Received the following email from Kermit Geary, Jr. about a recent railfan trip. Because he has so many pictures to share, he posted them on Facebook. Link to his Facebook page is below.
Greetings all: Took a break from all the medical doctors and house repairs to go with three good friends, Nick Marokovits, Jim Rowland, & Eric Berger, to tour the WNYP. Left from the Railpace Picnic (nice but under attended due to the nasty rain that showed up) and headed to Binghamton., NY where we were to meet up with Nick. Thanks to US Scareways and other equally inept carriers, his flight was cancelled and was forced to fly to Scranton, PA...so we backtracked...only to find his luggage made it to Binghamton, NY.... Next time we know to book ourselves as checked baggage...it will always get there ahead of you.
After dealing with this mess, we headed to Olean, NY and checked in with the WNYP railroad. I had provided them with a list of attendees in advance and they had releases waiting for us. After saying hi to the good people in Olean, headed west to intercept the Meadville Slingshot. The WNYP operatesa 3-day a week turn job called the Slingshot (should be called the Boomerang as it always returns to its origination!) from both Olean and Meadville, usually meeting and exchanging trains in Falconer, NY. Today we found there was a westbound NS hopper train waiting at Columbus for the Meadville job. Made the meet with time to spare, then followed the Meadville train to Falconer, NY and back to Meadville, PA.
Tuesday was the day to chase the Oil City job. Engineer Chris Southwell put on a great show with the 426 from Sugar Creek to Oil City. Faced with the prospect of following a long hood low nosed unit back to Meadville, we opted to head for Greenville with my friend, Jon Clark, and hope to see some B&LE action. Not finding any, we set our sites on the NS local heading for Meadville and a coal train following it.
Wednesday was time for the Slingshots to operate again. Followed the train east to Falconer and then picked up the Olean side with the C630 leading aC430!!! A SWEET combination!!
Thursday was the Hornell Turn. Two C430's and a short train made for a quick-paced chase to Hornell and back.
Friday we opted to visit the other regional carrier in the area and chased the B&P from Salamanca to Bradford, PA. Also shot the local switcher working in Bradford. The B&P is changing...and not for the better. They are becoming extremely railfan UN-friendly to the point of the local crew coming over to us at a PUBLIC grade crossing and threatening to call the police to have us arrested. The road crew made a number of references to us over the radio as damm thugs and goons. Oh well, another railroad down the tubes. Later that day we chased the WNYP's Farmer Valley job to Eldridge, PA before losing light.
Due to a missed connection on Thursday, the WNYP ran an extra Hornell Turn on Saturday (usually a day of rest for the railroad with nothing scheduled).This was a chance to obtain different angles and locations along the line.
We enjoyed the time spent on the railroad and came away with many excellent pictures. The management of the WNYP went the extra mile to ensure we had a pleasant time on the railroad and the crews and dispatchers really went out of their way to make our visit enjoyable.
I have selected 52 images from this trip to showcase...Due to some people having dial-up accounts, I have uploaded them to my Facebook account and have provided a PUBLIC ACCESS link to allow viewing of the pix. If anyone has difficulty viewing the link, please let me know.
Kermit Geary, JR
http://www.Facebook.com/album.php?aid=66999&id=1030074083&l=de85642029