engine 734, AKA mountain thunder

coming to you from cumberland, md. today's photo charter on the western maryland scenic railroad. first day of 3 for this outing, today's consist was freight cars with the photo charter riding in the caboose, with a smaller crowd, tommorrow will have passenger cars and many more photographers. mike should be adding something soon as he said he was staying in the hotel to process today's take.





the famed helmstetters curve





the helmstetter farm, including the new barn, funded in large part by railfan donations, built to replace the barn lost to fire a few years ago





deep in the curve, deep in the farm, and in some places deep in the muck, say, hello there ladies, where you been all my life

 

Nice stuff Gary!! ; Thanks for sharing!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

CAB RIDE

thanks john, so here are a few from my time in the cab, for only a little more than the expected crew tip, you got a cab ride, i took mine today as tommorrow will be a little more chaotic with more folks clamoring for a ride


the engineer





need to keep that pressure up





checking the fire, need to pay constant attention to a working steam engine





they have a mechanical stoker, but mike said they have had a lot of trouble with it, it's a chinese made add-on. china is only about 3 years removed from regular working steam
sometimes the fireman needs to hand fire the corners





and another with the motion blure of a load of coal being thrown in the box

 

Great stuff there Gary. ; Really like the cab shots. ; I envy you for the cab ride, I have only done that on a diesel loco.

 

BRUSH TUNNEL SHOT

so this is one of the craziest series of shots you can get on this charter, inside the brush tunnel, standing in the bike path separated from the track by a fence, with the train coming into the tunnel. i declined to stay in the tunnel for the second runby where the train went all the way through at speed, in these photos the train stopped just a couple car lengths into the tunnel

 

Very nice Gary! ; I really like the second one best! ; Good detail on both the engine and tunnel walls. ; The last one is a little spooky!

 

Those are some wicked awesome shots!


Sent from my iPhone...

 

I can see why you chose not to stay for the full run through.

 

Very cool shots! Would love to see more.

 

i just finished the 387 mile drive home, i'll get some more up here over the next few days, mike should be coming up with a few as he spent friday and saturday evenings in his hotel room processing
the organizer did the tunnel shot today again, i decided to stay outside completely as it was much colder and the smoke seemed to hang over the runbys longer, i've eaten enough smoke i don't need extra

 

so here's an attempt at the morning glint shot in a place called the narows. within a couple of days i'll have a gallery up in the album of this trip, scanned pages from the western maryland chapter of the national railway historical society on some of the history of this line, it was in the welcome packet from the charter organizer





another helmstetters curve shot, from the inside, but much deeper into the farm pasture





i'll have to try to figure out where this was, refer to my gps thread over in equipment tommorrow





we did a lot of various curve runbys

 

More great stuff Gary! ; Loving this! ; Cant wait for more!

 

helmstetter's from the outside, from a series taken in john helmstetter's pasture across the track and up a hillside
john helmstetter has been very generous over the years with allowing railfans access to his property, only asking that you not litter and leave every gate as you find it, if it's open leave it open, if closed make sure you close it behind you, that's why when he suffered a tragic fire in july of 2009 losing his entire herd and his beloved dog, the railfan community rallied to make up the difference between the pole barn that insurance would have built and the bank style barn that he now has





the farm from well up on the hillside





arriving back into the station on friday afternoon, friday's charter was only from 9:30 to 3:00, but was worth it for the east facing runby's and because of the smaller amount of folks quite a few runby's were gotten in in that time

 

I like the last shot Gary.

 

I can only imagine the t-shirt!