We were heading up to the Armadillo Ranch yesterday to spend the night and use it as a jumping off place this morning to head over to the path of the total solar eclipse. Got stopped by a train again at the crossing by the trackside rubbish bin positioned for the engineer to fling his debris left over from the BBQ meal that he picked up in Taylor a few miles back. So as promised last week, here are more photos of the contraption. Just a shoot to funnel the garbage into a dumpster staged below it. And about the only good shot that I was able to take of the eclipse taken ten minutes or so before it went total. I was trying to use a hand held filter in front of the camera but it kept trying to focus on the filter. So I gave up and just watched things unfold through my special cardboard framed solar goggles. Wow, a cool experience to say the least.
Organize a motorized "helper" service for going uphill. A few seats in a small trailer for hikers and a cable hooked onto the bicycles with their riders. Make the tractor look like a locomotive. Great business opportunity! As for the downhill direction, post EMTs at the escape tracks... and maybe some guys with fire extinguishers to put out some flaming brake pads... I wonder how long it's going to take before the "watch this" bunch starts ending up in traction at the hospital...
Not something you can get off Amazon... That really looks like it was scratchbuilt in the shop. It also seems that the dumpster truck driver dinged the back side of the chute while bringing the the dumpster back down a bit prematurely... Not too bad, all things considered. I had about the same result, just very hard to get a good exposure and focus.
If you click on the 'news ' tab, and scroll down a bit to the September 2023 article, it looks like the photo shown is of the same location of the original post on the subject.
Shortly after Saluda was closed and for years thereafter, fans were enthused by wild fantasies of a tourist road running steam trains on Saluda. Their talk was ridiculous, but it persisted, along with unfounded rumors that NS would reopen the route. Not sure what the deal is, but more than a few fans seem woefully undereducated in matters of business economics. Now if someone would buy and rebuild a Shay ......
Another at Melrose, NC taken the same afternoon of 12/22/1984. With Kodachrome 64 loaded and the sun fading, my photography was nearly at an end this day. Asheville-bound trains like this one were often broken into thirds here, taken up the grade and reassembled at a siding just west of Saluda called Paces Crossing.
From 01/05/2013 at Camden, SC, CSX Q463 is Columbia-bound past the SAL station. Fast forward to today and this segment of track now sees only a puny every-other-day local in daylight and Amtrak at night, and the line is so treed in that you can no longer get this shot. At the time, I'd have never thought a picture like this would be of much interest. Now I'm glad to have it.
My catch of the day is CSXT 1869 as a nose out DPU on CPKC 529 at Green Island, IA. Train is enroute to Mason City, IA. Some graffiti vandals got a hold of the unit and vandalized it. April 10, 2024 Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Where is the town in relation to this picture? The station seems almost to be in the middle of nowhere.
Interesting that the sky seen here looks a lot like many similar scenes captured when I used K64. The one aspect of this film I truly disliked.
It's west (south by timetable) of Camden by a mile or so. The railroad doesn't run through the center of town, but skirts it. Perhaps too, the SAL was attracted to the spot because additional real estate was acquired to provide a park-like setting around the station. The depot was opened in 1937. Camden is very old, getting its start in the 1730s. British forces occupied the town around 1780. It also has some Civil War history, with Sherman arriving in 1865. Some fine old homes can be found in historic districts and they have a very nice Revolutionary War visitors center. We attended an event there last year.
Yep, K-64 excelled with warm colors. This shot was taken on Saluda at Melrose, NC 04/22/1986 and I remember being quite pissed off when I took this, wondering why the train had to arrive just as the sun was setting over the mountain. Much to my surprise, it turned out okay.
The Texas Zephyr in Quanah, Texas 1958. The Texas Zephyr was operated by the Colorado & Southern Railway and the Fort Worth & Denver Railway, both subsidiaries of the CB&Q. The train was originally designated number 1 southbound, and number 2 northbound. Inaugurated on August 22, 1940, the streamlined train ran from Denver, Colorado's Union Station to Fort Worth and Dallas, Texas, through the spectacular Tollgate Canyon cutting from the Colorado plateau near Branson, CO to Folsom, New Mexico. It replaced the heavyweight Colorado Special. At Dallas, the Texas Zephyr connected with the Sam Houston Zephyr and Texas Rocket, both operating on the jointly owned Burlington-Rock Island Railroad for through service to Houston.
There once was a rail line that ran (north-south) through the center of town. Back in the 1890s, the line was conceived as a rail link between the Ohio River at Cincinatti and the Atlantic Ocean at Charleston. Financial backing fell through and part of the line, including that through Camden, was acquired by the Southern Ry.
I'd forgotten about that line and also the Northwestern Railroad of South Carolina that accessed Camden. Both can be seen below approaching from the south and southeast. Traces of the SOU line you mentioned can still be found in the woods adjacent to local roads. The Lancaster & Chester operates a segment of it further north. Some 30 years ago you could also clearly see where it once crossed US-1 just east of Camden. The yellow line shows the ROW; city center is to the left. So much has been changed in Camden that the highway crossing is barely noticeable today. The Northwestern Railroad of South Carolina ran from Sumter, SC northwest to Camden and crossed the SOU south of town as found on the above old map. The road has a twisted history. I've forgotten most of it, but it was eventually an ACL property and was torn up sometime in the '30s I think. There's a curious berm that crosses at a local road just west of Camden and I have a suspicion that it's a legacy of this long lost line.
