A weekend with 611

Hi, I spent the July 4th weekend with friends Tom Bunjon, Bill Kalkman and Jim Kleeman  photographing former N&W class J #611 running on excursions between Roanoke and Lynchburg, VA and between Roanoke and Radford, VA. The train ran eastbound in the mornings and westbound in the afternoons.

We began the trip on Thursday, July 2 traveling to Roanoke via Lynchburg.  This gave us an opportunity to explore the line east of Roanoke which proved very useful in planning our morning photography.  We were pleased to find a number of color position light signals still functioning.  Unfortunately they all were gone west of Roanoke.

Our first photograph of the trip was at Bonsak from the Blue Ridge Parkway overpass.

We beat the train to Villamont by only a couple of minutes making it challenging to get into position for the desired photo.

The next stop was at Bedford (above and below).

At Forest we decided to get the train eastbound (above)

and then wait for the westbound.

Our next stop was at Montvale (above and below).

The final location of the morning was at Webster (above and below).

Our afternoon began at Wabun (above and below).

The next stop was Shawsville (above and below).

Vicker was the furthest west the train could be followed.  Here the westbound is arriving.

An old coaling tower at Vicker made a nice prop for our first eastbound photos (above and below).  We expected the train on the far track.

We returned to Shawsville for our next location. 

The final spot of the day was at Glenvar.  Thanks for looking.