North Platte or Bust: Part 12, Finale

FRIDAY AUGUST 17, 2012

Our last overnight stop was to stay in the Elkhorn Inn in Landgraff, WV.  It was a bit off the beaten path but it came highly recommended by "The Wheelman".  We were not disappointed.  The main trick for us was crossing West Virginia on US 52.  We were approaching from the west, which allowed us to really sample a variety of the states roads.  We veered off the road now and then to see rail activity in such N&W railroad towns as Williamson, Jaeger and Bluefield.  The area was worthy of more attention than we could give at the moment.  Unfortunately, lighting was fading and good camera access was challenging as we headed east. 

From the Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

"Short range sensors"(GPS; Star Trek reference) constantly showed us squiggly lines representing roads that made US 52 look pretty good, that is, when it showed anything other than our road.  This was an area that made me think of towns in Maine like Rumford, Livermore Falls or Millinocket, which are prosperous by comparison.  The Wheelman concurs that Newcastle, PA also comes to mind.  Abandoned buildings and blight were mixed in with the homes of people hanging on somehow.  Statistically the same amount or more of coal is moving, but technology has made manpower to produce it less necessary.  It's also true that in this part of the world, if there is any flat ground, the railroad got there first.  Roads, building plots and sometimes even streams, had to be carved out of the hillsides.  Industry got what level land there was so any that happened to be leftover had houses. 

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

The Elkhorn Inn is a restored coal company boarding house and entertainment hall.  The owners have taken it from a wrecked shell and turned it into a small hotel.  It is perfectly located for the rail

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

enthusiast.  You are right across the street from the old Norfolk and Western mainline.  You cannot miss any train that goes by.  Charles and I were the only guests, so they gave us two single rooms with the best view of the tracks for our stay.  There was a balcony we could survey the tracks from or you could wander out to the tracks.  I tried both.  A computer with ATCS gave us some warning that traffic was near.  It appears that they have a receiver that gets signals several miles each way in the valleys.

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

I was intrigued by the many old N&W color position signals that were still in place.  Some were located a bit west of us.  I found that I could pull them in a bit with a telephoto.  It was just a matter of time before I had a train running under them.  ATCS helped.

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

When I came back to check ATCS and shoot the breeze with Dan the owner, I saw yet another train coming.  This one happened to be a

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

local.  It also had a caboose!  As it turned out, old cabooses are common in this part of the world in order to give a train a "pushing platform" for back up moves.  A crewman can hang out back there and keep in touch by radio with the locomotive.  I suspect it doesn't hurt to have the shelter and a place to work in this relatively isolated part of the world.  This particular caboose looks like it hasn't changed much since the old NW logo was applied to the side originally.  However, it did appear that the numbering crew had a rough day applying new painted numbers.  This caboose also appears to have missed the usual "sterilization" that "riding cars" usually get in the form of removing windows, ladders and appliances. 

Elkhorn Inn, Landgraff, WV

Bluefield, WV

Around 11am or so Charles and I decided to move on.  We had had a blast chatting with the owners and watching trains but we had a long drive ahead.

Research Locomotive

  We bought some things from the gift shop and said our goodbyes.  Bluefield was down the road about 20-30 minutes.  We got lucky and found a geometry train parked at the depot, across from the locomotive shop.  There was an experimental research locomotive in the middle of the set. 

Bluefield, WV

Roanoke, VA

Once we left Bluefield, it wasn't long before we found four-lane highways again and made our way back to the Interstate Highway System.  Our route took us through Roanoke so we figured we'd detour in for a quick look at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.  The bulk of the museum is

Roanoke, VA

indoors and under cover but a few things were visible outdoors.  We could see some cool stuff as we drove over a bridge next to the museum.  Outdoors at the far end of the former warehouse we found a few good items, including the latest steamer to arrive for restoration. 

Roanoke, VA

There was an active yard next to the museum yard and just beyond the steamer we could see a few more of those cabeese.  Next to this area we could see some interesting and large locomotives from the past.  The place was full of stuff I'd like a closer look at someday.




The weather turned rainy as we moved north.  It was dark, gloomy and damp the rest of the way to Mohnton, PA.  But we got there in good shape, if kinda late.  But we had just finished a pretty good adventure.  We arrived in the middle of a power outage, but apparently it was being worked on because power came back about the time I was climbing into bed.  The fan was a great relief.



SATURDAY AUGUST 18, 2012

In the morning we cleared out the car and I said goodbye.  I was headed to my brother's new home

Ellicott City, MD

near Ellicott City outside of Baltimore.  His furniture hadn't arrived yet, but they had painting and such to do. 

Ellicott City, MD

I tried to make myself useful.  As the afternoon wore on we headed downtown to the old part of the city.  The B&O Museum in Baltimore has an annex at the Ellicott City station because it is the oldest depot building in the country and is located on the original mainline.

A Civil War reinactors group was encamped at the depot so there were people in period clothing wandering about and playing their parts.  This would explain some of the extra decoration too.

Ellicott City, MD

I found this depot area interesting because, as I read earlier, a lot of the design and architecture

Ellicott City, MD

was new at the time it was built.  No one had built a depot before and the bridge designs in the area were ground breaking engineering.  Thus, everything here was quickly surpassed by the thousands of other designs around the country to follow.  Leading edge.

