne style, and the image of
Chessie the kitten is tiled as a mosaic in the floor, and still reach
Thurmond while the visitors’ center at the latter is still open. So, we go
around the south and east of Beckley until we find the road east to Prince, and
then take that road as it descends into the New River Gorge. Reaching the
river, we follow the line on the west (south) bank for a while, alongside a
siding with a string of empty coal hoppers, then cross the river on a
multi-span through truss bridge to reach the depot at Prince at 3:45 pm.
Although this is Friday, a day with Amtrak service at Prince, the depot is
closed up, although we can see the Chessie mosaic through the windows. Just as
we’re about to give up, the agent drives up and lets us in. Chris and I both
take photos of the mosaic, and say our thanks to the agent. There’s also a huge
mural (photograph) showing C&O coal trains in the area, which I don’t try
to photograph, and a C&O sign on the outside of the depot, which I do. We
leave Prince on the road we came on, climbing westward back up to the Beckley
plateau area, then turning northeast down the narrow winding road to Thurmond.
As might be expected,
the hillsides along this portion of the river are very spectacular during
Autumn colors, and the Collis P Huntington Chapter of NRHS has run excursions
along here twice each weekend for the several weekends during which the trees
are in full Autumn regalia. In the middle of the gorge, it is spanned by a
single-arch steel road bridge, billed as the longest single arch bridge in the
world, more than 1700 feet above the river, and second in height only to the
privately-owned suspension bridge across the Royal Gorge in Colorado). Once a
year the road across the bridge is closed to permit a day for parachutists and
bungee-jumpers to jump from its span to, or towards, the river below.
We leave Thurmond, of
necessity, by the road on which we came in, but at the top, we turn north onto
US 19 and head for the bridge across the gorge. After crossing the bridge at 5:30
pm, we turn off the road to the visitors’ center run by that same NPS unit overlooking
the bridge. Once we’re done looking around the area, we drive north on windy
country roads to Ansted on US 60, where we turn west to reach Hawks’ Nest State
Park, its overlook, and its lodge where we will be spending the night. We find
the lodge, and get directions further west along the main road to the overlook,
which we wish to visit first while the light is still good. The overlook, 6:15
pm, gives a view down into the gorge that includes the bridge carrying the
westbound rail line across the river; we have seen this view in videos of the
autumn steam excursions that once were held on this line.
Returning to the lodge,
we check in and go to our room. This also has a view down into the gorge,
showing the line just east of the bridge. We have dinner in the restaurant that
also overlooks the gorge, and then sit on the balcony of our room until it is
no longer possible to observe any passing trains. We go to bed soon thereafter,
needing to be up early on Saturday morning for the multi-hour drive to reach
Cheat Bridge by 10:30 am.
During the course of the day,
we see the following trains and locomotive sets:
This list records thirteen different coal trains over the
course of the day at ten different locations, including both branches and main
line settings on two different railroads.
Saturday, July 12th, 2003
Another major industry in the mountains of West Virginia is
logging, generally for paper and packaging production. Although many longtime
logging towns and lumber mills are now gone or in ruins, operators such as
WestVACo (the former West Virginia Company) still run tree farms, lumber
concentration facilities, and paper mills in the area. Many of the railroad
branches that once served this industry are now gone, or have become tourist
lines, and we are visiting some of them this weekend.
The forests on Bald Knob mountain were once logged by the
Mower (rhymes with power) Lumber Company, the logs were processed by a WestVACo
lumber mill at Cass, and the results were transported out of the area on the
Durbin & Greenbrier Railroad (later a branch of the C&O). Independent
loggers, who sent their product out on a branch of the Western Maryland
railroad that served the Cheat River Valley, once logged the forests of Cheat
Mountain and the Cheat River Valley, surrounding the onetime logging town of
Spruce.
