During the last weekend of October of 2023 (27th-29th), I find myself down in Virginia during peak Fall foliage, on the Buckingham Branch Railroad (BB) for their Shenandoah Limited pulled by no other than the famous Norfolk and Western J class #611.
The Shenandoah Limited was an excursion on the Buckingham Branch in partnership with the Virginia Scenic Railway, from Goshen, VA to Staunton, VA m twice a day, Friday through Sunday, during the month of October and the first weekend of November in 2023.
Accompanying on this trip were some good friends of mine, @GTRailFanProductions, @DroppedSignal, and@chendersonrailproductions704.
I’ve always wanted to see 611 under steam for a long time. Since her first return to steam back in 2015, under the Norfolk Southern 21st Century Steam Program, I’ve wanted to see 611 in action. I unfortunately was unable to see her then. After 2018 when the program was retired, I figured I’d never get to see her run again. But 611 had started to run at the Strasburg Railroad and the North Carolina Transportation Museum in 2019 til 2022. But it all changed when a rather famous online leak or the worst kept secret came around 2023 that rumbled the internet (for railfans at-least,) where 611 was to be moved down to VA to run excursions on the BB (Buckingham Branch.) I was ecstatic to hear that the 611 would be running on the mainline again. And this time I wasn’t gonna waste my opportunity to see her running. So we had decided to make this trip more fulfilling if we planned it during peak fall foliage of the Virginian landscape. Unfortunately, this was the weekend where on the last trip on Friday, she had her mechanical problem that caused her not to run on that on Saturday the 28th, so unfortunately we were only able to get two days of 611. But that Saturday was not wasted and we decided to head up north to Cumberland, MD to see the WMSR 1309. Link to that video is here. • Beast Of The East WMSR...
As we got back to the hotel that night, we were trying to figure out what we were going to do for Sunday and that’s when we found out through member of the steam team that they had got 611 fixed and she was definitely going to run for Sunday so for us that was good news that we were getting another day of 611 running again. While the main focus of the video is on 611, I also included some clips of the diesels pulling 611 back to Goshen, and The Cardinal from Amtrak.
22 фев 2024
