The Last Hot Spot - Folkston

I haven't seen every railfanning hot spot in the country, but I've seen a lot of them.  Nowadays new ones are popping up all the time thanks to the internet and the economic impact of railfan parks.  'Back in the day' parks and platforms were unheard of and now they are all over.  Railroads and law enforcement are a lot touchier about trespassing than they used to be so having a place to sit and not be pestered just makes railfanning easy.

My personal list of railfan parks and places to visit started shrinking fast in the last few years.  I grew up with Sherman Hill and the Moffat Tunnel within easy reach so most western sights were already checked off.  A pair of trips to Altoona in 2002 probably kicked off the list reduction in fine form.  There I took advantage of Gallitzin Park, Cassandra Overlook, Cresson Platform and of course Horseshoe Curve Park.  It was just a lot more fun when you didn't have to watch the signs or look over your shoulder.  Later on other trips I checked out more park settings like Deshler, OH, Rochelle RR Park, and Kansas City Riverwalk.  A H.A.P.T. adventure to Sand Patch filled in some great spots on the old B&O.  Another H.A.P.T. trip to California in 2009 hit spots like Fullerton, Roseville, Cajon Pass, Tehachapi Loop,  Keddie Wye, and a small park at Portola.  Last year though really cleaned house.  Charles Kadyk and I hit Marion, Bellevue, Fostoria, Homewood, Rochelle, Galesburg, found more in Burlington, Keokuk and Fort Madison, IA.  We found perches throughout Nebraska including Grand Island and North Platte.  We even found a new park in Pacific, MO and a very hospitable town with street running in LaGrange, KY.  The final crowns were The Elkorn Inn in WV on the old N&W and a stop by the Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke. 

There simply weren't many other big name places on my personal list, except for Folkston.  Sure I'd go back to any of those on my list but this was the only personal 'biggie' left.  I'll continue to fill in new places but I feel like I've reached some sort of completion level thanks to a road trip to Florida.  It didn't hurt that I hit my 48th of the contiguous states a few miles down the road when I continued on to Florida.

The park at Folkston is suitably located south of a junction which 'funnels' nearly all north-south traffic destined for Florida by the platform.   The platform is located on the east side of the tracks and is a good viewing point for most of the day.  The intense sun began to drive me out around 6pm.    Humidity was the only real annoyance.  Ceiling fans really made a difference with the abundant shade at the platform.  Trains were abundant too.  A scanner provided a good deal of info and a track chart was posted.  You can see from the photos that the platform itself is pretty well situated and well furnished.  They even have a permanent rest room building. 

On my visit, I saw plenty of trains.  It was a Dash 8 haven mostly.  But, I saw other oddities like the GP30 slug and a rebuilt SD40-3.  The Tropicana train and Amtrak get through here too, but I didn't see them in my 6 hour stay.  The heat slowed my activity so I didn't have the drive to visit the museum across the tracks.  They had a small covered picnic table and a long porch but it was too sunny while I was there.  They would have been good perches if I'd stayed overnight.  A local fan group apparently is working on the caboose as a clubhouse.  Some guys with clipboards were chatting with them just before I left.  Might have been a permitting process tour of some kind. 

I really enjoyed the visit.  There were various local visitors and railfans from the region to chat with from time to time.  Some cloud cover made movement tolerable and those glorious ceiling fans really made the visit comfortable.  Even though I'm not much of a CSX fan, the number of trains and the SCL heritage overwhelmed that bias. 

 BC

North Platte or Bust: Part 11, La Grange, KY

August 16

We deliberately stopped a bit north of Louisville in a smallish town called La Grange.  The fact that they have street trackage, and practically celebrate it, drew our attention.  It turned out to be a terrific town to spend a few hours in.  It was nearly the only railfanning we did on a "travel day".

The old L&N depot on the west end of town was the future home of some local railfan's visitor center.  We found the very European looking steamer sitting out front.

From the end of town we drove back down into the street trackage area.  A stretch of track running about two city blocks through a busy and vibrant downtown area.  There was room for curbside parking on both sides and two lanes of traffic.  However, trains pretty much used one lane when they passed.


We located a good place to sit on the east end.  There were benches on the street corners so we picked the one with the best camera angles and lighting.  These happened to be metal rockers.   I had to get Charles to pose for a shot to show the street, the rockers and our vantage point.  We call these L.A.R.F.'ing chairs.
(Lazy A-- Rail Fanning)  This time they were provided by the city of La Grange and not pulled from the car's trunk.



The city spent a lot of energy keeping the town clean and maintained.  The streets were swept.  Flowers were growing everywhere.  Businesses seemed to be doing well.  Rather than fight the trains (CSX puts up to 30 per day through town) they celebrate it.  The city logo and slogans referred to the trains.




Amazingly, when a train came along, chaos did not develop.  Locals knew the drill well.   The business people we chatted with seemed to expect train nuts to visit and they were friendly people anyway.





Once we caught a couple of northbounds we moved to the other end of the street trackage.  Here we were next to a courthouse square and more businesses.  While we were basking in the shade of the courthouse park, a local reporter came by and asked if we were from the media (Charles' camera looks like a reporter's).  We had stumbled into another sensational murder trial (locally big this time).  We looked around and saw the people in a new light.  Lots of media types, security types and lawyer types.  I crossed the street for the next train.

We ate lunch outdoors at the One Nineteen Restaurant.  They had sidewalk tables that kept us about ten feet from the tracks.  Before, during and after we saw about 3 trains from that spot.  The staff was tickled to have a couple of rail enthusiasts around.  They were as excited about the trains as we were.  Of course, they had a business that was also across from the courthouse.  The food was good and our perky waitress kept my iced tea full.  We could see the end of the street trackage from out seats.


The light had shifted in the four hours we were around.  We decided it was time to leave.  However, there was a set of signals on the north end of the street zone that told us that a train was out there.  Red told us it was a southbound and probably at the siding north of the depot.  We headed to our original perch by the "LARFing chairs".   This gave me a chance to try some more wide angle shots.




Thinking this was it for a while, we looked at the signals again to confirm.  Still lit.  Something else was around.  We had gotten the idea from someone earlier that a local we'd seen would return south.  Sure enough, it appeared fairly soon.  This time the GP30 slug was leading.

We could leave now that we saw it.










I don't recall where Eminence fit in on the map but it was an important stop on the L&N once.  The line is gone now but was cut back to here in recent times.  Apparently bourbon was one of the chief products of the town and today Eminence Speakers are produced there.  The depot was unique enough to photograph.  It turned out to be the last significant rail shot of the day.  We were traveling to our last night's stop at the Elkhorn Inn in Landgraff, West Virginia.

We were headed into the hills.  No more straight and level roads for a while.  We had to go past Frankfort and Lexington to get into the serious mountains, but it was already getting rugged outside of La Grange.  We'd see it all by the time we found the Elkhorn Inn.  It wasn't exactly off an Interstate highway on the prarie.

BC