Today, the Mower Company’s railroad has become the Cass
Scenic Railroad, a West Virginia State Park. For the entire Mower era, and some
of the Cass Scenic era, the outside connection for this railroad was the
Greenbrier branch of the C&O. When the latter was severed by floodwaters in
the 1980s, a connection was built from a location up on the side of Bald Knob
over to the Western Maryland at the site of the former logging town of Spruce,
now vanished. In recent years, the Western Maryland line in the Cheat River Valley
has been sold to the West Virginia Central, a shortline that also operates
former B&O branches as a single railroad.
Starting in 2001, a local resident named John Smith, and his
wife, started operating passenger excursions over portions of the former
Greenbrier branch and the West Virginia Central line, under the aegis of their
company the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley. Excursions over the remaining five
to six miles of the Greenbrier branch, south of Durbin, are named the Durbin
Rocket. Excursions over the upper reaches of the line up the Cheat River are
named the Cheat River Salamander, and excursions over the lower reaches of the
line up the Cheat River, and over some of the ex-B&O lines in the New
Tygart Valley, are known as the New Tygart Flyer. The Durbin Rocket excursions
start from the depot in Durbin. The New Tygart Flyer excursions start from the
center of Elkins and/or points lower down the New Tygart Valley. The Cheat
River Salamander excursions start from a location named Cheat Bridge, which
turns out literally to be a bridge over the Cheat River, there being no obvious
community of any sort in that area.
We have arranged to ride the two separate Cheat River
Salamander excursions during the day on Saturday, the Durbin Rocket’s Moonlight
over the Greenbrier excursion on Saturday evening, the Cass Scenic Railroad
on Sunday, and the New Tygart Flyer on Monday. The first Salamander excursion
leaves at 11 am, but we have been asked to be at Cheat Bridge by 10:30 am.
Since we made the room reservations at a time when I knew about the Cass
Scenic, but not about any of the Durbin & Greenbrier Valley excursions, our
Friday night sleeping spot, through exactly what I wanted it to be, is quite a
drive from Cheat Bridge, requiring an early morning start. Kevin Tankersley
suggested this would be about a two-hour drive, but I have chosen to allow
almost twice that time.
We arise before 6:30 am to see the New River Gorge filling
in with thick fog (it had been clear when I first awoke). By the time we’re
actually on the road, at 7 am, the fog is clearing again. We head east and then
southeast on US 60 over a couple of ridges and down through some valleys that
still have fog patches. Looking for an open gas station, we don’t find one for
the first hour of the drive and the fuel gauge is firmly on ‘E’ by the time we
find one that is open. East of Rupert, we pass a lumber concentration point for
WestVACo, where processed lumber from sustainable logging operations in the surrounding
forests is prepared for transport (by truck, unfortunately) to a WestVACo paper
mill.
After a stretch of eastward fast running on Interstate 64,
we turn north on US 219 for the long haul to Cheat Bridge. We need to maintain
an almost 60 mph average to make our time at Cheat Bridge, which means that, on
this 55 mph road, every stretch of slow running due to slow moving vehicles in
front of us has to be matched by a period of 70 mph running to keep up to time.
We pass a sign announcing the birthplace of author Pearl Buck, which surprises
me since I though she had been born in China. The lovely countryside is open
farming fields interspersed with tree-covered hills. For a long time, we’re
headed up the valley of a stream that drains into the New River. Then, we cross
over a watershed into the New Tygart Valley, which contains the New Tygart
Valley River—a strange name indeed. With less than half an hour to go, we turn
southeast onto US 250 and cross over Cheat Mountain into the Cheat River
Valley. At 10:25 am, we cross over the Cheat Bridge with no town in sight. The
next dirt road has a sign to the Cheat River Salamander, so we take it and draw
to a stop in the dirt parking lot next to a small wooden building labeled
“Tickets” and a single privy at 10:29 am.
