A Weekend on the "Pokey" - Part 2

After being up shooting until 11:15PM the night before, we didn't hit the road looking for something to shoot until 8:45AM. This didn't turn out to be such a bad thing for us as we would soon run into the first train of the day, NS 194 being led by UP 4692, at an S-curve outside of Welch at 9:08AM. This eastbound would take us all the way to Elkhorn with shots at Welch, Kimball, Keystone, and Elkhorn.

Elkorn is known as Crozier on the railroad, and that is where we ended our chase of 194 at 9:44AM. As soon as the power went around the corner, we heard him radio a westbound warning him to make noise for "some photographers" at the crossing. Two minutes later, NS 6788 would poke out from around the corner. It was still too early for a good angle on the westbound, but I happened to grab a shot of the power going away including NREX 9294, an SD45T-2, which had "B-unit Do Not Occupy" on the door.

Apparently we wanted another eastbound since it was still early and we drove back west ending up in Twin Branch for the first time this trip. At 10:49AM we got our eastbound exiting Twin Branch tunnel behind NS 9155.

Rather than chasing east due to the lack of a direct route out of Twin Branch, we ventured further west to Iaeger. With nothing happening on the mainline, we spent a few minutes shooting whatever we found in the yard.

It was already noon before we started heading back east. We ended up at Roderfield where we found the westbound we had seen at Crozier in the morning sitting in the tunnel. A helper set led by NS 9368 would run around them a few minutes later.

With the sun swinging to the west, we drove a little further east to Welch. Things were about to become a whole lot busier on the Pocahontas District! At 1:12PM we caught an eastbound autorack train behind the lone NS 6605. Of course, an eastbound is the opposite of what we wanted but some lucky clouds made a shot possible.

We drove up the little ways to find the eastbound we had shot at Twin Branch sitting by the coaling tower at Farm waiting for helpers to be put on the rear.

We went back to our spot in Welch between 2:27PM and 3:06PM to catch a westbound behind NS 2661, a helper set led by UP 9788, an eastbound manifest (no good photo), and another helper set with NS 9024 up front.

Finally, NS 9155 was on the move from Farm so we changed our location for a better sun angle. We chose the east end of the twin-bore Huger Tunnel in Superior.

Knowing there were helpers on the end for well-lit going-away shots, we picked Vivian as our next spot. Before we would get the eastbound, we saw yet another helper set heading west past a (what-I-can-only-assume-was-an-abandoned) baseball field.

We continued the chase of the eastbound as it sailed through Northfork and wound up getting ahead of it again at Crozier.

I believe we were driving back west when a westbound caught up to us around Kimball with NS 8304 in Conrail blue on the point.

We thought ahead and went straight to Sandy Huff, just east of Iaeger, where the light would be the best. Upon our arrival, we found the helper set with UP 9788 on the west end sitting by the crossing. A cloud would pass in front of the sun as NS 8304 finally got to us at 5:43PM.

We made our way east towards Landgraff and the Elkhorn Inn once again with only a sunny shot of the helper power to show for our efforts. One more surprise was in store for us in the form of NS 6742, also in Conrail blue, working the small yard in Kimball in beautiful afternoon light.

We arrived back at the Inn in time to see the helpers of an eastbound disappear out of sight from the porch as the sun ducked behind the mountains to the west. I went out for a few more shots before darkness would fall over the valley. A helper set rounded the corner heading back west at the same time an eastbound rounded the curve at the end of the long straightaway in the opposite direction. Perfect timing yielding one of my favorite photos from the entire trip.

Light faded quickly as we made our way back onto the porch as another eastbound slipped by some 12 minutes later followed by a westbound at 8:48PM.

The hazy/foggy conditions in the valley made another night of photography too luring to pass up. We went down to try to get more "anticipation" photos as trains lit up the scene before appearing into view as was the case for this eastbound at 10:41PM. This was by far the best shot of the trip and made for the perfect ending to the trip.