It's been a busy month...I defended my thesis on the American Freedom Trains and the Cold War at the start of May, had my last set of final exams, then rode Amtrak out to Albuquerque to get shots of the semaphores. I got back at about 2 AM on the 19th, but woke up at 9 for a special move.
EDIT: Wow, I have been really out of it, I did not see Carl's earlier post. Great videos!
The depot museum at Lee Hall, VA (across from Fort Eustis) recently restored a caboose donated by CSX to its Chessie System C&O colors. The cabin was stored at the Army Transportation Museum, but on Friday, moved to its new home at the Lee Hall depot.
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USAX 1663, a 44-tonner, brings the caboose up from Army rails onto the CSX Peninsula subdivision, and spotted the caboose at the depot.
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The contracted crane crew prepares the caboose for the lift. The Army brought out the train at 10:00, it took almost 90 minutes for CSX to give them the railroad (with only one coal train southbound, at 10:40), and a further hour for the crane crew to make the lift.
![92A3F6C4-09AB-421C-BA24-5313BD342932_1_201_a 92A3F6C4-09AB-421C-BA24-5313BD342932_1_201_a](https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/fileSendAction/fcType/0/fcOid/155716354382227123/filePointer/161912596636394836/fodoid/161912596636394827/imageType/MEDIUM/inlineImage/true/92A3F6C4-09AB-421C-BA24-5313BD342932_1_201_a.jpeg)
The Army crew and their CSX pilots, several of them railfans, pulled a safe distance away, but stayed to watch the whole lift.
![D98F97BD-9FBF-4EFB-A0DB-756234EC9880_1_201_a D98F97BD-9FBF-4EFB-A0DB-756234EC9880_1_201_a](https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/fileSendAction/fcType/0/fcOid/155716354382227123/filePointer/161912596636394837/fodoid/161912596636394828/imageType/MEDIUM/inlineImage/true/D98F97BD-9FBF-4EFB-A0DB-756234EC9880_1_201_a.jpeg)
The contractors put tension on the lifting harness and check the connections. It took a few tries before everything was to the lift director's satisfaction. I shot the lift on video, and had lost my tripod adapter, so I did not get any aerial shots.
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1663 comes back through the crossovers to home rails. The unit sported a (newly-added) old-cast P5 that sounded fresh and refurbished (and was quite loud).