Awesome pics video from yesterday and TBT August 25th 2016

Yesterday, My two sons and I headed due north up to my favorite hobby shop:
Mainline Hobby

It's a long drive but always worth it.  As usual, we do some railfanning along the way.  The Maryland Midland interchanges in the area of the hobby shop which is located in Blue Ridge Summit, PA.  The name is where I got my name for my HO empire.  I've been coming up here for 15 years and one of the first time I did, I stumbled upon the Maryland Midland.  The paint has changed recently but they represented what I wanted in a railroad.  I railfanned them alot over the years and knew the line like the palm of my hand. We lucked out as we found them in Thurmont, MD as we were heading up.  The chase was on once I saw this lashup!:

FIVE Emds on the head end?  Must have a big train.  Turns out that it had 54 loaded cement cars and 2 boxcars for the run up the Catoctin Mountains.

2006 lashup

2016 lashup

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Throwback Thursday for June 25th 2015

The orginal swing bridge.  This was something I added to have continious running for the layout.  It lasted a few years but was abandoned.  It was somehow reliable.  I added side to it also to make it a bridge.

Another view of the swing bridge.

Back in the early 2000's, CSX had many HLCX locos in their fleet.  Of all the different types, this Ex-MPI/MK leasing now Helm leaser was a favorite of mine.  It's a Kato SD45 body but rated as a SD40-2.  Sold this years ago at a show.

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