Linwood And Spencer NC 11.28.15: Turkey Shoot

Despite owning a video camera for the last 2 of my 18 years spent living in North Carolina, I did no in-state railfanning in that timeframe - yeah, I know, it's almost criminal. A chase of Southern 630 and a couple of trips to the NC Transportation Museum in the last few years have piqued my interest in correcting that oversight, so when I had a Saturday to kill while visiting family last Thanksgiving, I decided to head up to the Salisbury area to soak up a little of the local railfanning flavor.

The recommendations of a few friends led me first to CP Lee, located at the north end of Norfolk Southern's massive Linwood Yard complex. I could not see the yard, but I could definitely hear the labored exhaust of the yard jobs shuffling cuts of cars back and forth. The original Southern Railway signals still guarded the point where the yard throat joined the main line, but their replacements sat on the ground in front of them awaiting installment.

I was much too late to catch a gang of long-hood-forward tuxedoed Geeps blasting under said signals with a hot piggyback train, but there were plenty of thundering herds of Thoroughbreds to see. At 7:57, northbound intermodal hotshot 214 climbed out of the Yadkin River valley at a leisurely pace behind C44-9W 9657, SD75M 2804 (ex-BNSF, nee-ATSF), and C44-9W 9095. Amtrak's northbound Carolinian showed more hustle when it hurried by less than a minute later, led by P42 10.

I found out the hard way that southbounds could be very sneaky, as I missed Amtrak 73 at 9:24 and very nearly missed a southbound stack train 8 minutes later, led by SD70ACe 1131 and C44-9Ws 9960 and 9324. My record remained all northbound at 10:34 as C44-9W 8980, C40-8 8715, and C44-9W 9318 stormed out of the valley with stack train 218. The tail end of 218 revealed what I thought was a yard job with a long string of cars to pull, but a local railfan informed me it was actually P9R, the local to Winston-Salem. Whatever it was, the all-conventional-cab lashup was tantalizingly close and looked like something worth waiting to see. Before he could depart, however, he had to wait for southbound intermodal 217, which roared past at 10:47 behind C44-9W 9421, SD60 6617, and C44-9W 9822. With the SD60E rebuild program in full swing, the sight of the unrebuilt 6617 was most appreciated. With 217 clear P9R was finally able to get underway, and the lashup proved worth the wait indeed. Leading the way was SD40-2 1646 (ex-Norfolk & Western), followed by GP60 7110 (one of only 48 on the roster) and SD40E 6347. As the last cars marched away north, the local fans were packing up to move over to Five Row, the top of the grade out of the Yadkin valley headed towards Salisbury - Asheville-bound manifest 135 was preparing to depart Linwood, and local P61 would do the same soon after. Another local with old power? When in Rome...

I arrived at Five Row by a comfortable margin, as both 135 and P61 were still waiting to leave. In the meantime, pocket-sized hotshot 204 rushed through at 11:38 behind C44-9W 9895, ES44DC 7607, and C44-9W 9416. The 135 was first out of the gate at Linwood, making a good run at the hill behind C40-8W 8332 and C44-9Ws 9548 and 9459. In retrospect, it could be said that P61 paused for dramatic effect before its departure 45 minutes later. The first sign it was underway was a distant roar, followed by a headlight poking out from around the curve, framed under a towering column of white exhaust. If the diesel drumbeat hadn't been a dead giveaway, one could easily have been forgiven for thinking 611 or 4501 was making a freight run for the benefit of everyone gathered at the top of the hill. Sadly that was not the case, but the truth was still something to see. After a long Run-8-and-sand climb up the grade, the power finally revealed itself - B32-8 547, SD40-2 1636, SD40-2 3212, and the source of all the smoke, high-nose GP38-2 5081.

At 12:45, I got a second chance to catch the Amtrak that caught me flat-footed at CP Lee. The consist that had gone south to Charlotte as Amtrak 73 now returned north as Amtrak 74, with NCDOT F59PHI 1755 'City Of Salisbury' and F59PH 1869 'City Of Durham' leading 6 cars: baggage/lounge 'Currituck Sound' and coaches 'Carolina Lily', 'Box Turtle', 'Emerald', 'Gray Squirrel', and 'Granite'. An interesting bit of trivia - the locomotives are numbered for the years their namesake cities were incorporated. Fifteen minutes off the Amtrak's tail was northbound manifest 152, led by SD70ACe 1105, SD60 6712 (another one!), and C44-9W 9030.

The clouds had blocked the sun for the duration of my visit to Five Row, but they finally let a little more sun through at 1:30 for the last train, an unidentified southbound manifest led by SD70 2503 and C44-9Ws 9404 and 9437. Now, about those Thanksgiving leftovers...