08-09-12 PHOTOS: CMSL at Richland

Last September the CMSL completed work at its Richland station to install a storage siding funded by the local town government. I was on hand to take some pictures on the first day of operations. Also in this set were some pictures of CSX MoW work near my place in Baltimore and some disturbing pictures of Lord Xenu's forces at 30th St station in Philadelphia.

The new Richland siding ran from a bumper block at the station on Rt 40 to new switch just east of the railroad crossing south of town. The siding switch was attached to a radio base that would announce on the road channel when the switch was opened.

Not much more to it than that so I'll just dive into the pictures. You can find the whole set here

Here M410 crosses the Rt 552 crossing several miles south of Richland on its northbound trip from Tuckahoe. 

The standard CMSL trainset was being pushed by PRR #7000.

The 25mph track speed made the train easy to catch as it entered the new siding. Here is M410 again.

And the whole train as it takes the siding.



And finally PRR #7000 after it clears the switch.

Here's something interesting. I caught a wasp making away with a caterpillar along the foot of one of the rails on the new siding.

On my return trip to Baltimore PATCO was running with terrible headways again, but during the wait I cause a ACL trains both coming and going in The Trench at the Haddonfield station.

Things took a turn for the creepy when I arrived at 30th St station. The Church of Scientology had paid for an L. Ron Hubbard marketing blitz and had blanketed the station with large banner and poster ads that were impossible to avoid. I took some pictures planning to make a quick current events post at some point, but that sort of got lost in the shuffle, but here it is now.

WARNING! L. Ron Hubbard is not to be taken internally. May cause SEVERE brain damage.

Finally back in Baltimore I caught CSX performing some track maintenance to rectify the gigantic wet spot on the cut portion of the Baltimore Belt Line.

They had dug out the sides for better drainage and then laid new ballast. I caught a ballast tamper getting the new stone to compress into place. If you ever wondered how a railroad can lay ballast on top of the track and then get it under the ties they use a set of vibrating probes to cause the new rock to settle down between the ties.

I even got some video to help illustrate the process.





Well that's all for now. Enjoy.