THURSDAY PROTO PHOTO JUN 24/10

[Bob Bufkin]

Not much railfanning the past week.  Did  Train Q110 off the old main line with CSX 356 "Spirit Of Brunswick".

[SirTainly]

Bridge on the BC Railway over the Capilano river



Roof shot of the yard power heading towards the east end of said bridge

[fulltritty]

I don't have pictures rady to be posted yet but on Friday, June 18th I played hooky from work and went to Alexandria, VA to get some of the VRE locomotives before they are replaced by the MPI's. You gotta love 64 trains in 13 1/2 hours even if the majority were VRE and Amtrak. I was lucky enough to catch the NS local too. 

Right now I am in Hamlet, NC and I must say that I am not very impressed with train counts for being a Trains Hotspot. The 102 degree heat doesn;t help either, but at least I am seeing trains I could never see in Maryland (minus the Silver Star, Q439, and Q438), a beautiful historic depot and caboose and locomotive. Not sure whether I will go back to Hamlet tomorrow and Sunday, but may instead go to Dillon, SC and Pembroke, NC. Hopefully it won;t take me forever to put some pictures up.

[Iain]

I would suggest Fayetteville.  CSX, NS (on the old NS line, in fact), Aberdeen and Rockfish (including semaphore signals).  I also have a house there.

When you go back north, I would suggest either Selma (CSX north-south main crosses NS Goldsboro-Raleigh line at grade) or Wilson, with NS, Carolina Coastal, a busy CSX line, and an excellent hobby shop.

Dang, if I'd known you'd be coming to NC, I'd of suggested a meet-up somewhere.

[fulltritty]

I stopped in Fayetteville on the way down to try and catch the Aberdeen & Rockfish, but no locomotives were in town. I did catch a CSX Q410 though. When I got over to Aberdeen the same Aberdeen & Rockfish locomotive that I saw back in 2005 in Fayetteville when I was in town for my MCSE bootcamp was there.  :'( I stopped in Selma on the way back in 2005 and never saw a train in an hour. I think I am going to drive to Salisbury/Spencer tomorrow and catch some NS and do the museum before heading home to MD. I did go down to Wilmington and see the small museum there today and caught an empty coal train in Dillon, SC.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I've heard good things about the Wilmington museum. What did you think?

[Iain]

I've heard good things about the Wilmington museum. What did you think?

It's small, but a pretty decent operation.  It's based in the old ACL freight house downtown.

That's odd not seeing anything in Selma.

If you do go to Spencer, could you try to get some roof shots of Norfolk Southern 1616 (the AS416) for me?  Also, I could use some photos of the A&EC box car there.

[fulltritty]

The museum in Wilmington is small on equipment, but it had a lot of historical artifacts inside which was nice to see and read about. The model railroad layout there was very nice too and had HO and N Scale living in harmony on the same layout.  ;D

Sadly, the only way to get roof shots of the Norfolk Southern AS416 would be to hang from the roundhouse rafters.  I realize the need to protect rolling stock and locomotives, but it is sad to see such beautiful equipment crammed in so tight that decent pictures cannot be had.  :'( The museum was excellant overall though and the train ride, though short, was pleasant.

The NS traffic in Salisbury was very good compared to what I had experienced in Hamlet. I even got my first Amtrak North Carolina unit. As a bonus, the GPS took me back through Aberdeen on the way to Salisbury and on the north side of town was a train led by a CSX C40-8W in DF with 4 Aberdeen, Carolina, & Western units after it. 

[Iain]

Dude, if you ever come back down here, let me know ahead of time.