F-Units & More

We begin with some charters in Minnesota and diesels from the Minnesota Transportation Museum. We see a lovely Soo Line F-unit number 2500, as well as 2 former Erie Mining F-units. These are seen solo and with them on each end of ore cars together. A rare RS-1 is seen as well as a steam engine on a regular tourist train on the line. Next we see one shot of former Canadian National(and VIA) FPA-4 6793 on a regular tourist train on the Grand Canyon Railroad passing our photo special with steam engines 29 and 4960.

In 2007 we enjoy the 4 Norfolk Southern F-units on a private excursion train out of Knoxville en route to Asheville. We will see these again later also. These are nice since they are running specials for a Class 1 railroad and are a matched set with A-B-B-A lash-ups. Next we see Clinchfield 800 pulling a dead C&O 2-8-4 number 2716 from New Haven, Kentucky (Kentucky Railway Museum to Ravena, KY, plus a couple shots of 800 on an excursion in Ohio.

The 800 runs over the KRM tracks, the CSX, and the RJ Corman railroad with 2716, and over the former DT&I on the Ohio Excursion to Springfield, Ohio. We visit the West Virginia Central where we see an F-7, and a BL-2 in Western Maryland Livery. In this we also see a side-by-side runby with a Shay from the Cass Scenic Railroad. This is some neat action as part of a photo special on the railroad.

We do a photo special on the Potomac Eagle, in West Virginia and they have F-Unit number 722 in Baltimore and Ohio livery, and F-Unit 1755 in Potomac Eagle livery. This is a scenic route along the South Branch of The Potomac River south of Romney, WV. We also see a short freight with GP9R’s. There are a few scenes of two different ex-Canadian National FPA-4’s in action on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad near Cleveland, Ohio. These were shot on two trips by 2 photographers. There are a couple of “More” surprises here as well.

We finish up with 2 or 3 shots of the 4 Norfolk Southern F-Units in executive service in Ohio including a neat night scene to close out the show. Two of these units were sold to a short line in the south, and the other two were sold to the Reading and Northern in Pennsylvania. It’s cool to have these 4 F-units on mainline Norfolk Southern Trackage.

As you can see there is a nice variety of F-Units here, and a few surprises to go along with them in various segments. We think you will enjoy it very much, especially since some are now historic.