A morning on the Canton Railroad

Hi, Early on the morning of March 15 I met friends Jim Kleeman and Fred Eisen at the Canton Railroad offices in the Penn Mary section of Baltimore. Our objective for the day was the line from Penn Mary to the Boise Cascade plant north of there. Fortunately, the locomotive assigned for the run was the most recent addition to the railroads roster; this Knoxville Locomotive Works unit that had been received only a few weeks earlier.

The crew spent a brief period putting their train together before heading out (above and below).

We were able to beat the train to a couple of grade crossings en route (above and below).

At Boise Cascade the crew cut off the locomotive and ran around their train so they could switch the plant (above and two below). As the unit would now be working long hood forward we broke off and went over to Trade Point RR in the Sparrows Point section of Baltimore. Unfortunately, nothing was happening there so we called it an early day.

Thanks for looking.

 

A Day in Cumberland, MD

Hi, On Saturday, February 26 I was joined by friends Bill Holdsworth and Alex Koehler on a trip to Cumberland, MD. Our primary focus was to photograph former C&0 2-6-6-2 #1309 on a chartered photo freight operated for Trains Magazine. Our first stop was Helmstetters Curve, about 5 miles west of Cumberland, where we found the train doing photo runbys. Once the charter participants vacated an area we could move in for our photos. Three of the photos I took there are below.

Our next stop was Trimble Road in Mount Savage, MD. The charter participants rode between photo locations in a passenger train with Western Maryland painted diesels on either end.

After the passenger train cleared the freight came up the grade (above and below).

Our final photograph of the photo freight was taken as the train entered Frostburg, MD.

Alex learned that the CSX Law Enforcement unit would be leading an eastbound stack train and that it was fairly close so we found a location a mile or so east of Corriganville, MD to wait (above and below).

Our final location was in Cumberland. The photo in Cumberland is courtesy of Alex Koehler as, unfortunately, I fell just before the train arrived and my camera hit the concrete. As a result my lens would not focus.

Thanks for looking.