Thurmond, WV Today. A few more images.

Nice shot, Charlie - kind of like a painting. Is it a straight pic, or is there some filtering?

David- 

Thanks Charlie, great shot.  You've got a good eye.  Bob S.

Excellent photo!  I missed the previous thread, but glad I caught yours.  It couldn't be more picturesque.  WOW

Thanks for posting. 

Very nice photo.

Good morning, when WV Route 19 was being upgraded from a 2 1/2 lane goat path to the current 4 lane I worked on this project.

I never heard of Thurmond till then.

Had to work a weekend and got rained out on Sunday.

Decided to go for a ride and check this place out.

Just reminded me of a place time forgot.

Looking around you could just imagine in it's heyday what it must have been like to live here or stay here waiting for the next train.

I stopped in Thurmond about year and half ago just for a break from driving, still looks the same.

That certainly is a place I would like to visit one day. I just read a news article (that I won't share because of the strong opinions some people have about the topic) about the town, and it listed it's population at 5 people.

Feast your eyes of this collection of image results from a Google search.

The USGS aerial photo really shows the topography. A few from the early 1900's are cool.

Thanks for the link.  Really neat place.

Great picture Charlie. 

Art

Very nice. I find the view looking through/down the bridge interesting...thanks for sharing.

Wow, great shot. That's a winner!

Excellent picture to start my morning. Thank you.

Thanks guys, glad you like it. Coming from "flat lander" (Chicago area) I really enjoy the mountains/hills when I see them. In this case, Thurmond and rail history along with the mountains makes really nice combination that I don't usually happen across.

NKP Muncie (David), The sun was very direct by the time I arrived and the shadows were too strong to capture all the detail so I used a technique called HDR or High Dynamic Range processing. No filters were used, but it has that effect.

I will post another view shortly. 

Moonman, (Carl) thank you for the link that shows some additional, older images. Its hard to believe now how busy this place was in times past.

Charlie

Thanks Charlie.

How recent is the photo,  I mean I did not know there are still semaphores left anywhere.

WB47:

This was taken last Sunday the 9th. I'm pretty sure the semaphore is there for looks only, I could be wrong. However, this is a regular Amtrak stop on the "Cardinal" so there might be other signaling there that I did not notice.

The way the light was shining it made them look lit, they were not.

Charlie

Great shots and a modeled scene or two.

plenty of modeling ideas

Great shot!

I ride through there on the Cardinal each time I ride the train from WSS.

IIRC the parks service owns the station and has fixed it up some including the signals.

Thurmond is a real railroad ghost town in the east, in driving distance of much of

the population, but the railroad still lives, although the town does not.  It traps moments of history.  It is one of my favorite places....  Is there a good book on Thurmond with historic photos filling it?  That Thurmond hotel in the Google posting is new to me.

Since it is an Amtrak "flag" stop, would they use the semaphore to indicate passengers waiting?

Never have stopped there in all the years I have rode.....and Amtrak says Thurmond is not a stop. Alderson WV is a flag stop but rarely stop.......

The National Park Service owns the whole town of Thurmond, including the old railroad depot. There is a very nice museum in the depot. I used to get up to the Thurmond area every year, for a week, on business. Never missed a chance to get to Thurmond and take photos. Somewhere, I have photos when the old enginehouse was still standing. It was in the process of being restored by the park service, but an arson fire took it to the ground. This was back in the 1991 - 2000 years when I traveled up there. Thanks for postin the photo.

Jeff 

Charlie, Thurmond is in my backyard and I would have loved to meet up with you and show you some unseen gems.  Also the Boy Scouts have purchase a large parcel of land nearby which they call the Summit Betchel Reserve.  Just days after getting the basic in place they had their summer jamboree 2013.  The entrance is in Glen Jean, WV kind of half way between Thurmond and Prince.  Price is also a very nice opening in 1946 on C&O's mainline and Amtrak's Cardinal line still operates through there today.  The Boy Scouts also us Amtrak to the camp and one of the off lines runs right past their entrance.  I would love to see them make their own station on that line and put their own trolley or doodlebug to run back and forth.  Through the  years I've seen a lot of rails pulled up and closed.  Their paths still in place.  Thanks again for the great pictures inspires me to post some pictures from some of the forgotten rail in the woods.

I'm pretty close too.

I am in Pocahontas Co. I railfan along the line in warmer months!

There is talk of replacing some of those pulled up rails in our area. Hope they come true!

Prince is such a cool station. Go by it each trip on the Cardinal......but stop when I am in the area.......the Chessie floor tile is neat! And the Deco style my fav.

The semaphore is a train order signal, no longer in service, as train orders are no longer used.  It's there for looks.

Railroad rules do not provide for using the train order signal to flag trains at flagship passenger stops.  In this age, radio would be the first choice, and, if not available, a flag of the designated color, which, on Santa Fe, was white.

Thanks, Tom. I am willing to admit that I am a not a railroad person, only someone that plays with toy trains. I enjoy learning the workings of the real railroads.

Just added a few more images from Thurmond.

Charlie

Been there, done that! NO, not me, but a fellow named Greg Bergman. There are  articles on his pike in the late "O Scale News" and "O Scale Trains" mags. Quite an impressive job of modeling.

Simon

Thanks for the additional photos. Talk about trains on main street!

That must have been a busy coaling tower. Looks like four chutes.