(Belated) Sunday Photo Fun - 6/5/2022

[Leverettrailfan]

Been a while since I've actually contributed to one of these! Sadly my best photos from today are still on my camera, and I need to track down where the heck I put my SD card reader. Today I went out on an aventure with a friend- we started by making a short visit to the trolley museum where we both volunteer, since another volunteer was bringing his speeder up for the day and we wanted to chat with him about his machine and the proper care and operation of the machine. Here's a picture of it:

It's a Fairmount, I believe it was an M or MT-14. Apparently it was outfitted with an alternator, which it still retains, but these days it's only run off of a battery. It's powered by a two stroke ROC type engine, which transmits torque to the wheels via a flat belt. It has a fairly comfortable cushion on top of the wooden seat, a very nice creature comfort!

After that was the main event- an ambitious hike along an abandoned stretch of the New York, New Haven & Hartford's Shelburne Falls branch line. Originally it ran between the town of South Deerfield and a location maybe half a mile upriver of a location known as Bardwell Ferry, at which point it met the Boston & Maine railroad and used trackage rights to reach the villaige of Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. Built in the early 1880s by the New Haven & Northampton Railroad, the line was absorbed by the New York, New Haven & Hartford by 1890 and it was officially abandoned in the mid 1920s, though they may have stopped using it sooner.
Sections of the right of way became a hiking trail, and for the most part are fairly passable. The portion we hiked was "closed off" at some point due to a few major washouts, but we bravely set forth to see if we could make it past them, not anticipating we'd have much luck. Ultimately, we managed to find out way around the two major washouts (and let there be no mistake, these were HUGE washouts- the larger of the two could have been 300-500 feet long, and must have been a good 75-100 feet down to its lowest point. We saw many fantastic culverts, and managed to locate remains of the foundation for the freight house at Conway Station, where the branch met with the Conway Electric Street Railway and crossed the "High Bridge" over the South River, the highest railroad bridge in New England.
The best I can offer you for now, is this lump of coal I found near one of the washouts (with a quarter for scale):

I'll try to get some pictures of a few of the culverts into this thread once I get them off the camera. Very cool trip, I hope to make it again some time! I'm eager to eventually explore the right of way south of Conway Station and the High Bridge.

-Ellie

[fifedog]

Thanks for kicking the thread off, Ellie. 

Here's a little video of the train show in Martinsburg, WV, this past Saturday.

Pop’s Trains Spotlight on the Martinsburg Roundhouse - YouTube

 

[MichRR714]

A shot from my layout over the weekend.

[Flintlock76]

Good stuff all!

Ellie, that's great artifact you found!  Maybe just a lump of coal, but it's got a great story behind it.  When I was a kid we had a summer house in Ocean Gate NJ and there was a abandoned railroad right-of-way that ran through the town.  If you kicked around the sandy soil you could still find lumps of coal from those long-gone steam engines.

Fife, if there's a better venue for a train show than a preserved roundhouse I can't think of any!

Mich', it looks like those two engines are arguing over who has "right of way!"

[philo426]

[Flintlock76]

Beautiful model Philo?  Is it any ship in particular?  The first thought that hit me was "Baltimore Clipper," but with those late 19th Century ventilators plus the propellor now I'm not sure.

[philo426]

Thanks!it's the Billings Boats Lila Dan!

[Flintlock76]

philo426

Thanks!it's the Billings Boats Lila Dan!

 

Nice!  

[fifedog]

Philo - That would make me want to build an old-school rail boat haul-out to dry dock it on. Nice piece.

[philo426]

Here is something for the dry dock!  

[philo426]

Thanks!