NS Heritage 8100 (Nickel Plate Road)

I struck out badly Sunday night trying to snap a picture of the NS 6920 (Honoring our Veterans) in Jonesborough. It rolled through about 8:00. I just don't have the skill-set and the equipment necessary to take a picture of an object moving that fast in that low an amount of light. I can learn skills, but I don't see that grade of hardware in my future. 

So, I woke up Monday morning to hear that the Norfolk Souther Heritage #8100 (Nickel Plate Road) was on its way through Johnson City to Jonesborough. The 8100 is my favorite of the mostly black heritage paint schemes. The yellow stripes and the scripted  Nickel Plate Road  look really sharp.

It was going to get there about 7:00 AM and it would still be dark, and I knew that Jonesborough was a bad bet. So on a whim I drove to downtown Johnson City hoping there would be enough street lights to get a reasonable picture.

Once again I got there with less than 2 minutes to spare. As soon as I opened got parked and opened the truck door I heard the train horn ... crap ... I hastily setup my iPhone on the tailgate and quickly looked around for the most light and metered a couple of possibilities. It was going to be too dark again, but what the heck, give it a go.

Did I mention it started misting and blowing right into the camera? This is the only picture I got that wasn't a blurry blob or covered with water spots. A grainy train with yellowish stripes. Yeah, not so good. If you didn't know it was the 8100 you couldn't figure it out from the picture.

Heritage NS8100 Nickel Plate Road

Not a complete fail, but far from what I want. I tried to grab a single frame from the video but no joy as they were blurry too. Maybe next time ......

#1 1069 Virginian
#2 8098 Conrail 

#3 8104 Lehigh Valley

#4 1073 Penn Central
#5 8100 Nickel Plate Road

NS Heritage Penn Central

At lunch today a friend of a friend saw a Facebook post that said the Norfolk Southern Heritage engine #1073, the Penn Central - with the 'worms' logo - was on train 202 which would bring it through Jonesborough this afternoon. That's not an opportunity that often arises, so we decided to do a late/long lunch in the Parson's Table parking lot and wait.

We knew it wasn't the lead engine, so we scouted out locations to give us the best angle for a shot at an engine in the middle of a consist. We also knew it would be making good time coming through town so the window to get a shot would be small.

I picked a spot up high, my accomplice picked a spot down low with a wider view and the result was "I chose poorly". I'm not sure why, but I had not anticipated the 1073 being the third of three engines in the line, facing backwards. So my short window of time only allowed me to get one shot of the engine's butt while it rolled by ... backwards.

NS1073 Penn Central Heritage

The Penn Central is the least different in paint scheme from a normal Norfolk Southern black and white. But at least it was shiny and clean, and it was captured while doing its job.

That makes it number 4 of 20, only 16 to go!

#1 1069 Virginian
#2 8098 Conrail 

#3 8104 Lehigh Valley

#4 1073 Penn Central

NS Heritage Lehigh Valley

I got confirmation that the Norfolk Southern Heritage engine 8104 (Lehigh Valley) was stopped in SWVa, but no information on when it would leave or where it would go next.  So it was decided that we'd take a ride over through the mountains looking for some good fall color and try to catch it before it got gone.

Well, the search for good color was a bust - it's just as green with a hint of mustard yellow over there as it is here at home. But I did get to see the "Valley Girl" parked at the far end of the yard, still hooked to the black and white #8149. Still dusty from the long trip up from Georgia, the burgundy and gold looked pretty washed out under the bright sky.

NS8104 Lehigh Valley

I've related to others that catching it stopped in a yard is kinda like taking a picture of a lion at the zoo, it's a legit lion but it's not a legit location for a lion; it's not "in the wild". I'd much rather catch the engines doing work. Regardless, that's number 3 of 20, 17 to go.

#1 1069 Virginian
#2 8098 Conrail 

#3 8104 Lehigh Valley

NS Heritage Conrail

There's nerds in every crowd, I should know 'cause I'm a nerd in several different crowds. Among railfans, there are those that chase the Norfolk Southern Heritage locomotives. These engines are like Pokemon for Railfans ... "Gotta Catch'em All!" This is the second one I've seen in person, and the first one I've seen 'in the wild'.

NS Heritage Conrail at Copper Creek

The Conrail was working as a trailing DPU, pushing hard on the tail end of this long consist of coal cars as it crosses Copper Creek near Duffield Va. - the Copper Creek viaduct used by CSX is visible in the background.

I got wind of the Conrail's impending pass through our area about noon but it had been raining all day and I figured there would be no chance to get a picture. But the rain stopped about 6, another tweet said the train had just made the turn at Bulls Gap which gave me plenty of time to get to Copper Creek before the train. I scouted out the best angle considering the engine was at the rear of the train and waited.

