The Monopoly Train

One of the more colorful paint schemes in the Norfolk Southern Heritage fleet is the 1067 Reading (pronounced "redding") Bee Line Service. I know almost nothing about this railroad other than it's one of the four railroads in the US version of the Monopoly! game. 

I was particularly interested in why it was called the Bee-Line Service, I figured it had something to do with the "make a bee line for" axiom which means "to move quickly and directly towards a particular person or thing", which sounds like something good for a railroad to do. I did a quick google of the interwebs and found this in a wiki: "... one the most innovative ideas during this time was the Bee-Line service which would dispatch an engine on demand to customers wanting to ship more than 5 cars." So there ya go.

This chase started out like most for me, with a post on the facing book. It stayed overnight at Sevier yard and left there about 1PM headed through Bulls gap to the coal fields of SWVa and beyond. The hardest part of tracking trains on this path is there's a black hole of information about train movement between Bulls Gap and Weber City. So I made an educated guess. It's approximately a 50 mile run from Bulls Gap to Weber City, so I figured it would take about two hours if it didn't have to stop. Me and a buddy took the afternoon off and went to stake out the track in Weber City.

We got there with about 30 minutes to spare. And even had time for some BBQ and a cold beverage before the chase began.

This first picture was taken along the tracks behind Brad's BBQ. The sun was way bright and lens flares were a real problem.

This one is at the trestle over Copper Creek. The Copper Creek Viaduct that's used by CSX is the high trestle in the background.

This one was taken at the Dyno Nobel? loading tower on Railroad Ave just out of Duffield Va. I thought the tower might add some cool to the picture, I'm not sure it adds that much cool.

The last one was taken at a bridge crossing about 5 miles past Duffield, I think the light was better from the other side of the tracks but the angles weren't nearly as good. So this is what I got.

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A new heritage engine for me, I'm at 19 of 20.

#00  1030 The Forgotten Heritage Engine
#13  1065  Savannah and Atlanta

#15  1066  New York Central

#19  1067  Reading
#12  1068  Erie
  #1  1069  Virginian
  #8  1070  Wabash
 #16 1071  Central RR of New Jersey
#11  1072  Illinois Terminal
  #4  1073  Penn Central
 #18 1074  Lackawanna
 #17 8025  Monongahela
  #2  8098  Conrail

#10  8099  Southern
  #5  8100  Nickel Plate Road
  #7  8101  Central of Georgia

  #9  8102  Pennsylvania

 #14 8103  Norfolk and Western
  #3  8104  Lehigh Valley

  #6  8105  Interstate

        8114  Norfolk Southern

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This is not a new Special Interest engine for me.

#1 6920 Honoring Our Veterans

#2 6963 GoRail

#3 Southern 630