West Virginia Central Route Description
There are several other passengers waiting, along with a
group of others on board a tour bus, but no ticket seller in sight. We can,
however, see the 2001-built replica Edwards railbus a hundred yards or so up
the line. A little after 10:30, the railbus pulls down to the ticket booth, and
the conductor, Francine, steps off and started providing tickets to those with
reservation letters in hand. The railbus driver, Mark, lets passengers on board
to select seats as soon as they have tickets in hand. His first task is to show
everyone how to operate the openable windows on the railbus, since we will need
them open for ventilation on this sunny day. The bus tour group passengers will
be riding only one way with us, since they will transfer to the New Tygart
Flyer at High Falls, destination of both excursions. The remainder of the
passengers (less than half the total) will be returning to Cheat Bridge, where
some of them (and others) will take the day’s second excursion, up to and
beyond Spruce, with us.
At 11 am, with all passengers ticketed and on board, Mark
starts the railbus northward, down river. Shortly, Francine descends to flag us
across US 250 adjacent to the road bridge, and we then adopt our running speed
of some 15 mph alongside the Cheat River, following the river closely for the
entire distance through pretty, thickly-wooded countryside to the destination
point for this first excursion, High Falls. There are, indeed, some scenic
waterfalls on the Cheat River, just down a muddy path from this location, that
are well worth a visit (and are inaccessible by road). While we’re at High
Falls, the New Tygart Flyer arrives from the north, with a much bigger load of
passengers than we have, and our bus tour group transfers to that train. Those
of us remaining on the railbus are given our previously paid for box lunches at
this point, and eat as the railbus heads back south after a 45 minute layover.
(Mark is now driving from the other driving position, at the other end of the
railbus in the ‘parcels’ area.)
Suddenly, our sunny open-window day is
interrupted by moderately heavy rain, and most of the windows are closed quite
quickly. (Fortunately, the air temperature has also dropped, so this doesn’t
result in heat overload inside the railbus.) After about 20 minutes, the rain
stops and the clouds clear, so we all open the windows again. A little after 2
pm, Francine again steps off to flag us across US 250, and we’re back at our
starting point by 2:10 pm.
While Francine provides tickets for those joining us for the
second excursion, those of us continuing on take the opportunity to use the
privy. At 2:30 pm, we head off again, still headed south, climbing the river
valley to the location of the former logging town of Spruce and beyond to the
end of the line in a mountain pass just southwest of Spruce. We reach a maximum
altitude of about 4200 feet, about two miles from Spruce, then return to Spruce
for our layover, passing the connection to the Cass Scenic Railroad just south
of Spruce, in both directions. The former location of Spruce is now quite
empty, with only the small train platform and a couple of privies, but Francine
has some photos and plans of the area when Spruce was a thriving logging town
that show how things once were. After another 45-minute layover, we head back
north, downriver, to our starting point at Cheat Bridge, reached at about 5 pm,
where the passengers detrain and the crew is done for the day.
We drive another 15 miles or so southeast into Durbin, where
we find the railroad depot with a Climax geared logging locomotive (numbered 3)
and its train of open gondola and two cabooses simmering quietly after its afternoon
excursion, awaiting the 8 pm departure of the evening excursion. Our tickets
for the train include dinner at the depot before departure, and dinner proves
to be at 6 pm, less than an hour away. We walk across the street to the “Rails
and Trails Store”, where we exchange our reservation letter for tickets and I
buy a couple of books on the local lines. We then sit at a picnic table reading
our books until dinnertime. During this time period, Mark shows up. He’ll be
riding this evening’s excursion (which his wife is working on the food crew),
but not working it.
The home cooked dinner is excellent—better than any
restaurant meal we’ve had during the last week, but not better than the meals
served on Dover Harbor. After dinner, we board the train. There’s a
mountain music group playing on the gondola, which is any case is getting full,
so we go inside a caboose and climb up to sit in the cupola. At about departure
time, the rain begins to fall so everyone in the gondola squeezes into the cabooses,
many of them not finding places to sit.
We back the five miles or so to the end of
track, with light levels sufficient to see where we’re going and see the
deciduous wooded scenery along the Greenbrier River. At the end of the line,
there’s a campfire setup by people who had ridden out here earlier on the
line’s speeder, and marshmallows are available for cooking over the campfire.
