Eastern Railroad Discussion > Recent photos from West Virginia

Hi Group,

As autumn has came and gone, a short season as always, I'm finally caught up on most of the 2012 fall foliage photos from around West Virginia and neighboring states. Due to lack of precipitation, the fall colors came early, and went early, but there were a few good days of photographs. Some of the travels have been summarized here.

Image one- Eastbound loads grind up hill at White Sulphur Springs with 150 loads of coal from Southern West Virginia. While not pictured, the Ronceverte helper is shoving on the rear and without the additional 4000 horsepower, these heavy drags would not make it over the Alleghany grade.

Image two- Similar to image one, eastbound export coal loads negotiate wet rail at the mining community of Keystone, east on the N&W mainline to Bluefield. The large mining complex in the background is idled, evident of the decline of coal production.

Image three- Crossing the New River at Sewell, eastbound loads catch the afternoon sun on their uphill trek from Cotton Hill to Thurmond in the heart of the New River Gorge.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/21/12 16:53 by Chase55671.

---

---

---

Image four- The annual New River Train passes through Thurmond on its second to last excursion of the season, charted by the Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society.

Image five- While the Northeast received heavy winds and heavy rain from Hurricane Sandy, the mountainous counties of West Virginia received extremely heavy wet snowfalls that resulted in the obstructing of the former NF&G mainline and branch lines. Rainelled based crews were called into serviced and assisted with the tree and snow removal from the ROW for several days following Hurricane Sandy. October 31st, 2012 near Rainelle, WV.

Image six- NS' Interstate Railroad heritage ES44AC assists an NS 52Q toward Bluefield near Crozier, WV on November 10th, 2012.

---

---

---

Image seven- NS' Norfolk & Western and PRR heritage ES44AC's run light back west toward Farm, entering Big Four Tunnel No. 1 near Vivian, WV.

Image eight- Upgrade at Keystone, exhaust from loaded ethanol train NS 56J silhouettes the N&W CPL's as they work east toward Bluefield.

Image nine- Light power idles near the shops at Bluefield on a mild November evening.

Thank you all for looking at the photos!

Chase Gunnoe
Nitro, West Virginia

---

---

---

Beautiful images. I hope one is chosen for Image of the Day.
Bob
P.S. Your first and very last are calendar quality.

Image one and three should be IOTD...fantastic photographs !!!

NIIIICE set of pics!!!! Well done!!! Thanks for sharing.

Chase, excellent work. Hard to pick a favorite. congratulations on IOTD.
John

You win! Excellent shots.

Outstanding! What a great way to start my Thanksgiving.

Posted from BlackBerry

Where was the elevated shot at Thurmond taken? I don't believe I have ever seen a shot from that angle or elevation.

WHOA!! These are really stunning, beautiful images. I don't hang out on the Eastern Board so I'm not familiar with your photography. But these images are really something. Would you mind sharing what type of camera and lens you use?

Chase,

Thank you for sharing your outstanding images.

Kennard Britton
Bedford, TX

Amazing and beautiful work all around! Congrats and thanks for sharing!

Kit Courter
Menefee, CA
LunarLight Photography

Those long concrete buildings in the last photo: is that where they would service Y6b and Class A steam engines back in the day??

WOW!!!! Very nice work! An IOTD very well deserved.
Thanks for sharing.

Old Bob out in Lost Wages

Good stuff Chase,
Thanks for posting,
Gonut

What are those barrier walls in pictures 1 and 8? Sound walls, like along an interstate highway?

penncentral74 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What are those barrier walls in pictures 1 and 8?
> Sound walls, like along an interstate highway?

Dust screens... theoretically, they're supposed to minimize the amount of coal dust getting into the surrounding neighborhoods. Sounds good on paper, not so good in practice. Most everything within half mile of those prep plants and loadouts is covered with coal dust.

I wonder. Is that shop building in the photo one of the lubrication buildings set up ages ago to lubricate N&W steam locomotives?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/12 20:43 by wabash2800.

Yes that is one of the lubrication buildings used in steam servicing

Larry