Western Maryland Scenic Railroad Photo Charter

Before I get to the photos, let me give a little background on why these charters are taking place. ;

"For over a century, the Helmstetter family has farmed the land on Cash Valley Road near Cumberland, Maryland. John Helmstetter is the third generation of the family to operate the farm.

The centerpiece of the farm was the large barn located near Western Maryland Railroad's famous Helmstetters Curve. The barn has been featured in countless photos taken from the early days of steam through recent railfan specials. On July 9, 2009, a fire swept through the historic structure. Fourteen cows and John's best friend, his border collie Teddy, perished in the blaze. John was injured trying to save his animals."[nb]Text taken from http://www.helmstetterfarm.org/[/nb]

Over the years the Helmstetters have been very generous to railfans and photographers, allowing both to watch and photograph trains from their farm starting back in the steam era and continuing all the way up to today. ; John Helmstetter even allowed photo charters to cut brush on the farm to open up traditional views of the train at the curve. ; I took this photo of the farm last December while taking photos of the train. ; The red barn in the photo was the one that was lost in the fire:



After the fire a group of railfans and photographers got together and created the Helmstetter Farm Fund to help raise funds for the rebuilding process. ; They organized a series of three photo charters on the WMSR to benefit the fund and help pay for the new barn. ; Unfortunately, insurance would not pay for the replacement of the original heavy timber bank barn. ; They would only pay the cost of building a one story pole barn in its place. ; Thanks to success of the three charters (all three have sold out) and the sale of several photos of the barn, enough money was raised to bridge the gap between what the insurance company covered and the cost of a heavy timber bank barn. ; The Farm Fund Committee announced at the second charter, held this past Monday that close to $35,000 had been raised by the fund.

And now for the Photos...

Mountain Thunder heads West around Helmstetters Curve. ; You can see the foundations for the new barn in the foreground:



#734 exits the West portal of Brush Tunnel on a beautiful Autumn day:



Here we see #734 in pusher service at the C&PRR Bridge #2:



More to come...

 

oh these are great, and i am so glad to hear that john is going to be getting enough to rebuild, and a real barn at that, nothing against utilitarian pole barns, they do the job in a lot of places, but a bank style barn just looks right at helmstetters
they've been so good to the railfan community, it's good that we can help out

 

Thanks Gary! ;

John Helmstetter spoke to the group at lunch on each of the charters and he was just humbled and amazed by the amount of support he and his family have received. ; He said that he was ready to give up probably would have if it weren't for the generosity of everyone involved with the fundraising efforts. ;

 

Here's one more from Helmstetter's Curve, taken from high up on Price Hill:

 

nicely done Michael and a great story of people helping each other out.

 

Thanks guys!

I forgot to mention that in addition to all of the work that the Helmstetter Farm Fund Committee put into these charters, there was an all volunteer brush cutting crew that put in 50 man-days of cutting time to open up many of these shots. ; In many places it was too dangerous to use chain saws, so the cutting was done by hand. ; Since no one had brush cut the photo locations along the line in 5 years, it was pretty overgrown. ; In fact, the brush was up so high around the curve that you wouldn't have seen the train in the first photo with the barn foundations. ;

 

Here's two more:

#734 headed East around Helmstetter's Curve:



#734 headed West at Helmstetter's Curve, taken from the cow pasture on the outside of the curve:

 

I attended the third and final Helmstetter Farm Fund photo charter yesterday and I'm happy to announce that work has started on the barn frame, which should be complete sometime this week. ; Of course all of the work stops when Mountain Thunder runs by:



More to come...

 

The Helmstetter Farm Fund Committee proudly presented a check representing the more than $40,000 raised to date by the committee. Thanks to the hard work by the gentlemen standing with Mr. Helmstetter and most importantly, the incredible generosity of the railfan community, there will be a bank barn standing at Helmstetter's Curve for generations to come. May it stand as a symbol of what a community can do to help a friend in need.



From left to right, Frank Fowler, General Superintendant of the WMSR. John Helmstetter. Carl Franz, Bill Lardusky and Steve Barry of the Helmstetter Farm Fund Committee.

 

All of these are just awesome, Michael! ; The workers checking out the train thundering by is a perfect storytelling shot. ; Well done!

 

In case anyone is interested, CBS finally aired the Helmstetter Farm story back on 1/1. ; Here's the video on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-psdJ0LT_k#

Jim Axelrod and his entire crew from CBS did an awesome job on this piece. ;

 

Nice piece.