Jersey Mike's Rail Adventures: 24-01-14 PHOTOS: N&W CPL Hunt

Sunday, January 14, 2024

24-01-14 PHOTOS: N&W CPL Hunt

Over MLK Day weekend of 2024 I went out with a friend for a day long driving tour of Northern Virginia to confirm and photograph interlocking locations on the NS H-Line that were still equipped with Norfolk and Western style position light signals. Over the years I have been able to document many such locations on the northern end of the H-Line above Waynesboro, but as isolated re-signaling efforts continue to take place I wanted to make a push to document whichever ones were left. Unfortunately Virginia is surprisingly long in the diagonal direction and I was forced to call the day a bit early, but overall, the trip was still successful ( mirror ).

The first stop was was in the town of Stanley, VA which had lost its N&W position light signals since my last visit in May of 2021. Just as I pulled up I heard the whistle of an approaching train which turned out to be a southbound manifest freight led by AC44C6M #4424 and C44-9W #9780 with AC44C6M #4292 doing the DPU thing on the rear.

The next stop was the town of Shenandoah, VA where NS has a sizable yard for local freight with operations run out of the historic N&W station building.

Although largely hidden behind some hopper cars I managed to spot AC44C6M #4364 getting its fuel tank topped up.

In a rare bit of good news SHENANDOAH interlocking at the south end of the yard had yet to have its signals replaced. The H-Line had its signaling logic modernized in the late 1990's, keeping the older signals as was the prevailing practice for most of the 20th century. Therefore there was been less pressure to replace the signals themselves.

The next stop was LEWIS RUN, which is the last position lit interlocking north of Waynesboro (adjacent to the south end of Shenandoah National Park and the C&O Blue Ridge Tunnel) as LYNWOOD interlocking at the south end of the siding had already been re-signaled.

Seeing as driving to the next position light interlocking south of Waynesboro would have taken the better part of an hour one way, my friend and I decided to abort and head back north, stopping off for a pint at Elkton Brewing. Upon our departure we noticed an Approach Diverging signal indication displayed at ELKTON interlocking.

Who should appear but the same southbound manifest freight we had caught earlier that morning in Stanley with #4424, #9780 and #4292. It seems that the train took a few hours to set out cars at Shenandoah yard allowing us to run into it a second time that day. Although the Approach Diverging signal indicated a meet was being set up at the Stonewall siding, I was on the block to meet up with a third party for dinner and had to continue northward.

Here are video of both encounters with this freight so you can track any differences in the consist.

Along the way I confirmed the continued existence of PL's at VAUGN and SUMMIT interlockings.

In addition to the Virginia road trip, here are some additional photos taken during random NEC travel. First up is MARC SC44 #81 at BWI with bike car #7710 behind and cab car #7856.