Greetings, fans of Real Trains. Welcome once again to the Midweek Photo thread. Gather some of your recent shots of railroading in the real world, and post them here.
This past weekend, my local railroad club, the Lackawanna & Wyoming Valley Railway Historical Society, hosted the National Railway Historical Society for the Fall Conference. The event was held in Scranton. One of the excursions taking place was on the Stourbridge Line Rail Excursion, based in Honesdale, PA. This Railroad, beginning on the Delaware & Hudson Canal bed, and mostly using Erie Railroad trackage, runs from Honesdale to Lackawaxen, PA.
The first stop along the route was in Hawley, PA. The Lackawaxen River is seen on the right. Former Canadian Pacific FP7 no. 9880 leads BL2 no. 54 on the trip. The owner of the railroad loves the PRR, so he painted the FP7 as a Pennsylvania RR unit. The PRR Fs only had one stripe, so this 5 stripe unit is unique.
Among the interesting items they run on the train are this B&O wagon top caboose.
Hawley is where the Pennsylvania Coal Company's Gravity Railroad ended at the Delaware & Hudson Canal. The Gravity, as many called it, ran to Pittston, PA. My great grandparents rode a car like this (possibly this very coach) to reach Scranton, after sailing from Ireland to New York, taking a steam ship to Rondout, and the D&H Canal to Hawley. They would end up in Scranton after all of this, in 1850.
A photo run-by was staged in Hawley. We see the train crossing US Route 6 here.
On the return to Honesdale, the train backed up for another run-by. This location is 113 miles west of Jersey City, NJ. The Erie Railroad was based in New York City at the time the mile markers were put in place.
The recent surge in natural gas demand and piping it around led to this photo location being available. Even last year, this location was wooded in. This is the same spot, but opposite side of the tracks, of the above location.
The former Bangor & Aroostook BL2 at the Honesdale terminus of the trip. Conductor Tim Wright. takes care of the details in breaking the locomotives from the cars.
Our photo finish of the day. The two ancient (for diesels) units bask in the sunlight in Honesdale. This is the location of the former canal. Honesdale was once the western end of the D&H canal. From this point, you took the D&H Gravity Railroad (separate from the Pennsylvania Coal Co. Gravity) to Carbondale, PA and Dickson City. The D&H also operated a steam railroad between Carbondale and Scranton, eventually reaching Wilkes-Barre, PA, a distance of about 35 miles.
That is my contribution for the week. What have you seen? Share any cool images of railroading today on this thread. See you next week.