There are also coffee, punch (with orange juice in it, so Chris can’t drink it)
and sodas, as well as crackers and cheese to nibble on. The musicians continue
to play as complete darkness falls. The clouds obscure the moon the entire time
we’re at this location, so the promise of moonlight over the Greenbrier is not
yet fulfilled. During the stopover, I take the opportunity to ask Mark for
driving directions for the best way to get to the Inn at Snowshoe. It
transpires that some new roads have been build in the area since my mapping
CD-ROM was made, so that it is quite reasonable to go the short way via Cass.
On the return, we sit in the cupola on the other side of the
caboose. Shortly after departure, the clouds clear and the full moon comes out,
giving us truly moonlight over the Greenbrier. In light provided by someone
with a searchlight, we also see wildlife along the track. Returning to Durbin,
we use the facilities in the depot before heading off for our 25 miles drive to
the Inn at Snowshoe. We drive south out of Durbin, through Greenbank (where the
US Radio Telescope is located), and after 15 miles or so turn west through Cass
and over the twisty, hilly road to the Inn at Snowshoe, on the west side of the
mountain. By now, it’s after 11:30 pm as we check in, so we go directly to bed
as soon as we’re settled in the room.
As twisty, curvy, and hilly as the new road is, I’m sure
glad we didn’t have to drive across the mountain its predecessor!
Sunday, July 13th, 2003
Our train from Cass to Bald Knob doesn’t depart until noon,
so we’re in no particular hurry to get up this morning. When we do leave the
Inn at Snowshoe, we take the road that goes up to the ski resort on the top of
Snowshoe Mountain, just to see what things are like up there. This is a most
unusual ski resort, in that the facilities are on the very top of the mountain
(which is flat), the ski runs head downwards from the resort, and the ski lifts
bring skiers back up to the top. Judging by the amount of new construction we
see, the ski resort will be twice the size this coming winter as it was for the
last one!
The road continues through the resort area and brings us
back to the main road to Cass about halfway across the mountain. We continue
into Cass, and are there in plenty of time to have breakfast before train time,
thus avoiding any issues of lack of food on the mountain. We’re done with
breakfast in time to take pictures of the first train of the day up the short
segment of the mountain for the turnaround reached by most visitors. (Three
trains a day run that far, compared to one going all the way to Bald Knob.)
Before that train leaves, there is an announcement for people interested in a
tour of the yard and shops to gather at the north end of the depot. We do, and
are the only people who show up for this particular tour, so we get a modified
tour geared to our knowledge as railfans.
Our guide, Ben True, takes us across the tracks and into a
shady spot in the parking area, from which we watch the train leave. Then he
tells us about the history of logging and railroading on Bald Knob before
taking us to the ruins of the lumber mill that WestVACo had run at this
location until 1960. Here are the visible remains of the belt-drive powered machinery
at the former lumber mill. Past the lumber mill is the water tank serving the
locomotives and then the yard and repair shops for the Cass Scenic Railroad. In
the yard is one of the Shay geared logging locomotives making up what will be
our train at noon. Inside the shops are other Shays in various stages of
repair, as well as various interesting large machine tools specific to steam
locomotive repair, such as the machine for fitting new tires onto driving
wheels. We see a locomotive with its smokebox removed and the wheel lathe.
There’s also an area being used for restoration projects by
a volunteer organization allied with the Cass Scenic Railroad State Park. Our
guide is a member of this volunteer organization, as well as an employee of the
park. Here, we see a burnt-through journal bearing as well as a good one next
to it. At the end of the tour, we climb aboard the stock for our train, engine
11 and five cars, locomotive at the “lower” end of the train as always, and
ride it back into the station. This permits us to get seats right at the front
of the train, which will be propelled up the hill except on one short
switchback section. In the station, we acquire some more drinks before
departure time, as other passengers board and select their seats.
