Thursday, January 18, 2018

Railfanning 1-15-2018, MARC Charger test train

Hi, I joined friends Bill Kalkman and Jim Kleeman on MLK's birthday to photograph the first test run of MARC's new Charger locomotives. They were scheduled to depart Baltimore at 9:00 AM and as it was sunny we headed to Landsdowne, MD for out first shot.

While we waited Q277 and

Q141 passed.

As the weather had turned cloudy, at about 11:30 AM we relocated to Bush Street in Baltimore. Q031 was the first train through.

Finally at just short of noon the test train, symboled P931, appeared (above and three below).




Our next stop was St. Dennis, MD. Q438 came through almost immediately after we arrived.

As Q438 passed eastbound P931 arrived and stopped. In fact it paused at almost every regular commuter train station.

This stopping at stations provided just enough time to catch the train at Laurel.

While P931 continued into DC and came around past QN interlocking (it not go into Washington Union Station) we cut across Montgomery County and easily beat P931 to Gaithersburg, MD (above and below).


We knew the train would take the Old Main Line to Frederick so we set up outside the lime kiln near Buckeystown, MD.

Our final shot was at Brunswick, MD. At this point the train was unexpectedly operating in push mode. Also, it was at last light as they had spent just over an hour in Frederick.

Thanks for looking.

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