Raifanning 7-12-2018

Hi, On Thursday, July 12, friend Dale Jacobson and I spent the day railfanning together. It was a slow morning and early afternoon. We lost a 1/2 hour in traffic due to a bad accident on our way to Hagerstown, MD.

As we were making our way to the Vardo Yard office Dale spotted what he thought was a blue unit. It turned out to be the Conrail Heritage unit switching (above and below).

The Yardmaster told him that #211 was due out at 11:30 AM and that Winchester and Western would not arrive until after 4:00 PM, so we headed into town to search for a spot to shoot the 211 north of the yard. As we had talked to an NS policeman at Vardo we felt constrained and could not find an open spot. Time was getting short so we drove south of Hagerstown to the crossing at St. James, MD. No. 211 actually showed up at 12:33 PM; running 45 to 50 minutes later than expected.

At this point we decided to try our luck with the W&W. If it was going to get to Hagerstown by four it might me already out of their yard at Inwood, switching somewhere. We checked out the line as we moved south; in particular sidings and the CSX interchange in Martinsburg, WV. Nothing. When we got to Inwood three GP38s were tied up and nobody was around. We made a stop at McDonalds and when we returned nothing had changed so we decided to start east stopping at Shenandoah Junction, WV.

After awhile we could hear Q217 on the radio and we decided to move west on railroad crossing to get better light. We just made it (above and below). It was 3:23 PM. Things would now improve as Point of Rocks, MD would be our final location of the day.

First up at Point of Rocks was MARC #873 seen here approaching the station.

While driving over here we heard the dispatcher and the crew of a work train talking about turning equipment on the wye at Point of Rocks. It turned out to be an FRA inspection train seen arriving and

going away on #1 track..

The work train waited out of sight for MARC #891 to take the connection from the Metropolitan Sub to the Old Main Line Sub and continue to Frederick, MD.

Then the work train crossed over, backed on to the connection and

backed off the connection onto #3 track of the Old Main Line Sub.

While all this was going on Amtrak #29 went through.

Back to the FRA train: It exited the connection from the Metropolitan sub, pulled forward on #3 track and

cut off the locomotive. The locomotive then pulled forward and proceeded to turn on the wye.

While the locomotive turned on the wye E791 (coal empties) came through on track # 3 (above and below) and

passed the station while MARC #875 was unloading.

After coupling up to the two FRA cars the locomotive spotted the entire train on a siding for the night.

Our day concluded with Q416 and

MARC #877 with a brand new Siemens SC-44 Charger for power. Thanks for looking.