Cass Scenic Route Description
On departure, we run past the water tank and
repair sheds, then start the climb uphill, through the regrown forest that has
replaced the trees logged before the area became a State Park. Because we’re
running in reverse, the conductor is traveling on the platform right in front
of us, keeping the engineer aware of what things look like ahead of the moving
train. After a while, there’s radio communications with the earlier train that
is now returning downhill, and a meeting place is arranged. As usual, this will
be at one of the switchbacks (there are no sidings on the lower part of the
mountain) and when we arrive at the first switchback at 12:20 pm, the other
train is stopped on the line just above the switch, waiting for us to enter the
tail track first. That train then pulls in and reverses out downhill before we
pull out uphill at 12:24 pm.
A little further up the hill is the second switchback, where
we pull in to the tailtrack at 12:28 pm, throw the switch and immediately start
moving in reverse up the upper track. Reaching Whittaker, the place where the
short turns stop, we also stop, since this is the last place on the trip where
we can purchase drinks and snacks. At the stop, the train crew passes through
the train setting all of the handbrakes. We’re allowed half an hour to use the
facilities and visit the replica logging camp and logging equipment, including
a steam-powered skidder, located here. Then it’s time to get back on the train
and continue up the mountain. The next location of interest is the connection between
the Cass Scenic and Spruce, the other end of which (a mile away) we had seen
yesterday. We stop at the watering location (not one of the large tanks) at
which there’s a fixture for filling the tender tank from a stream, from 1:48 to
1:59 pm. Again, the handbrakes are set during the stop. Beyond that is the wye
on the northwest corner of the mountain, above Spruce, and then the end of
track at the top of the mountain (over 4800 ft. altitude). Here there is an
observation deck overlooking the Cass area, as well as some more toilet facilities.
We have half an hour at this location, and some people who have brought coolers
and picnic baskets use the picnic tables to eat lunch.
On the way down, we experience some rain as we head downhill
faster than we came up. The occasional vista showing Snowshoe Mountain, or
looking back up to the top of Bald Knob, only emphasizes how much the rest of
the trip is through the depths of the new growth forest (maple, oak, beech,
birch, cherry, mountain ash). We’re also told about how Pocahontas County,
where we are, is at the top of things: eight rivers flow out of Pocahontas
County, but none flow in!
The conductor isn’t providing track visibility data to the
engine crew going in this direction, but we do hear the radio chatter still.
The 1 pm short-turn has experienced some kind of difficulties, and is very late
returning to Cass. This means that the 3 pm train (all normally run by the same
locomotive and cars) will be late, and we have to figure out where to meet it.
Eventually, a decision is made to meet it at the lower switchback, and that is
what we do at 4:19 pm after passing the upper switchback at 4:10 pm. The train
now has a different locomotive from the one we had seen on that train’s stock
earlier. As we pass the yard, the original locomotive is sitting there,
awaiting disposal so it can be repaired. Apparently, it broke one of its geared
connecting shafts on the way uphill on the 1 pm train, but had enough control
to return to the yard. The train service then continued with the spare
locomotive that is kept in steam for just such eventualities.
Before reaching the depot, we stop from 4:36 to 4:38 pm at
the water tank to fill the locomotive’s water space. As we leave the train,
another call is going out for those interested in touring the yard and shops.
This time, there are many more takers, but we’ve already done that so can get
on the road directly. We head north, past Greenbank (we can see the radio telescope
this time), through Durbin on US 250, past Cheat Bridge, cross over into the
New Tygart Valley and pass through the junction with US 219, past another
WestVACo logging concentration facility, and into Elkins. Here, we have to ask
for directions at a gas station before we can find our hotel. (The street maps
off the CD-ROM don’t name the roads that have a highway route number, making it
difficult to find a named street that is also a numbered road.)
This hotel is the least adequate of any we’ve been to on
this trip, and the restaurant we go to for dinner falls into the same category.
