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Last time I was down at Kings Mountain (2018), the road from up top, down to the tunnel was gated off by the railroad.  Was told by an NS signal maintainer, that it was gated off due to "illegal activity" going on down there.   Last time I drove that road (pre 2018), I ran into some unsavory looking characters that kind of gave me the willies!   And I'm from the Chicago area, but wish I had a gun with me, just in case.....   

This topic has been moved to Central Div Radio information.

https://www.jreb.org/ns/index.php?topic=18428.0

Merry Christmas to you, hope you had a good one!

   Some people refer to railroads other than Norfolk Southern as "foreign power".  To me, trains are trains.  NS happens to be the dominant road name in this region, so that is about all I see around here.  As I said before, I like to see different names and colors.  I like NS, but I like to see some variety.  Heritage units are a rarity.

   There is a train yard in Fulton, KY.  It used to belong to Illinois Central.  I forgot when, but Canadian National bought out IC years ago and took over that yard.  My wife and I have some family members who live in Fulton, and now and then we go there to visit.  We spent some time there this year, and as usual, I went to the train yards to see if there was anything interesting.  Now and then there is.  I always saw CN engines of course, usually the older ones used for yard engines.  They always have two or four 4-axle engines for yard work, and sometimes one or more 6-axle engines for that purpose.  I have seen two orange EJ&E engines there, and a few other names, including IC.  There use to be two old brick shop buildings from the old IC days.  They are gone now; razed in the last year or so.  I do have photos of them, and have them posted on my Fulton page.  Those buildings were rare, to me anyway.

   I had been there several times and not seen an IC engine.  I asked an employee if any ever came through, and he said now and then one will show up.  One morning I found one out there, but it had some rail cars between it and me, and I was on the east side, the sunny side.  I drove around to the other side and had a clear view, but was on the shady side.  I made some photos anyway, and they are fairly decent.  Later on, at another time, I found two IC engines parked together, hooked.  Both were SD-70 units.  I made a bunch of photos of them.  I had the sun on them too.

021b--Fulton---IC-1035 and IC-1029--both SD70---900px--tg by Bill Richardson, on Flickr

     I always look up older engines I make photos of to see what they are, and to see what other road name they used to have if any.  I did that with a lot of the engines I saw at Fulton, and included links on my Fulton page to photos by other people showing those engines in their former incarnations.  Here is an example of one not on my web page yet, a CN engine that used to belong to PL&E (Pittsburg & Lake Erie) and GTW (Grand Trunk Western).

PICT2360b--CN-5844---GP38-2---former GTW and former PLE--Pittsburg and Lake Erie--850px--tg by Bill Richardson, on Flickr

Here is a link to a photo of that engine with the PL&E paint: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=5061555

I have found four or five road names associated with some engines.  To me, it is interesting to see what older engines used to look like.


    In a recent post, I mentioned that I saw a train in Fulton with three engines that had a Tennessee road name, one I didn't now about--Western Tennessee RR.  It also had engines I was not familiar with, GE "U-Boats".  I might have a photo or two of one of that kind, but I'm not sure.  I have photos of some unusual (to me) GE engines in the NS paint.  Here are three photos of those WTNN engines.

PICT2184b--sample--West Tenn RR engines--5517,5543,4072--859px--tg by Bill Richardson, on Flickr


PICT2199b--sample--West Tenn RR--engines at Fulton,KY--5517,5543,4072--849px--tg by Bill Richardson, on Flickr


PICT2197b--sample--West Tenn RR---WTNN-4072--B23-7-- at Fulton,Ky--846px--tg by Bill Richardson, on Flickr

The model numbers, as I call them, are:  WTNN-5517---C30-7;   WTNN-5543---C30-7;   WTNN-4072---B23-7
I read a little on a page about those engines saying that the B23-7 is somewhat rare now days.  Something like that.  I saw one.


   One day I found a train parked by a road just outside of town, on the north side of the parkway.  It was headed by a KCS modern engine, and had an old 4-axle engine among the three units.  It was parked, so I got a few photos.  Here is one.

PICT2348b--sample--KCS-5008 near Fulton,KY--849px--tg--copy by Bill Richardson, on Flickr

     Another day, I found a BNSF engine parked with a train in the same place.  Good place.  The yard is on the south side of the parkway.  There wasn't much going on this past summer, because of the covid I guess, but I still saw some CN engines and a few others, and fed the cameras.  There isn't much going on around here it seems.  We moved, so I don't live near the tracks any more, here in the Stanford/Danville region, and don't hear trains going by like I used to.  We used to live near the CNO&TP lines and I could hear them going by.  I just check the yard at Danville now and then.  I happened to go through Burnside last Thursday, and saw nothing while I was going south, then coming back I saw a train going out from the crew change office area.  I had missed the engines.  Oh well.  Maybe something interesting will turn up soon.

