Coopers, West Virginia

About 8 years ago, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, my oldest daughter went to art school in the mountains of western North Carolina. I volunteered to drive her down and back, which meant a couple long trips down the back of Virginia on Interstate 81. I think that stretch of I-81 has to be the longest highway in the world and if someone told me they added miles to it every night to surprise motorists in the morning... well, I'd believe them.

Anyway, I took a few detours here and there and one of the detours I took was to Norfolk Southern's Bluefield yards. I decided to follow the main line into the mountains and that is where I happened upon Coopers. It's a small town with a big bridge. I parked along the side of the road and hiked along an abandoned branch line until I got a good view of the bridge. I waited an hour or so and caught this train heading over the bridge. After it passed, satisfied I had a pretty good shot and convinced I wouldn't see any more trains I packed up and left. Of course as I was getting into the car I heard the sound of rumbling diesels above my head and I missed and intermodal going the other way. But such are the perils of train chasing.

I took this one on slide film and scanned it in using a slide scanner I bought to help me preserve the boxes and boxes of negatives and slides I have.