The Old Main Line: Part 5r

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Sand Patch: Part 2 - West Slope

from Sand Patch Tunnel to Connellsville, PA.

"Sand Patch: Part 2 - West Slope " is our 7th video following the Old B&O Railroad and surveys another historic grade ascending from Sand Patch Tunnel all the way to Connellsville, Pennsylvania. Herešs the other side of the mountain as we promised. We followed CSX tracks down the West Slope of Sand Patch Grade. This is the less familiar part of the old B&O owned Pittsburgh and Connellsville RR. This part of the CSX Keystone Sub-division is just as picturesque as the East Slope. We carried in to the West Portal of Sand Patch Tunnel and caught a couple of trains coming through the straight 4,475-foot long bore. We met Q130, the divisionšs premier trailer train, coming up to pass through Sand Patch.

Rolling downhill from the tunnel, we met trains passing under 2 huge steel viaducts from the old Western Maryland Railway. Massive Keystone Viaduct served as our first backdrop and we shot around the 100-foot high Salisbury Viaduct. We caught trains passing though Meyersdale and Salisbury Junction. We even recorded V634 a Unit Coal Train from atop Salisbury Viaduct, a 1,900-foot long bridge over the Casselman River Valley. The Capitol Limited swept by us at curves in Yoder and downtown Garrett, Pennsylvania. From Garrett, we leapfrogged a deep little gorge and found the tracks again in Rockwood, PA. An Intermodal, an autorack and a coal drag entertained us there. Down the Casselman River, we followed the rails to Markelton, then on to "Tunnel Alley." Pinkerton, Shoofly, Brook and Benford Tunnels stand hidden from most railfans. We visited them all and also inspected the High & Low Grade Lines just East of Confluence, Pennsylvania. After a brief look into the Ohiopyle State Park section of the Youghiogheny River Gorge, we headed to a rarely seen triple arch stone viaduct at the mouth of Indian Creek, not far from Connellsville. We ended our trip in the expansive Connellsville Railroad Yards. Wešve got plenty of intermodels, autoracks, and merchandise trains for you, plus Amtrakšs Capitol Limited. We shot some of them in the snow, some in summer, and some in fall for exciting images of hard charging trains. Come take a ride down Sand Patchšs West Slope! As always, we provide you with superb stereo sound of all the action. We keep narration clear of significant rail sounds and we also provide a narration-free audio track. Just select track #2.

There's even a short DVD bonus featuring an HTT Pandrol Jackson main-line-rail-grinderat work on the tracks near Cumberland, Maryland. The rail grinder gets called in to resurface the main line tracks to improve rail life, improve the ride along the rails and lower friction between rails and wheels making hauling freight more efficient. You'll get to see the grinder in operation with it's 96 grind stones showering the rails and ballast with sparks. That makes the jobs for the 2 on deck spotters more interesting. The rail grinder is a multied car and engine self-contained work train complete with water cars, grinder cars, shop cars, crew cars and up to 4 engines in various configurations.

As always, we use U.S. Geological Survey Maps to help you understand where the tracks run. We continue our work to bring you the mighty rumble and awesome sounds of mountain railroading. Trains this time tilt towards auto racks and intermodels, but you'll also get nice doses of Amtrak's Capitol Limited. Mixed freights, coal drags and special trains also appear. We also managed to bring you trains in all four seasons of the year, with some very nice winter scenes.

By now, we hope you've come to understand that we at Blue Ridge Productions spend whatever time and effort necessary to bring you the very best in railfan videos. We keep making trips until we can comfortably present you with a stunning mix of trains, weather and scenery. We also tried to find you artifacts of the old Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad to help tell the story of the B&O and later CSX through this stunning mountain scenery.

"Sand Patch: Part 2 - West Slope "

120 minutes + stereo sound + bonus

$30.00 + $4.00 S&H

Get Your copies today by sending check or money order for $30.00 (VA residents add $1.35 sales tax) + $4.00 S&H to:

Blue Ridge Productions

P.O. Box 2413

Reston, VA 20195-0413

We also accept Visa, Mastercard and Discover Card.

We want to continue bringing you the best quality Rail Videos possible. Please send your comments and suggestions concerning "Sand Patch: Part 1 - East Slope " and depending on the amount of encouragement we get, we'll find another set of tracks to follow.

We will also appreciate any suggestions you have about future video subjects. That's right, tell us what you'd like to see us shoot. We'd be delighted to consider any subject. We really get lonely here and want to hear from you. Send your comments to: Blue Ridge Productions. Double click on our blue name and it'll set up an EMail to us.

Other Blue Ridge Productions:

"Return to Home Page "

"Sand Patch: Part 1 - East Slope "

"Sand Patch: Part 2 - West Slope "

"Sand Patch: Part 3 - West Keystone "

"The Old Main Line: Part 1 - Baltimore to Frederick Junction "

"The Old Main Line: Part 2 - Frederick Junction to Harpers Ferry"

"The Old Main Line: Part 3 - Harpers Ferry to Hancock"

"The Old Main Line: Part 4 - Hancock to Cumberland Terminal "

"The Old Main Line: Part 5 - Cumberland, MD to Grafton, WV "

"Photo Freights on the Western Maryland"

"Mountain Thunder"