Negatives are marked "Deisel W.M 5/20/47

Looks like they were shot in the Western Maryland Yards in Ridgeley, WV... is that a Dynometer car behind the engines?

The location positively is Ridgeley, W.Va., at least the last photo is, with the train entering the yard from the east.

The first photo may be Hagerstown, which would have been this train's originating point; the key is how open the background is. Ridgeley and Cumberland are surrounded by hills that aren't visible in this one.

The car does have some details to suggest it's a dynamometer car, though I wouldn't say for certain without a photo of the car WM had to confirm its appearance.

http://www.alphabetroute.com/wm/formpdfs/1947WMDT.pdf

WM 51 and 52 were F-3s built in June of 1947, and traded in to EMD in 1980 and 1979 respectively, by which time they had been rebuilt as F-7s and renumbered to 7149 and 7150.

http://moosevalley.org/wmrhs/wmroster.htm

Thank you for the information.

To think these negatives were being thrown away when I got to them.

Tim W.

And thank you for stepping in to save these images.

Any background on the photographer? These are some very good looking photos, possibly on a par with the work of the late Bill Price of Cumberland.

I don't know if they are the work of Mr. Price... there is a few train wrecks and other railroad related shots in the batch and a few non RR related. Nothing is well ID'ed exact for a brief comment and a date on the envelop. There is a set of negatives of some of the B&O museum collection on flatcars that I was going to scan next.

Tim W.

I concur with J3A's analysis across the board. If all the dates are correct, these are apparently the pre-acceptance test runs for the first F3's on the WM.

Are the negs 35mm or larger? I'd like to ask for high-resolution copies of all of these for the collections of the WMRHS and Maryland Rail Heritage Library, if you would be so kind. We'll do the printing. PM or e-mail me as appropriate.

PM sent.... I picked them up at a garage sale. Nobody wanted them and the young man was just going to throw them in the trash box. He was asking $ 5.00 for the stack..... we settled for $ 2.00.......


The date is what was wrote on the envelope.

Tim - Many thanks for spending the $2.00 to save these images!! Also thanks for taking the time to post them! I have found all of the postings to be MOST interesting!!!!

Anybody else notice in the first photo one of the reasons why crews hated to switch with these things (cab units in general, not just these particular WM Fs)?

I've been contacted by two different individuals asking to purchase the negative sets. Since I feel they are NOT mine to sell as I'm not the photographer, I have declined the offers... One individual can't seem to take no for an answer. Therefore I'm leaning towards after I scan the images I want to keep, to donate all of the negative sets to the Maryland Rail Heritage Library.

Anyone offer a better suggestion or group......? There isn't a lot of negatives but what there is, deserves being saved!

Thank You!
Tim W.

Tim -

The Maryland Rail Heritage Library sounds like a good place to me. They're your negatives now, so if that's where you decide that they're going to go, then go ahead with it.

Les

An excellent and ethical choice. Thanks for making them available to researchers into the future.

dave

There were Four (4) negatives in the envelope.

Attached is a scan of the envelope and the fourth image.

I read the date as May 20, 1947... 30 days before the recorded date that the F3's were delivered.... could this be acceptance trips before the WM took delivery?

Tim W.

I can't say more about the dates of the photos vs. the delivery-build dates of the F3s, but I can say, thanks to the fourth photo, that the second and the fourth are of the units at Ridgeley;I believe they would be about to head west to Connelsville, Pa., via Cumberland, Frostburg, Deal, Keystone, and other locations. Key is the now-demolished Kelly Tire plant (?) with its tall smokestacks in the background of the fourth photo, along with a steeple to a church that is still standing in Ridgeley.

If my assessment of this is correct, these units and their train will soon be headed up the trackage now used by Western Maryland Scenic to the former connection with the Cumberland & Potomac. WMSR uses that line to reach the other, C&P station that is still standing in Frostburg.

An officer of the WMRHS (which would get a duplicate set of any prints we make from any digital files or negatives we receive at the MRHL) has replied to me with a request for copies for the WMRHS files, and offers the following:

"In reference to the dyno car behind the locos, I have found documents and reports at the [WMRHS] museum [in Union Bridge, Md.] where the WM had used a dyno car from the Southern Ry to test various steam locos, and assume they did the same with the new diesels. The dyno reports are included in the papers."

So now we need an expert on SR dynamometer cars.......

I can assure you that given the Maryland and WM relevance of these photos, the Md. Rail Heritage Library would be grateful to receive these photos in any fashion--prints, the originals, even just digital scans. However, I'm seeing enough here to justify short articles in both the B&O Historical Society and WMRHS magazines, if not Classic Trains, if only for the wonderful story of saving these at the last minute for $2! (And I'd happily reimburse you and give you a finder's fee!)