Railfanning the Maryland Midland - 4/23/2019

Hi, On Tuesday, April 23 I had the pleasure of photographing the stone train on the Maryland Midland with friends Bill Kalkman and Jim Kleeman. We rendezvoused at Union Bridge about 8 AM hoping to catch UBEG, the Emory Grove train. However an inquiry in their office provided the information that instead of UBEG they would run a stone train from the quarry at Woodsboro, MD to Finksburg, MD and that the power had already left for the quarry to pick up the loads of stone.

Our first photo location was for the eastbound loaded train at crossing the trestle at Keymar, MD. This part of the Maryland Midland was originally a Pennsylvania RR branch running from York, PA to Frederick, MD.

Beating the train to Union Bridge from Keymar was easy (above and below).

We caught the train again at Avondale, MD (above and below),

Westminster, MD,

Patapsco, MD and

Finksburg, MD.

At Finksburg the train will pull down and back into the siding at left, spotting the last car over the unloader at left in the photo. The crew will then uncouple from the loads and run around both cuts of cars to couple on the empties. While they did this we headed up to Westminster to get some sandwiches which we ate next to the tracks.

Eventually the empties came through Westminster (above and below).

We just barely caught the train east of New Windsor, MD.

After a long wait at Middleburg, MD the empties finally arrived.

Our last photo was at New Midway, MD. After dropping the empties the power would run light back to Union Bridge.

Thanks for looking.