Nostalgia & History > Really Early AFT, Continued

At this point, I am totally blind, knowing only that the WM has two mainlines and I think I know which one he's going on. I have no previous local experience, no map, and only a vague sense of where the WM actually goes. But it goes up in those hills, somewhere. So when the tracks are to your left, keep turning left. When they're to your right, well, you know the drill. 

The first grade crossing I find is at first totally deserted. There's some local group of high school kids in a 1960s muscle car ( a Barracuda if I recall), driving back and forth across the grade crossing, deliberately launching the car airborne as they go flying across. On the third or fourth try, they get the timing really, really wrong and they land on the downhill side of the crossing with the nose of the car hitting the ground before the tires do. Lots of sparks, lots of noise, and suddenly the car disappears. Amusing,  but not as amusing as a steam engine...

Eventually, the train shows up and I manage to follow it north and west, into Pennsylvania ( known in the Indian languages as " the land of no freaking road signs". Within a half hour, I am utterly lost. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/21 16:01 by march_hare.

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The 3 cars were owned by the High Iron Co and I believe were lettered for the AFT.  The Slumbercoach (B&O?) was used as quarters for those rebuilding the 2101.  The diner was former NYC and on the rear is the Splendid Spirit (Later the Brother Two, I think)  The Spirit actually ran behind the AFT a couple times, but not the other 2.

Great (RARE) photos!
SR

And here we are, a few hours later, rolling into Hagerstown after some of the most bewildering back road driving I have ever engaged in. 

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My late friend, Johnny Floyd, was a teenage volunteer on the AFT 1 project and rode the first shakedown trip on Friday, March 28, 1975.
This took the East Sub mainline from Emory Grove to Hagerstown and would only touch Pa. at Blue Ridge Summit, PA.
Before he passed, he was able to put his tape recordings of the trip onto CD and also pass a few 126 photos on to me.

Your second pic appears to be deep in the Patapsco River valley between Emory Grove and Westminster, MD.

The first two of Johnny's pics were taken on the 28th, as a WMRY grain train passes the stopped #1 and train at Edgemont, MD., and the third pic was taken 3/30/1975, when the train returned to Baltimore from Hagerstown. The WMRY local is on the Hanover "Dutch line" Sub at Highfield, MD., and the #1 and train are on the East Sub (now Maryland Midland mainline).
JD Floyd photos from WW Jenkins collection

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Hey, you guys should contact Todd at the American Freedom Train website. Todd has created the all-time archive of AFT info and artifacts. He’ll see to it your information and memories will be saved.
Thanks
SR

Great addition to the thread. Thanks!

More pix tomorrow. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/15/21 18:50 by march_hare.

Wow, all great photos from the past, almost 46 years ago (it will be in March 2021) and I remember seeing this engine down at the B&O's Riverside Roundhouse when it was being worked on after it came from the scrap yard where it and sister 2100 had been sitting for about 10 years.  Ross Rowland and his group did a fabulous job of restoration in record time.
John in White Marsh, Maryland