Wednesday, December 31, 2014

The ROCK 3.0: Railfanning the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad

Hello?  Anyone still there?  I apologize for the lack of reports.  First, I was just plain lazy after the last op session.  Then, I got tied up with projects around the house.  Thanksgiving Day brought sadness as we had to travel up to Illinois for an emergency trip due to my wife's Grandma passing.  Not a week after our return from Illinois, my wife's beloved Grandpa went to the hospital.  He is considered terminal and has been released to home under hospice care.  We were already planning on going to Illinois for the holidays, but ended up going for an extended period.  So, as you can see, we have been quite busy.

Today, we returned to North Carolina.  We pulled off in Canton, NC after traversing the 30 miles of curves down at the TN/NC line on I-40.  After grabbing some lunch, I decided to investigate the operations at the Evergreen paper mill.  It was quite evident there were in full work mode today as smoke billowed over the horizon a mile down the road.

This is the first time I have checked out the area.  I knew about it due to my friend Marcus exploring the area recently and posting photos of Norfolk Southern's last operations there earlier in 2014. 

The area is now worked by the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad.  The railroad is Class III shortline that operates in Western North Carolina.  I really like the color paint scheme as it reminds me of the old Clinchfield locomotives.

You can read more about the railroad on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_Southern_Railroad

Here are some photos I took today 12/31/14.




















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4 comments:

  1. Kevin BlairJanuary 1, 2015 at 9:02 AM

    Sorry to hear of your loss, Steven. Ah, WAMX... Webb Asset Management. I live at the nexus of the Watco empire. Their very first shortline was the "South East Kansas" from Coffeyville to Pittsburg, KS. It also happens to be the last layout I finished to operation, back in 1994! The SEK has been mostly abandoned now, with the only fiddly bits left incorporated into the "South Kansas and Oklahoma". Quite a going concern around these parts.

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    1. Steven JohnsonJanuary 1, 2015 at 9:47 AM

      Hopefully these guys will keep going in the Western NC area for a while. It is a pretty neat operation and would be fun to model.

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  2. Mike HJanuary 1, 2015 at 11:25 AM

    My condolence to your loss, Steven.
    Yes we are still here ... Great photos you shared, inspiring paint scheme.

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    1. Steven JohnsonJanuary 1, 2015 at 2:44 PM

      Thanks Mike. I really like the paint scheme. If I was to model a modern day railroad, this would be pretty neat to do. Lots of variety on traffic with the paper mill.

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