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In March 1984 a Seaboard Coast Line SD45 restenciled for Seaboard System leads a freight upgrade through Pullen Park and the campus of North Carolina State University. The end of the train is still in the sharp curve at Boylan. This photo was scanned from a color negative. |
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Approaching the Selma diamonds from the Raleigh direction, eastbound Train 26 is a caboose hop today in January 1987. The signal in front of Southern 2604 is the counterpart on the Southern to the bridge signals seen in the other Selma photos here, and guards the diamonds on the Coast Line. |
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A brakeman is preparing to swing down off of Southern 3508. This is a B30-7A, one of 22 on the Southern. It's at the yard in Danville VA to make a set out on a southbound intermodal train. Personally, I have always found the Southern's Tuxedo scheme to be one of the most elegant in railroading. Simple yet handsome. |
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Running hammerhead style, Southern 3978 is easing down through the work zone in front of Boylan Tower in Raleigh in March 1984. It's a sad thing the work crew is doing, for when they are finished the Boylan interlocking will be remotely controlled, allowing Boylan Tower to be closed down. It was the last manned interlocking tower in North Carolina. Despite efforts by preservationists, the tower sat abandoned for several years until being burned down by a vagrant's campfire. This photo was scanned from a color negative. |
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In March of 1987 Chessie 6338 leads a merchandise train northbound through Selma, NC. The third unit is a U18B, smoking like most all the U18Bs I ever saw in operation. |
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28 March 1987 was a very fruitful day at Selma. The weather was pretty good and there were a lot of trains. Here, Seaboard System 4094 leads a southbound merchandise train, trailing one of the unique BQ23-7 units that only Family Lines and successors owned. In later years, CSX plated over the windows of the 10 units and operated them as B units. They're all off the roster now. |
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5837 is a General Electric B36-7, a fairly uncommon unit that Seaboard System bought in considerable numbers. They were the preferred power on the hot intermodal trains on the old Coast Line and here four of them are doing just that in June 1987. |
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Like I said above, they were the preferred power for intermodals and here's another pair on another train later that day. To an extent the B36-7s are still used a great deal on the intermodals, but they're not as common now. I've heard that many are up on the old Conrail lines. |
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Southern B23-7 4013 is pulling into Glenwood Yard in Raleigh late on a spring afternoon in 1984. NS paint can be seen in the trailing units, but for now the front is still Southern and long hood forward like God and nature intended. |
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Against a late autumn sky filled with clouds of ice crystals, Southern GP50 7064 is leading a train across the Smoky Hollow viaduct and toward Glenwood Yard. This photo was scanned from a color negative. |
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Still in service in 2000 as CSX 8100, in 1984 Family Lines 8100 waited at the north end of Raleigh Yard to head for Petersburg VA. It's just met a southbound that has an RF&P caboose on it. This photo was scanned from a color negative. |
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Norfolk Southern SD50 6518 eases a long Train 349 past the Paige-Walker Hotel in Cary NC on a glorious late autumn day, 23 November 1999. |
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Norfolk Southern SD60 6582 leads another Train 349 through the interlocking plant at Fetner. The track on the right is the CSX line. You are looking timetable north on CSX, timetable east on the NS. |
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CSX 328, an AC44CW, pulls a coal train through East Junction about 1 mile east of Hamlet. At this point southbound trains head off on the line to Dillon SC, while northbounds continue east to Pembroke and swing north up the old Coast Line. Eastbounds heading to Wilmington cross the Coast Line at Pembroke. |
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And here is one of those Wilmington bound trains, Q478, rolling east past the Seaboard Air Line depot in Maxton, NC. He's between East Jct and Pembroke, on the longest stretch of tangent track in the United States and 5th longest tangent in the world. It's 78.86 miles from Milepost 261.99, a bit east of Old Hundred to MP 340.85, just east of East Arcadia. Dead straight, as frankly there's not much to have to avoid. |
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On US Independence Day 1999 CSX GP40-2 6100 leads the Sunday-only train K936 into across the Boylan diamonds and into Raleigh from Hamlet. The corner of the old tower was located about where that concrete post is now. I'm told that in the time since this photo was taken that this train has been cut off. |
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Based at Franklin VA and just starting its day on a crisp January morning, CSX GP40-2 6136 is working the small yard located just a bit west of the old Seaboard Air Line depot. Franklin rates its own switcher because of the enormous fine paper mill, once owned by Union Camp but now by International Paper, located here. During the flooding of Hurricane Floyd in September 1999, the waters were four feet deep here. One can still see the water marks on the inside of the depot. Downtown Franklin was shattered by the flooding. |
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In August 1999 and just a few miles out of Cincinnati on the famous Rathole of the Southern Railway, visiting SD40-2 CSX 8060 is grinding up the hill through a set of ess curves at Fort Mitchell, Kentucky. The train was almost completely auto racks and was at a walking pace as it passed. |
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About 8 miles south of Rocky Mount NC where it made pickups and setouts at the yard, Q407 is accelerating through Elm City NC on a perfect late winter February day. It's warm, sunny and trains are running - perfect. |
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On a cold and wet March day, NS 8940 rolls through the interlocking at Fetner in Cary. Not warm, not sunny, but trains are running...not all that bad. |
More photos here on page three.
