Page 19 - September October 2000

chop nosed Geeps of the South Branch Valley RR. This line was taken over by the state, fearing abandonment, and unusually is operated by the state itself rather than contracted out.
After the return ride, a short drive north saw us follow the SBVR up to Green Spring on the banks of the Potomac. Crossing the river on a (50c.) toll bridge we get to Oldtown MD, on Rt. 51 which takes us west neatly back into south Cumberland.
Western Maryland
Scenic Railroad
Sunday had been carefully selected to be a steam-powered Western Maryland Scenic Railroad day, though with old steam engines being subject to ailments you can never be sure. The imposing old WM station was an easy 2 block walk from our inn. This operation is impressive and represents Cumberland’s nostalgic railroading past so I worked up an article separately on this - it was in the August issue.
Monday we headed east
to Shady Grove...
As it is not that far by American standards, and we had all day to get there, I diverted south to see the Winchester part of the Winchester & Western.
Some detective work in the tiny village of Gore, Va., on US-50, yielded a small yard and engine house containing an Alco RS11 being rebuilt. The friendly yard worker told me the Alco had been obtained from Canada and was having its cylinder heads reworked. Pity it could not be moved as it was hard to photograph inside its shed!
The next day gave us a chance to keep out of the car. The motel shuttle bus took us to Shady Grove station and the Metro train into the Federal Triangle station in Washington. If you start the trip after 9.30amyoucanbuya$5onedaypassso as to hop on and off the trains all over town. The Smithsonian railroad exhibit only had one prototype item of real interest to me - the magnificent Southern Railway Ps-4 Pacific, complete with lighting and sound system, but there are many high quality large scale models present.
Using the Metro again we visited the excellent aerospace museum, the White House and Union Station.
To close out the day, we got off at Rockville station, one stop before the Shady Grove terminus. At Rockville the tracks of MARC/Amtrak run very close and parallel to the Metro so I filmed quite a bit of passenger action here. Wednesday took us out to Baltimore, back in the car once more, a pleasant cross-country meander until near the city, then onto I-95, then the Beltway, and I-375 into town. Then into that railroad Mecca on Pratt Street, the B&O museum. I’ve always thought this splendid place should be called the C&O museum, due to the number of big C&O steam locos present, but this is probably
blasphemous! The most impressive hunk of steel here (or probably just about
For the drive from Shady Grove to Ashland, I decided, rather than blast down the freeway, to follow some railroads (I wonder why) along minor roads. The Train Watcher’s Diary video, which had opened at Doswell Va., showed an ex-C&O line (the Piedmont division) coming in from the west to cross, and interchange with, the ex- RF&P line between Washington DC and the south. The ex-C&O line trailed in across some picturesque countryside, and the map researches had indicated small but well-paved roads followed much of its course.
We picked up the NS/CSX network of lines south from the DC area at Manassas and followed the tracks through Culpeper to a small town junction at Orange Va., poked around here for a while then followed the line down a little further to Gordonsville. Here the CSX Doswell line leaves the main line which is going south to Lynchburg and Roanoke etc.
Turning east from Gordonsville, our navigation was put to the test as we followed small county roads through Mineral, Louisa, Bumpass (I kid you not!) and Beaverdam. We finally popped out of the woods on County Route 684, joining US-1 a few miles north of Doswell, drop down US-1 to CR 688, turn left (east) and soon we are in the busy junction/sleepy village of Doswell, with the CSX double track mainline coming down from Washington and heading for Richmond and points south.
I later re-visited this spot several times. There were always groups of locos laying over on the wye, often with a GP35 slug amongst them. The double track main is usually busy but the ex C&O “Piedmont” line is currently used only to send occasional empty coal trains back across country.
A few miles south, the main line runs through the old railroad town of Ashland, a superb train-watchers’ spot. The Amtrak station also houses the visitor centre and it is another gathering spot. Rarely was there not another railfan to chat to here, and most evenings from about 5.30 till 8.30 (when it began to get dark) we slobbed around this station before going to eat.
I’ve never seen so much Amtrak in such a short time! Some were stopping trains, and a number of local citizens actually commuted to Washington on them. They were nearly always around an hour late at Ashland - not much fun after a day’s work! One young lady was awaiting her ‘mom’, whom, she said, was from somewhere in Sussex.
When this lady finally arrived, it turned out she was from Lewes, just about 15 minutes down the road from my home town. She’d lived in the USA 30 years and her accent kept wandering between ours and theirs!
Additionally, the Florida Amtraks come through non-stop, to be capped by the Autotrain (going south about 5.30 pm to 6 pm usually) which is more like a freight, with 25 passenger/headend cars and another 25 or so assorted autoracks.
anywhere else) is the 2-6-6-6 Allegheny #1604. What a monster. It makes the otherwise impressive H6 2-6-6-2 look small. Alongside we have the C&O 2-8-4, a streamlined L1 Hudson, a B&O USRA light Mike, the Reading T1 4-8-4 and so on. Only the C&O 4-8-4 #614 was missing, as that was going up for auction elsewhere.
Inside the roundhouse was all the older stuff, really going back to the beginning of railroad history. The display includes a Shay, Camelback, Camel, the original Ingersoll Rand style box cab electric and much else. As with all these museums, there are loads of non-loco exhibits, from streamline passenger cars down through cabooses and MoW stuff.
Thursday was an even longer run, though well worth while, out to Strasburg. We rode the train behind the famous 2-10-0 #90. At the Paradise end of the run, the Strasburg RR tracks are right alongside the ex-PRR Amtrak main, under catenary, but nothing showed up there.
Back at the Strasburg depot end, on the other side of the little country road, is the massive Pennsylvania railroad museum. The building was being extended in 1994 when I was last here and it now gets a lot more equipment under cover, though like a lot of US train museums, little thought is given to lighting or access for photography.
Indoors the pride of place is held by K4s Pacific and L1s Mike, alongside smaller steamers and giant GG1 and E7 locos. 2- 8-0’s, old and, well, less old, rank against a G5s ten wheeler and E6 class Atlantic and lots of smaller exhibits.
Outside in the grass though, another feast awaits. A NKP Berkshire at one end of the lawn sets off the mighty M1 Mountain at the other.
In between is a mass of equipment ranging from Old Rivets (the first GG-1) through diesels, railcars and smaller steam locos to a rusty fireless cooker of 0-8-0 wheel arrangement. All in all, a collection well worth seeing. While I was “out in the garden”, the Strasburg’s 44 tonner put on an act of its own, switching a large covered hopper across the street and past the museum fence.
OCTOBER 2000 19
C&O L1 at the B&O Museum Martin Boyask