(Apparently in this part of the world, everyone eats steak “well done”, so the
waitress doesn’t ask and mine is served that way.) Naturally, this would occur
at the place with the longest time between arrival and departure of any overnight
stay on the trip!
Monday, July 14th, 2003
We’ve chosen to board today’s New Tygart Flyer in Elkins,
rather than further down the valley, because we’ll need the time later in the
day for visiting the ex-B&O West End. (That is, we have sufficient time to
go to that boarding point this morning, but won’t want to take the time to go
back to that point to pick up our car this afternoon!) At the boarding point,
we again get tickets in exchange for our reservation letter. We have tickets in
the parlor car at the “rear” of the train (leading going up the hill this
morning), and notice that these are a different color from those held by the
coach passengers.
The train comes in, backwards as expected, and has some
difficulty lining up the car entrance with the platform. (The conductor says
that this is because “Big Mark” is the engineer today, and he doesn’t know how
to do this too well.) Since the door that has been lined up with the platform
is at the “front” of the forward coach, we have to walk through all four
coaches (two chair cars and two set up café style) to get to our first class
car. Here, we take two chairs adjacent to a small table and settle in. Again,
there is a conductor riding on the “rear” platform of the car keeping the locomotive
crew apprised of the state of the track in front. Of course, the river is at the
opposite side of the car from where we’re sitting, but since we can see clearly
out of both sides of the car that doesn’t matter. A voice on the PA keeps us
aware of the sights to see along the line, including the high bridge where the track crosses
over the Cheat River to gain its east bank, and the disused bridge at Elk River
Junction that once carried another line (the C&I RR) across that river to
cross the line we’re on at grade.
Soon after this, we reach High Falls. There’s a high-rail
maintenance vehicle there, but not Salamander, since this is a Monday. (The Salamander
doesn’t run on Mondays and Tuesdays.) After collecting the consist and
photographing the locomotives, I return to the car. The crew is eating lunch
there (we’ve had ours already), and discussing the previous day’s storm, which
was apparently much worse in this vicinity than it was up on Bald Knob. A tree
had fallen across the track, preventing the New Tygart Flyer from reaching
anywhere near High Falls on Sunday. This presented Mark, driving the
Salamander, with a small problem, since they had two passengers who were
supposed to be transferring from Salamander to Flyer at High Falls. Instead,
those passengers had to go back to Cheat Bridge with the Salamander. No mention
was made of their transportation options on getting there! The railroad had to
send a train up the line last night to move the tree. That was evidently the
train I heard blowing its horn through Elkins, well after dark last night!
Once the crew is done with lunch, and all the passengers
have reboarded, we head back down the valley, with the locomotives leading this
time. However, even though our car is now on the rear, and not in use by the
conductor, passengers are not allowed to ride out on the rear platform. The
return is slightly faster than the outward trip, and we’re off the train in
Elkins before the advertised 2:30 pm. We head northwest out of Elkins, miss a
turn somewhere, and wind up taking a dirt road over the top of a mountain
before rejoining our intended route to Grafton. This route is through lovely
farmland, and along a valley with a number of signs relating to the “First
campaign of the Civil War”, which was fought at a time that the counties of
present-day West Virginia were part of the seceding state of Virginia, against
the will of the local residents who wanted to stay in the Union.
Having passed the other location at which we could have
boarded/left the train some 40 minutes earlier than we would have reached it on
the train (according to the schedule), we continue down the valley alongside
track once owned by the B&O but now a CSX branch line. Further north,
there’s another ex-B&O line on the other side of us, then a junction, and
then we’re at the west end of Grafton, crossing over the former B&O yard
there that still serves coal trains today.
