Now that I've finished my licensing exams I have free time again, so I'm working on editing photos from the couple of trips I squeezed in between tests. ; First up is this year's Cass Railfan Weekend. ; This was the 50th Anniversary of the opening of the state park, so an extended railfan weekend was held. ; A separate Thursday trip was held on the Durbin & Greenbriar Valley Railroad in the morning with an afternoon trip on the Durbin Rocket followed by dinner and a night shoot in Durbin. ; The Durbin & Greenbriar Valley operates over old Western Maryland Railroad right of way which I believe includes portions of the old logging mainline out of Cass via Spruce. ; Now before anyone says anything, yes I photographed dismals diesels. ; However, I bought the ticket for the night session at Durbin which unfortunately got canceled by a thunderstorm. ; Besides, F Units don't look that bad. Anyway, on to the pictures. ; First up is a shot at a location called Coal Rock with the F Units pulling the passenger cars from their Cheat Mountain Salamander operation. ; We shot this one standing on rocks in the Cheat River: Next up is the Western Maryland F Units again deep in the woods of West Virginia: And the B&O Diesel at the same location during a static shot: Another location along the Cheat River, again shot from within the river in a torrential downpour. ; I was reminded of the quote from the old Living Seas movie, "it rained, and it rained and rained.": Next is a shot of the F Units at the high falls of the Cheat River. ; The curve at this location is the steepest curve on a mainline track anywhere in North America. ; It is also the reason why the railroad owns 65ft passenger cars as opposed to the more standard 80ft cars. ; Even with 65ft cars the side of the car on the outside of the curve is inside the outside rail. ; That may be normal on our childhood train sets, but isn't a great idea at 12"=1' scale. Last up for the D&GBV is a shot at the siding near the location of the old mine at Linan. ; While the weather wasn't great, the wind stopped just long enough for us to get a nice reflection in the pond: And now, back to the steam trains! ; Here we find the Moore & Kepple Climax #3 pulling the Durbin Rocket past an old farmhouse: And again at the site of one of the many washouts that closed the line after the last big flood in the 1980's: Rumor has it that the owners would like to re-open the line all the way to Cass as well as re-connect it to the Durbin & Greenbriar Valley making it theoretically possible to make a full loop starting and ending at Cass on an all day train ride. ; I'm not holding my breath, but it would be neat if they ever get the money. More to come.
Beautiful shots as always, Michael. ; And before you put down the diesels, just consider how old they are. ; They're downright antiques!
It is always great to see your stuff from these weekends Michael! ; I am loving the first one and the one with the reflection! ; The dismals diesels are pretty cool too!
I am right at the beginning stages of constructing the epic, family holiday, train table so these beautiful pictures come at a great time! ; (10' 7" X 7' 4") ~Joanie
Beautiful work! You had a lot of great locations so you could keep the overcast sky out of the frames and use the even lighting to your advantage.
nice work yet again mike, and i like F units, here's one from the potomac eagle charter i attended in march, in romney, west virginia
Great pics, as usual. I suspect most people "our" age have a soft spot for the old F types. Those are the ones we most played with as toys when we were kids. Erich
an F unit, lionel , O gauge was the very first model train i ever had, in the warbonnet scheme no less, wish i had that train today
Part 2 - 50 Years at Cass I had unknowingly attended railfan weekend during the 50th anniversary of the closing of the mill two years ago, so I thought it would be neat to attend the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Scenic Railroad this year. ; Since it wouldn't be a railfan weekend at Cass without rain, it was fitting that it rained at least once every day. ; Friday morning gave us the only sun we saw all weekend during a static shot of all of the railroad's operable locomotives, except Shay #2 which is undergoing restoration: Following a short trip up the mountain, shop tours were given for both the Cass locomotive shop and the Mountain State restoration shop where we got to see the progress that they've made on Climax #9. ; It was interesting to find that the restoration team has discovered parts from 3 different models of Climax locomotives, including parts that appear to belong to the Durbin Rocket, Moore & Kepple #3. ; Since both locomotives were operating at the same time at Moore & Kepple, it is plausible that parts were swapped during maintenance. ; Following the theme from the previous night, it started raining just before the start of the night session, but fortunately mother nature gave us a 30 minute break between downpours which was just long enough to get the lights set up and get a couple of shots in before scrambling to get them all put away before they got wet: Notice the unusual name on Shay #4 - Cass Greenbriar, Cheat & Bald Knob Scenic Railroad. ; In honor of the anniversary, #4 sported the same livery she did during the Governor's inspection tour which convinced the state government to buy Cass from the Mower Lumber Company and turn it into a state park. ; Shay #4 has only worn that name 3 times, the inspection tour, the 2013 Railfan Weekend and again in June 2013 for the anniversary celebration. Saturday morning brought fog which made for some unique shots. ; First up is a shot of the log train waiting for the morning's runbys in the yard: Two shots of the mill ruins taken as the sun started to burn off the fog: Later we found more fog on top of Bald Knob as Shay #11 pulls a short freight train up the Bald Knob Approach: During dinner, the annual whistle blow was held in the rain. ; This year featured a little added excitement as a whistle with worn out threads decided to launch off the steam manifold and fly about 30ft in the air. ; Fortunately nobody was injured. ; I didn't get to see that, but I did grab a this shot of one of the participants trying out one of the many whistles on the maifold: Saturday Night featured another night session with two scenes. ; The first was Shays #5 & 6 at the Depot. ; It was difficult to get a clean shot from the front of the locomotives, so I headed around to the back: Scene #2 was Shay #4 with the log train: Just after taking that shot, it started raining again. ; Instead of running for cover like most of the participants, I ran back to the first scene hoping to get a shot of all 3 locomotives. ; After the handful of people finished their shots from the original photo line, I moved the line forward and had just enough time to fire off a bracket of this scene before they started to turn off the lights and move #4 across the street:
Sunday featured the traditional three train race: Further up the mountain Shay #4 performs a runby at a new photo location: A little wider shot from the same location: One of my friends decided to chase the train on foot between Gum Curve and Whittaker Station. ; I followed and gained a new appreciation for the elevation gained between the switchbacks. ; But the effort was worth it as we shot the freight train coming up the hill toward the Upper Switchback: Entering the Upper Switchback: The brakeman throws the switch: The fireman leans out of the cab, watching for the brakeman to hop back onboard the slow moving train: And finally, the engineer opens the throttle and heads up the hill: At lunch we got to watch a lumberjack sports demonstration including a race between chain saws and the two-man saw. ; The two man saw won against a standard chainsaw but the modified saw was just too quick for the two man crew: All in all, despite getting soaked 4 days in a row, it was a fun trip.
