Eastern Railroad Discussion > Long Ago and Far Away, Not, But It Could Have Been WM Wednesday

These photos by Tim Wilson could have been taken 40 years or more ago, but they were both taken Monday.

Welcome to George's Creek Railway, 2017. Turn your clocks back half a century.

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What exactly does the Georges Creek Railway haul? I've heard of this operation for years now but have never seen / heard about their operations. Is it a tourist line?

Tourist trains are black holes you throw money into.

George's Creek Railway has been providing 24/7 3rd party switching services for the paper mill in Luke, Maryland for over 9 years.

We purchased 8.5 miles of abandoned CSX track in a bankruptcy proceeding in 2011 and another 5 miles from CSX in 2015. We are getting ready to put our line into service. We are running the line with a ballast regulator tomorrow and Sperry is testing on Saturday.

The War on Coal is over.

Coal won.

Coal has always been King in George's Creek.

Long live King Coal!

#1 is a nice photo.

Any updates on the restoration of 303? I know, send a blank check to.....

The number one item on my bucket list is to operate my locomotive on my short line under its own power.

Any serious restoration has to be done indoors. As soon as I take care of getting the short line up and running, I am putting 303 in our shop and stripping it bare. There is a lot of sheet metal to replace and rust to remove. I have everything I need to repower it except traction motors. It will be a long time before I need to get them.

With any luck, this will be the year I finally get started on it.

WM303 Wrote:
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> Tourist trains are black holes you throw money
> into.

Unless they are properly operated along with freight. But you must have a scenic route with a decent amount of a line to run on and you must be in an area where there are other attractions for the tourists, not just the rail fans.
John

1. WM 25 was the first WM GP9 to have it's short hood lowered.
2. Good luck on the 'war on coal being over'. Where is your coal going to go? Almost all coal fired power plants, and Eastern basic steel production plants have closed and many scrapped. This was due to many economic factors which are misunderstood by many. Some of the coal fired power plants in the Northeast died in the BUSH years due to natural gas. There are a few coal fired plants left south of Pennsylvania, Indian River one unit which actually got a coal train a week ago; Chase near Balto (old), and the two on CSX south of Bowie, MD. Possum Point and Dickerson Run (used to be 2 trains a day) have not received coal in years. With gas at 3.15 per BTU and crude oil around $52.00 a BBL coal is a hard sell. The Georges Creek branch was virtually dead when I went to college in the early 60s and had a friend that lived in Westernport. Maybe it revived for a while. BUT if you could frack some LPG around that area you might find a market. And it would come East, to Philly. But not coal. Unless it is export Baltimore; and it would probably have to be a unit train. I think you would find it hard for the new CSX regime to accept small carload shipments of coal.

In January this year CSX cleared brush from the former WM ROW towards Twenty-First. Will the CSX connection there be put back in?

Eventually the connection will be replaced.

Posted from Android

Being an expert on coal markets and viability, I am surprised that you are unaware of the coal customers within 25 miles of Westernport, and shocked that you didn't know about the Dominion Electric coal burning power plant at Mount Storm, WV., within 60 rail miles. Who would have thunk it?

Posted from Android

Thanks for the neat photos and information!
If someone were to make a road trip to check out the operation, what days are best and what locations are railfan friendly?
Thanks!
Dan

Posted from iPhone

Glad to hear things are progressing along well for you! Why haul coal all the way from the MGA to Mount Storm when there's plenty right there, excellent!

Davis

Actually, while composing my response, I did think of Mt Storm, but was not sure it was still alive. I'm no coal expert; I'm just relating my knowledge from my marketing days at Conrail, the last few in the Short Line Group, and what happened during my time and afterward from what I know. I've been to Mt Storm, Bayard, have a few photos, never much good, WM track charts, topo maps, and I'm a member of the WMRHS. So, if you can operate all the ex-WM track as a short line and control it yourself then I wish you every success possible. My last real boss at CR is now President of one of the most successful regional railroads in the country, which also has some coal traffic. And as far as the WM303; I saw all four FA's in train service on WM in the early sixties and believe I was in one.

Any word on WM 7596 ? Do you own that one as well ?

Randy

Yes, that one is ours too.

Posted from Android

This one?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/17 15:10 by WLE2679.

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Yup, that be it.

Posted from Android

The only thing happening on George's Creek for the next month or so is tie replacement and weed abatement.

George's Creek Railway is railfan owned and operated.