This was another little piece of Kismet. We were driving across West Virginia and it was getting dark. I wanted to stop in Charleston, the state capital, but the Wife wanted to push on. So we did. I have been to the area south and west of Charleston before but I have never really spent much time to the north and east. As we pushed on, we pushed off my knowledge base and soon found ourselves on a rural and dark interstate (I-79) highway. We finally hit a little patch of civilization and I had had enough, so we stopped.
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| Gassaway, West Virginia |
We stayed in the Microtel in Gassaway, West Virginia and ate in the Pizza Hut. One one of the walls was a display of historic railroad pictures of the town. I wondered if luck hadn't dropped me in the lap of opportunity again? I checked the web when we got back to the hotel and it turned out that the Elk River Railroad as based in Gassaway. From what I learned the railroad doesn't run much. The question that remained would that mean that Gassaway would just be an empty stretch of rusting track or would there be something more interesting there.
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| Elk River Railroad locomotives wait for their next assignment. |
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In the morning, we had our breakfast at the hotel and then headed into town. To my delight, there were two Elk River locomotives and a string of coal hoppers on the tracks at the edge of town. I have no idea when they last turned a wheel, but I was glad to get a shot. I like getting shots of small, quirky railroads probably more than I like getting shots of the giants like CSX, NS, UP and BNSF. The other thing I liked was the fog had just started to burn off, so the entire scene had a dreamlike feel.
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| Elk River power in Gassaway, West Virginia, Dec., 2012. |
After I got my shots it was back in the car and off to Maryland. We did stop one more time in Grafton, West Virginia to take some shots of the CSX yard there and to have lunch. Grafton is an old railroad town with some nice old brick and masonry buildings. There is an interesting B&O depot downtown and evidence of the railroad's former glory is preserved on the Main Street in the form of an old caboose.
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| West Main Street, Grafton, West Virginia. |
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The nice thing about Grafton is that Bridge Street crosses the tracks between the yard and the engine terminal. The bridge has sidewalks on both sides, so you can stand out there and snap away all you want without worrying about getting run over.
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| The small of the two buildings in the center is the old B&O depot. |
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While we were there I watched them bring a couple of locomotives out of the terminal and tie onto a west bound freight in the yard. It gave me a better angle because shooting into the engine terminal meant shooting into the sun. I was grateful that the folks at CSX were so accommodating. The only downside about shooting off the bridge is trying to get a shot without electric wires in the frame. The bridge is concrete and there are gaps in the side rails that allow you to sort of do this.
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| CSX freight getting ready to leave Grafton, West Virginia. |
With the shots in the camera it was off to lunch and then Maryland.
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