Jreb will be hosted for the foreseeable future, the wealth of information contained is still very much usable, I have had some issues with the host moving from server to server as they see fit, which caused some extended downtime every time as I sorted out broken links and other issues, but after a stern discussion about the amount of money paid vs quality of service they have "upgraded" me to a dedicated box and assured me I wouldn't have issues in the future. We will see! I would love to see more and younger rail fans come back but I fear the ease of use of Facebook is hard to compete with the younger generation which has helped move people away. I have stated in the past Facebook is terrible for keeping information in a easily searchable format such as this, what you post today, is gone tomorrow, years down the road the information is long forgotten.

I would love to see a grass roots campaign to attract more users to come and post pictures, sightings, and information here but with work and life I just don't have the time to organize or be track side to help. If anyone wants to take that up we can organize incentives, contest (aka photo contest, small giveaways), get together to promote usage I would be happy to support that in anyway I can.


Eric

Nice pics, Bill!  That is a beautiful section of the "rathole" line.

    In my discussion this morning ( in "General Discussion"), I mentioned that I had been out to the Keno area early this year.  I went by myself one day, and later on my hiking friend and I went to the area south of Keno, and worked our way up the map.  We had been south of there to check on a place or two for hiking, then went to some RR crossings on the way back and got a few photos.  I'll include some of them here, and some older ones.

   The first photo was made from a crossing near the Keno Rd bridge.  After crossing the bridge, facing west, I turned left on the first gravel road on the left.  I think 4x4 is necessary for this road.  It goes back fairly level a short distance, then makes a sharp left and goes down a steep hill to the crossing.  The road continues on the other side of the tracks, and goes back to a creek.  It continues on the other side of the creek, but I haven't been back there.  A map version I have shows it going back to a main hollow and ending.  A 2016 map shows it as what I call a "ghost road".  I made photos from both sides of this RR crossing.  The bridge in the background is the Keno Rd bridge.

Second photo shows a crossing on FS-857 (Forest Service Rd).  This road goes to a creek named Copperas Fork.

Third photo was made from a bridge along FS-1154.

  Fourth photo is from Dead Ox Hollow.

   Fifth photo was made at the crossing on Dead Ox Hollow Rd in 2015.  My 2016 map, on GAIA, shows this as a ghost road, but I don't doubt that it is still a good gravel road.  A lot of FS roads area being shown as ghost roads.  Some are obsolete.

    Sixth photo was made at Burnside, also in 2015.  The train had two NS engines and a CSX between them.  After I made some photos there, I headed toward Keno, and went to Cave Springs Rd, and out on the bridge over the tracks.  It is high.  That same train with the CSX engine came along soon after I got there, and I made 3 or 4 photos looking down on it, one of them being my 7th entry here.

    Seventh photo made from Cave Springs Rd bridge, high over the tracks, facing south.

    Eighth photo also made from Cave Springs Rd bridge, facing north that time.  Another train came along while I was there.

That's all for now.

   I thought Jreb had folded up.  Last two times I tried to open it, I got a "not found" notice.  Today I tried again, same result.  Then I opened the Facebook page.  I don't do Facebook, not a member, but I looked into the Jreb FB page to see if there was any info about the Jreb website, and found the new link.

   In the last year or so, whenever I looked into the Jreb website, I saw that almost all posts were older, and old.  Hardly anything new.  Looked like Jreb was taking a nosedive.  Then I got the "not found" notices.

   It's good that Jreb is still going.  Last 10 times or so times I looked in, I saw only visitors as being on, usually no members, besides myself.  Sometimes there would be one member.  I rarely saw a new post.  Looks that way now.  One night I saw that there were 125 visitors and one member.  I usually saw a visitor count of 20 or more, usually more.  Looked like there were a lot of people interested in Jreb.  Looked like the members had abandoned it.  Somebody told me two or three years ago, maybe four, that people were shifting to FB.  I don't know why.  FB is very limited, in my opinion.  A website like Jreb is much better.

