Nostalgia & History > Old school A&O

The Appalachia and Ohio Railway has had an interesting history, starting out life as a network of coalfield branches that were formerly the CSXT Cowen Sub south (railroad west) of Grafton. These lines were eventually spun off via lease to Watco, which operated the line for only a short period behind a motley assortment of hand me down SD50s. Watco eventually gave way to Four Rivers Transportation, which also owns the Paducah and Louisville. Shortly after the Four Rivers takeover, they shipped some smart looking slug sets over in corporate colors and A&O lettering to handle local freight and some mine run duties. I caught one run of these nice looking units during the summer of 2007 on a local freight..or "QD train" as the locals call it, operating out of Grafton towards Buckhannon. 
1. Running as an X715, the A&O QD freight rolls across the high Pleasant Creek bridge as climbs out of Grafton on the Cowen Sub.
2. A bit later, we are in Philippi, WV as the train rolls along teh banks of the Tygart Valley River.
3. Finally, one more shot at Smith Summit WV, a few miles north of Buckhannon.

These units stuck around for ojnlyu a few years before being replaced in turn by some GATX lease fleet GP38s, which look nice, but aren't as smart looking IMHO, as the A&O painted slug sets. Coal traffic off the A&O is down to a trickle, and just finding a train is hard these dats, so I'm really glad I got these when I did..10 years ago!

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Image two is calendar quality.
Bob

Great photos.  Too bad those units were replaced--one of the most pleasing paint schemes seen ever.  Nice work.
Brian Stevens

One and only time I got the chance to shoot this op,they had a few ex BAR GP38-s. Managed a few shots at Buckhannon Wva. Even got one of the SD50's here. Always thought it was a fascinating road.  Ben 

Great shots and interesting background history.

KG

ns2557 Wrote:
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> One and only time I got the chance to shoot this
> op,they had a few ex BAR GP38-s. Managed a few
> shots at Buckhannon Wva. Even got one of the
> SD50's here. Always thought it was a fascinating
> road.  Ben 

IIRC, the BAR units were there dueing the WATCO era as well, but I may be mistaken. I had forgotten about those!

Posted from iPhone

Yea Mike way to go . Nice looking photos. All we got now are 6 GMTX GP 38's. I keep hoping that someday those P&L slug sets will return.

GRS

Great shots...

bridgeportsub Wrote:
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> Yea Mike way to go . Nice looking photos. All we
> got now are 6 GMTX GP 38's. I keep hoping that
> someday those P&L slug sets will return.
>
> GRS

Randy, I think you were aquainted with the conductor on that run ;-)