Ellicott City, MD

Ellicott City, MD

These last two photos are pretty mundane.  I wanted a picture of the clock with the bridge in the background.  I also stuck my mini-camera through the fence to show the track in front the station.  I probably would have forgotten about the shots except for a tragic derailment on the following Monday night.  It took place on this piece of track and involved the same bridge in the background. 
A Baltimore Sun Article
I didn't know about the derailment when I got home on Monday night.  News hit Maine on Tuesday.




I was pretty much worn out from so much traveling when I got home finally.  5600 miles over 18 days was the final tally for me.  Suffice it to say, I vegetated for a couple of days afterward.  I spent quality time with my computer editing photos but it took a while to begin this report.  No one could have asked for better weather, better friends and better locales for this trip.  Charles and I will have some good war stories to tell for years to come.

BC

North Platte or Bust: Part 8, North Platte

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

MONDAY AUG. 13, 2012

O'Fallons, NE

We spent the night in North Platte but our first mission on this

O'Fallons, NE

Monday morning was to go touch the Mountain Time Zone a few miles to the west.  This had nothing to do with railfanning but took us past O'Fallons where the Powder River traffic joins the main line.  This is essentially the other end of the 3 track main.

O'Fallons, NE

O'Fallons, NE

On the way back we encountered a train sitting on the
embankment of a relatively new flyover track.  As we got out to photograph it, it began to move.
This was not far west of the actual wye at O'Fallons.



Once the train was by we headed for Bailey Yard and the Golden Spike Tower in North Platte.  This was the reason we headed into Nebraska in the first place.  It was worth the effort.  There is a nice museum at the foot of the tower and an elevator takes you to two observation decks - one open and one enclosed.  From there you can see Bailey Yard, the largest rail yard in the world.  There are some incredible statistics on the yard which I'll spare you here.  Suffice it to say, the view was awesome.

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

CSX Power

Slugs!

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Bailey Yard, North Platte, NE

Challenger

Eventually it was time to leave Bailey

Centennial

Yard.  We moved across town to Cody Park where historical equipment was on display.  There was a Challenger and a Centennial to look over.  It was a small but excellent collection.  I liked the unique UP flavor of it.

Cody Park, North Platte, NE

Cody Park, North Platte, NE

RPO Car

Cody Park, North Platte, NE

Cody Park, North Platte, NE

Cody Park, North Platte, NE

Three track mainline.  Brady, NE

When we finished here we grabbed some lunch and headed to the

Brady, NE - new pedestrian overpass

overpass at Brady, just east of town.  Here we could look down on the 3 track main.  It turned out to be fairly busy too so my lunch was nearly cold when I got back to it.

Brady, NE - new pedestrian overpass

Brady, NE - new pedestrian overpass

Brady, NE - new pedestrian overpass

The overpass was pretty good except for the chain link fence.  When we arrived a local guy drove his riding mower over the whole ramp system, so you could tell it was fairly wide.  Kids drove their bikes by us.  Not a bad photo advantage for such empty land. 

Ravenna, NE

Ravenna, NE

We were going to detour from US 30 to visit the BNSF Powder River line at Ravenna on the way back.  This spot is a crew change point and features an office and extensive employee housing.  I'd had great luck at this spot in the past, but not today.  One wb train was sitting at the office and soon an eb stopped on the edge of town.  But, that was it.  We had a long way to go yet that day so we moved on.  We stood on a new highway bridge, but the chain link was not friendly to cameras.

Ravenna, NE

I took what shots I could of our one train before it left.  This can be a hopping place.  It just wasn't at this moment while we were here.  We followed the line back to Grand Island and didn't really encounter much that we could photograph.  We did see a couple of trains held up at the single track UP overpass.  No noise on the scanner didn't help.  We decided to move on.  Time to head south for a while.

Hastings, NE

Hastings was our next stop.  This is on the CB&Q Denver line out of Lincoln.  It has a reasonable amount of traffic and sees the Zephyr in the late at night and the wee hours of the morning.  Across the street from the depot is this building proclaiming that Hastings is the birthplace of Kool-Aid.  East of town was an extensive military ordinance storage facility that once had a web of track.  Some of the bunkers now had trees on them.




We were headed for Manhattan, KS by way of Marysville, KS but our light was failing faster than we were making progress.  We hit the grid of side roads to find the UP.  "Short range sensors" kept showing tracks that were long gone.  We headed for the town of Ong.  The BN must have pulled the tracks and left the town to dry up and blow away.  It looked abandoned but was not.

 Davenport, NE (just south of Ong)

Farther south we found the town of Davenport.  Here is where we sat at a crossing and waited for the Marysville Sub to come to life.  A local farmer stopped and asked if something was coming (common question along the UP). 

 Davenport, NE (just south of Ong)

We had a friendly chat before it was time for him to go on.  Eventually our wait was rewarded.





Our adventure did not end at Davenport, even though our cameras were finished for the day.  We did get into the towns of Fairbury and Marysville where the scanner came to life.  We were to make it to my friend Jim's place in Manhattan for the night so after Marysville it was time to call.  We passed a lot of granger trackage that "short range sensors" showed but nothing was left.  Out here the missing tracks were CB&Q, MoPac, Rock and UP.  We also passed sections of Kansas' only narrow gauge, but I couldn't spot them.


In the morning we would be chasing UP 844 with Jim's guidance.

BC

Marysville Sub, Davenport, NE (just south of Ong)