   I haven't made many train photos in the last couple years.  It was getting mundane.  I used to see engines with other road names and other colors, from 2014 when I started, until 2018 it seems, but then all that faded out, or nearly so.  Then I started looking for the rebuilds, in new paint, especially the SD70ACU engines, the former UP SD90MAC.  I have several photos of those in the UP paint, including one set of photos showing two of them hooked together, at Danville, KY.  I posted one or two of those on Jreb before it started having trouble.  Since they all got converted and repainted, I happened to be in the right place at the right time now and then and saw a few of the conversions and got photos.  Last time I saw one, at Danville, it was among two other engines, and breezing through the yard.  I grabbed a photo, but then found that my camera was set on macro.  The photo wasn't bad, but not good; deleted.  Those are my prime choice these days, among NS engines, except for Heritage units.  Looking through some of my photos a bit ago, I found some of an SD70ACC.  That was another one I was looking for a while back.  I just saw on here a photo of a string of SD70Ms going to PRLX.  I guess NS is getting rid of their remaining SD70s.  There is a rebuild by GE that I was looking for a while back, as something of new interest.  Can't think of the model number right now.  I guess their new paint has faded some by now.  I wonder what is new now?  I haven't kept up with this stuff.

   Today I saw that NSYorktown was interested in Kings Mountain.  He posted photos from the 501 road bridge.  Years ago, I went back along the high ground beside the cut, on the north side of 501.  There is a dirt lane that goes back through the fields along there.  The gate used to be open, but is now closed.  When my wife and I first went back there, over 10 yrs ago, we saw where people had been dumping, for years it appeared.  From the gate, which was open back then, and no signs to keep out, the dirt road goes through a field area, then makes an S-turn going down to a lower level, which is over the north end of the old tunnel.  That dirt, partly gravel lane, goes on back a few hundred yards, then curves and goes down to the track.  There is a fork off that road that goes left, away from the cut.  I saw some dumping before I got to the S-curve, and a lot of it down on the next level, where there is a steep slope, and people dumped their trash.  I have seen plenty of dumping here and there.  Last year, my wife and I drove down to McCreary County, KY.  I wanted to drive a side road that went around Franklin Hollow; got around the head end and then found a closed gate.  End of that.  I stopped at a Forest Ranger office to ask about that.  The Ranger said the road had been closed for around 4 years because of dumping.

    Anyway, at Kings Mountain, I went back in there a few times all together.  One time in winter I walked back to the north portal of the old tunnel there.  I have a bunch of photos of that place on my tunnels page of my website:  Railroad-Engines-Bridges-Tunnels.  I included one here, and one showing that dirt/gravel road--facing out in this photo, on the 2nd level.  I never drove down to the track.  I parked where the road started to go down again, and walked down, then had to walk along the side to the tunnel.  I hurried, before a train showed up.  This was not in the cut, so there was plenty of room to get away from the track if a train came.   I'm not recommending that anybody go there, especially careless people.   That road has a closed gate now, and it is a long walk back in there, so I doubt people would be going in there.  Besides that, it required 4x4.

   On the south side of the 501 bridge, a lane goes down to the track area.  I have been down there, and seen other people there, rarely.  Last time I was there, last year it seems. I met two guys, senior citizens, former RR employees from Canada.  I think they used to be on train engine crews.  They were on a RR photo tour.   They were there when I got there.  I stayed a half hour or so, then left.  I'm thinking two trains came while we were there.  I have been there other times for photos, and waited for trains.  Got waves from some train crew members, including parked trains.  It might be posted now; don't know.  I hope not.  Good place; morning only, for the light.  Again, I'm not recommending this place; only gabbing a little.  It is not a place for kids or stupid teenagers.  By the way, one day when I was there a train passed through with a UP 2002 heritage engine, blue, Salt Lake or something.  I have a photo of it on my website, in the heritage engine section.

   Now a plug for my photo prints.  I have an Etsy "shop", "Bill's Photo Prints".  I have for sale 8.5" x 11" prints of RR engines, and outdoor nature scenics.  I don't have a lot on there, around a dozen RR photos, and other.  If interested, people could look up my shop, or my name.

   Most of my photos from this year were made at Fulton, KY, Canadian National RR.  We were visiting relatives.  One day I was surprised to see a TN train, a road name I didn't know about, and there are many.  That was interesting.  Another day, I saw a KCS engine at the head of a parked train, out of town near a road.    Maybe I'll see some interesting engines around the Danville/Somerset region.  Not as much traffic now days it seems.  I check the Danville, Ky yard now and then, but usually see very little.  I seldom get to Burnside.  Earlier this year a friend and I went out in the Keno area to get photos of trains, and saw some.  I went alone one day before that and got a few.  I might post some on here.  I thought about it months ago, but it looked like Jreb was about done.  It's still going, I reckon.