Naaah. We "armchair" idiots never do anything productive. We just freeload and take pictures and stand around and criticize.

****

As soon as we were told that the Walkersville Southern was chartering Flagg Coal 75 for two weekends' runs, the Baltimore Chapter NRHS immediately arranged a photo charter to help pay for the visit and to "do our part."

(The Chapter had considered an outright donation to the railroad as part of their 75th anniversary grant program last year, but was stymied by the fact that the WSRR is not, technically, a 501(c)3 non-profit. The cost of this charter turned out to exactly match the grant amount we had considered for the operation.)

The orders for the operations manager, from the "Trip Committee" (yours truly): "You know about the Edgemoor & Manetta in South Carolina in its later days? That's what we want to recreate!" The line was the last "common carrier" to continue using steam, an 0-4-0T, until the mid-1970s.

The trip ran last night, in 100-degree humid weather (which was also imported from the E&M territory, apparently). Here are a couple selected photos.



Crossing the Monocacy River bridge, rebuilt after being washed out by Tropical Storm Agnes in 1972.



Coming up to an industrial siding. Note the PRR milepost to the left: 65 miles to Columbia, Pa.; 4 miles to Frederick, Md.



In the siding to allow the WSRR dinner train--loaded to capacity but one, at $65 a head for a four-course meal--to pass.



One of several night photos, courtesy of Steve Barry of Railfan & Railroad Magazine.



And the "money shot" of the day, made by climbing through thick poison ivy to climb a large tree that had fallen in the previous weekend's storms.
This is on a portion of the line now once again operating north out of Walkersville, towards the former connection to the WM at Keymar. Remember that this trackage was part of the old, original Maryland Midland between Taneytown and Walkersville in 1980, before the MMID acquired the former WM main line between Glyndon and Highfield through Union Bridge and Keymar beginning in 1983.

Nice! I was there two weekends ago for the public railfan charter, but would have LOVED to have done this one instead had I known about it. Great photos!

Cool.

But the E&M did not use cabeese.

I tried--in vain--to get the guys to leave off the "cabeese" for a couple shots. We ended up with dragging brakes twice on the boxcar, and we ultimately decided not to chance walking back to Walkersville in 100-degree heat indices just for a caboose-less shot. Besides, we'd really need to repaint the boxcar and maybe bring in another freight car for the event. But of course, by then you're driving the price from $25 to $250.

Ideally, we'd find money to repaint the boxcar for the run, but as I am to understand it, the car is painted silver so it can be used as a storage container the rest of the year. And, yes, we'd have to come up with a caboose that's wooden and falling apart to capture the "Southern Short Line" vibe, so to speak.

The reason for the silver paint on the boxcar is that it has always been silver. It's a former Navy ammo boxcar from Saint Juliens Creek Annex near Norfolk, VA, and it wore silver while in service. It was purchased many years ago by a WSRR volunteer who painted over the Navy markings but left it silver overall. It was used on a few rare occasions for passenger trains (hobo trains, I believe), with bushels of hay added for seating. This wasn't a very satisfactory arrangement because the car was quite hot in the summer, even with the doors open. The original owner sold it to another WSRR volunteer and now it's used both for storage and for shop machines, as the enginehouse has very limited space for the latter. These days it usually doesn't move unless someone is staging a photo freight train.

The number of WSRR volunteers engaged in equipment restoration and maintenance is limited, and if one or more people volunteered to paint the boxcar into a more traditional color for future photo freights, there would probably be few objections.

Well, now it depends if they get the PRR 44-tonner restored, and just what paint schemes are appropriate for the boxcar for 1) a PRR run on the Frederick line, and 2) a return visit for a Grambling steamer!

If you can believe Mr. Lionel Cowen, some roads did have silver 40 foot boxcars, like Western Pacific and Rock Island. Did the original Norfolk Southern also have some?

Neat photo freight on the Walkersville Southern with Flagg Coal 0-4-0T #75. I believe that Whitewater Valley may have run a photo freight with number 75 on one of her visits there. Maybe some one has a photo of that event.

I don't know if any railroads that rostered saddletankers ran them with cabooses, but I suppose it IS possible. Photos would be welcome. What I DO know is that there was a short line railroad named the Nelson & Albemarle Railway, that operated with saddle tank locomotives exclusively and operated a passenger train using an old heavyweight combine. I believe the engines were 2-4-2T's and 2-6-2T's, but I think that they had some smaller saddletankers too. So maybe Flagg Coal 75 on a photo freight with a heavyweight passenger car might be considered.

Les

Well, I dug out my copy of "Mixed Train Daily" by Lucius Beebe and on page 61 is a Charles Clegg photo of N&A 2-6-2T #9 heading up a mixed train consisting of a single sheathed (outside braced) boxcar, a twin bay hopper car and with the forementioned combine bringing up the rear. As I thought, it turns out the 8 mile long N&A DID have some 0-4-0T's (one of which apparently still survives) so it is not inconceivable I guess, that one of those may have had to fill in on the N&A mixed on occassion. And it certainly seems that on some museum line, a replicated train such as the one that appears in Mr. Clegg's photo, using Flagg Coal 75 or some other saddletanker, could be run.

Les

Sandy, it might help to know that, in the southeast, both Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast Line (and SCL) used small fleets of insulated and silver painted 40-ft boxcars to haul BEER! Next time throw some SAL stencils on that ex-Navy boxcar and go have a cold one afterwards knowing that historical accuracy (at least to a degree) was achieved!

The museum I used to be involved with has one of the ACL cars, but I seriously doubt it will ever get the silver with black stenciling to which I hoped it would be restored.

One other quick note that ties in with the "Member/Volunteer" thread.....

At each of the photo locations, I donned a pair of gloves and whipped out my pocket knife, and as the train was unloading or backing up for the run-by, I was frantically and furiously yanking up as many weeds and junk/invasive-species tree saplings as I could that interfered with the photos, including a lot of stuff between the rails. It had been a hot summer with enough rain, mind you. "Okay, are those enough? No? Get those branches, too? [chop, saw] How 'bout now? That stuff along the ties here? [yank, yank, yank, throw....]..."

By the end of the third run-by set and round of manic brush-clearing, the conductor of the train hopped off and handed me two tickets to any future excursion on the line, as "payment" for my weed-whacking.

And once again,what would railfanning be without poison ivy, thornbushes, poison sumac, poison oak, weeds in general, heat, humidity, mosquitoes, ticks, mud, dust. . .and as one suggested a cold beer, a pizza, and the chance to brag about what you did to the young'uns?

Hey, ADM4, thanks for what you've done--now have fun with the beer, the pizza, and bragging to the young'uns. . .