About 7:00 it started sprinkling again, and at 7:01 I heard the train. So I covered the camera and lens with a towel and took some practice shots on the coal cars as they passed by about 30 mph to make sure I could stay focused on the engine as it passed by. The practice shots helped, and this was the best of the ones I got.

2 down, 18 to go!

#1 1069 Virginian
#2 8098 Conrail

Trains in Tunnels

This past Saturday I ventured out to the Natural Tunnel State Park in Duffield Va (aka injun territory) for the first annual Norfolk Southern Railroad Days. The main attractions for me was getting to walk the railway through the tunnels and getting to see the Norfolk Southern Heritage engine painted and lettered for the Virginian Railway.

the Virginian is an EMD SD70ACe - bigger than you think

the nose

the crossing light and horn at the pedestrian crossover

oh, i forgot, an Operation Lifesaver C40-9W engine was there too
here it's moving backwards into the tunnel

Norfolk Southern paid homage to its predecessor railroads during its 30th anniversary year by painting 20 new locomotives in commemorative schemes that reflect the heritage of those predecessors. Go here if you're interested: http://www.nscorp.com/nscportal/nscorp/Community/Heritage%20Locomotives

#1 1069 Virginian

Big Water

After a weeks worth of rain I wanted to go see how much water was flowing over some of the waterfalls around home. The problem is that most waterfall hikes require multiple creek crossings, but creeks that are flooding makes that a non-starter. So I needed a waterfall that I could get to without a creek crossing ... there's only two that I can think of : Rock Fork and 

There was a break in the rain on Saturday morning, so I talked the spousal unit into accompanying me on the relatively short walk. We'd easily be done before the rain started again, right?

The Nolichuckey river was way up and way muddy. But as we got to the creeks higher up they were running full, but not real muddy, excellent. There were a few hardy folk trout fishing in the Rocky Fork creek, it looked like a waste of time to me, lots of water with a lot of color, but they were hard at it. 

The first picture is Rocky Fork Falls taken from along the main road. There was so much water flowing and it was generating so much mist that getting a picture from down along the creek bank just wasn't going to happen.

The second picture is of the triple falls ... except there's so much water flowing that you can't tell there's supposed to be three distinct sections to the drop.

The last picture is of the last waterfall along the creek. Again there's so much water rolling that it loses all of it's recognizable features.

Hot Gossip, Cold Drinks

With construction on the new traffic roundabout at the busy intersection of State Route 81, State Route 353 and Depot Street set to begin this summer, Five Points Grocery is about to become a pile of rubble.  The store officially closed its doors Sunday, March 31. 

In a town that is proud of its oldest-town-in-Tennessee architecture, Five Points is not a picturesque building, or situated in a particularly nice location, but it's been around a long time and deserves to be remembered, if only in pictures.

Since us country folk don't get many chances to drive in roundabouts (also called roundy-rounds or rotary intersections) I figured it's my civic duty to learn the proper method of navigation through these traffic-control devices. So I did what modern folk do when they have a question ... I turned to the interwebs. So here ya go, put some knowledge in your head:

A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is slowed and flows almost continuously in one direction around a central island to several exits onto the various intersecting roads. In a modern roundabout, entering traffic must always yield to traffic already in the circle. Elimination of the opportunity for the most deadly crashes at intersections (T-bone or perpendicular crashes) is the greatest benefit of the roundabout design.

 

Saying the roundabout is “absolutely safer” than a traffic light at the Five Points intersection, Steve Allen, TDOT project planning director, added that studies show there are fewer severe crashes using that type of intersection design. The absence of traffic signals keep traffic moving during slow times, Allen said. The main drawback, he said, is the public’s unfamiliarity with using roundabouts, an issue he said can be addressed by using plenty of well-placed signage.

Notice that Mr Allen dis not say "fewer crashes", he said "fewer severe crashes", just pointing that out. With a high school full of inexperienced drivers forced to use the roundabout twice a day, five days a week, and the rest of the citizenry generally being older drivers, the potential for incidents is quite large. My guess is that one of Jonesborough's finest will be stationed at the roundabout full time.



Here's an artist rendering of the proposed roundabout at the Five points intersection. Dwight Armstrong with the TDOT Project Management Office in Knoxville describes the design as a typical roundabout with a bypass lane.


The upside is that there won't be any red-light cameras installed at this intersection.

Would it be in poor taste to take bets on when the first crash in the roundabout takes place?

Maybe we should run a contest to name the roundabout !