Grafton, West Virginia has been a railroad town since the
Baltimore and Ohio's mainline between Baltimore and Wheeling first reached it
in 1852. From that point Grafton grew to reach its apex in the 1920's when
steam power and the amount of freight moving over its lines were also at a
pinnacle. Grafton's railroad operations began to decline less than thirty years
later as steam related jobs were cut and local businesses began switching from
rail transportation to newer, more efficient forms of transportation, and
continued through the 1970s and into the 1980s. Even so, Grafton remained the
focal point for the B&O and WM lines in the northern and central sections
of the state and inversely grew as the terminals in Fairmont, Elkins, Benwood
and Rowlesburg were shut down. The St. Louis Mainline downgrade in 1985 removed
all through freight going from Cumberland, MD, to Cincinnati, OH. Grafton went
from a primary terminal on a mainline to secondary status almost overnight.
Many of the mines in the area that Grafton served also closed, resulting in
fewer mine turns. The majority of today’s traffic, however, is still coal
trains serving the remaining mines in the area.
B&O West End Route Description
The trains and locomotives that we observe this afternoon
and evening are:
Tuesday, July 15th, 2003
I’m up this morning not longer after the light level is good
enough to observe the passing trains. At 7 am, fog obscures the surrounding
hillsides. We stay in the room observing trains until after the eastbound Capitol
Limited has paid its visit (reasonably on time today), then checkout and
head east. Our first stop is the CSX locomotive depot and repair facilities at
the southwest corner of its Cumberland Yard, followed by a drive along the
north side of that yard. Then we head east, along a road on the north side of
the Potomac. Part way along this road, we take a side trip to visit one of the
preserved locks on the erstwhile C&O Canal (Lock #70), and consider
crossing the Potomac to visit the small yard and junction at Green Springs
where there is a long branch line (now a shortline). However, the bridge is a
toll bridge and there is no stated price, so I’m not willing to pay to discover
that there’s nothing there if interest today (since there wasn’t anything at
any of the times we passed this location two weeks previously).
We continue east on the previous main road until the road
crosses the river at Paw Paw, where it also crosses the former B&O East End
tracks. We look for the side road that allowed Alex Mayes to get to the mouth
of the Paw Paw tunnel, but don’t find it. So, we turn away from the railroad to
start our southerly journey back to Charlottesville.
The trains we observe this morning before turning away from
the railroad are:
We leave Paw Paw heading south, and then southeast to reach
Winchester, VA in the Shenandoah Valley, pass right through Winchester looking
for a place to eat but not finding one, and continue on south to Front Royal.
Here we stop at a Pizza Parlor, where we confuse the staff by ordering a pizza
from the menu rather than taking their lunch buffet and having them
(apparently) deliver our pizza to the buffet rather than to us. After lunch, we
continue out to the south of Front Royal to the entrance to Shenandoah National
Park and the Skyline Drive. Since these are conveniently on the way to
Charlottesville, we have decided to visit these on our way south today.
At the entrance to Skyline Drive, we see that the overall
speed limit in the park is 35 mph, and that the distance to the south end of
the park is 105 miles. I comment that on that basis it would take three hours
to pass through the park even if we did so without stopping. Shenandoah
National Park occupies the entirety of the Blue Ridge, including both side
slopes, over that 100-mile stretch. The park was created to provide a National
Park within a day’s driving distance of the cities of the northeastern
megalopolis. Skyline Drive runs more or less along the ridge, except where
there are mountains rising significantly higher than the general level of the
ridge, for the entire distance. (The Blue Ridge Parkway continues this
alignment along the entire mountain south of the end of the National Park all
the way past Asheville, NC, to Great Smokey Mountains National Park.)
After an initial climb from the north end of the mountain to
the level of the ridge top, we enter the national park, paying our entrance
fee, and then stop at the Visitors’ Center adjacent to park headquarters. After
using the exhibits in the museum there to orient ourselves on where we will be
going (and stopping) for the next several hours, we continue south along the
Skyline Drive. We make a point of at least pulling into each of the overlooks
and viewpoints along the way and reading the informational signs posted there.
At some of them, we then drive on because the haze in the valleys below (on
either side of the ridge) obscures any meaningful view. At others, we get out
and take photographs. At some of them, we see deer, including one standing
right in the parking area for the overlook, another running hard along the road
in front of us and a third eating at the side of the road.
