Life and Times of a urban railfan

This week I am straying a bit from the norm and taking a trip down memory lane. This past weekend I heard the story from my buddy of Chuck our local Stone train engineer taking the time to talk to a young man and showing him some kindness. Chuck Talking to the young Lad (photo by Dave Setting) With this it brings back a flood of memories back to my senior year in high school. For many years I would walk the old Erie ROW and watch the trains through rain, snow, you name it. I remember it almost like it was yesterday it was a cold January afternoon I was walking along a train that had stopped and was waiting for a signal. I began talking to the engineer and he invited me up into the cab, to say I was elated would be a understatement. As We talked the crew gave me a crew pack which included the norm of ear plugs and napkins, but what happened next took me by surprise totally while most seniors in High school had pictures of them standing on various backdrops, the conductor of the

 I could begin this week's blog as usual but this week has been anything but usual, I should have known something good was on the way by the sky Monday morning. Not me I had to think about dealing with a situation of the heart that was going to hurt more than I wanted to but to my surprise it came out to my good. The Sky Monday Morning That Monday I saw two trains the Q352 and the R331 before I had to go to work while I left work it was cloudy and things seemed less than promising for me but I was about to experience a lot of unexpected sunshine but before we move on here is the R331 under a great morning sky. R331 rolls west After that I spent Tuesday morning in one of my usual spots but nothing was moving on the CSX so I received a phone call to meet a friend and we chased the Wheeling rock train to some new spots where I had the chance to photograph it while they pulled out to clear the turnout to shove up the interchange. W&LE 6983 on the trestle  The