We take photographs at Thornton Hollow, from Mary’s Rock
Tunnel and Hazel Mountain overlooks, of a deer at Pinnacles overlook and from
Hemlock Springs overlook. The highest point along the road is at 3,680 ft.
above sea level. From Timber Hollow overlook we photograph Pollock Knob., then
take photographs at Franklin Cliffs, Rocky Mountain and Tray Flat overlooks,
then at Moorman’s River and Saw Mill Run overlooks..
Most of the land along the ridge has reverted to its former
wooded state, even where the forests had once been cleared for agriculture. At
one point, however, the park service has maintained an area adjacent to the
second visitors’ center as the “Great Meadow” to show how things would have
looked during the era when settlers farmed the Blue Ridge. At two places along
the ridge, roads cross low spots in the ridge and provide additional entrances
to the park. There are visitors’ centers in each of the northernmost two
segments of the drive between these entrances, and a visitors’ information
office in the southernmost segment.
Overall, it takes us between four and a half and five hours
to cover the length of Skyline Drive, stopping at every overlook. This makes us
wonder what anyone who is driving along without stopping is doing up here on
this road, rather than taking the (faster) roads alongside the park in the
valleys below. At the south entrance, we take Interstate 64 east to
Charlottesville, and then drive into Charlottesville such that we pass the
University of Virginia on the way. This confirms to me that the part of the
university that we want to visit on Wednesday is within walking distance of our
hotel.
We reach the hotel, check in, and take our luggage to our
room. Then we ask the hotel van to go with us to the location at which we have
to return the car, so it can return us to the hotel when we have done so. We
stop to fill the fuel tank on the way, park the car, and drop the completed
rental return in the drop box (since this is after office hours at this
location). The van then returns us to the hotel. We eat at a (largely takeout)
Chinese Restaurant across the street from the hotel, repack all of the
suitcases so that we can safely check two suitcases and one of the bags, and go
to bed.
The Journey West (7/16-7/21)
Wednesday, July 16th, 2003
When we get up this morning, the first thing we do is to
arrange for the hotel van to take us over to the Amtrak station at about 2:30
pm. We then walk the several blocks west to visit the original part of the
University of Virginia that was architected by Thomas Jefferson. We take a
guided tour of the Rotunda that once housed the entire university library, and
still houses meeting rooms for the university’s governing bodies in a restored
set of rooms furnished with genuine furniture from Jefferson’s day. We also
walk around the lawn and the pavilions, each with its architecturally distinct
set of columns out front, which lay behind the rotunda. We then walk back to
the hotel as the ambient temperature and humidity start to climb.
Back in the room, I observe that we can see the signal
bridge on the ex-Southern main line that governs its northbound approach to the
crossing with the ex-C&O, but can neither see the track itself nor any of
the trains running on that line. We can see the ex-C&O line, but there’s
been no traffic on that line while we’ve been here (either time). Just before
noon, we load the luggage on a cart and checkout of the hotel. We then settle
down in the comfortable seating in the lobby to wait for time to go over to the
station. We choose not to go anywhere for lunch, since there’s nowhere we would
be interested in eating at within comfortable walking distance in the heat and
humidity outside.
About 2:15 pm, the hotel’s van driver agrees to take some
people out to Monticello. Since it’s obvious he wouldn’t be back from that trip
in time to take us to Amtrak, we point this out, but obviously the expected tip
from the other people is greater than ours and the van leaves with them. The
hotel manager is angry at this turn of events, and arranges for us to get to Amtrak
in her own personal SUV, driven by a member of her staff. We leave at the time
we had arranged for in the first place.
At the station, we check the three pieces of luggage through
to Los Angeles, and stack the rest in the waiting room where the staff has
agreed to watch over it. We then have lunch in the café next door, in the
original SR/C&O joint station building. Our train is about a half hour late
arriving from Washington DC. As it arrives, I collect the consist and photograph
the train, then hurry to the sleeping car at the front of the train to board.