Tag Archives: #GP10

Have a Ball at Cape Charles!

Sometimes you just stumble onto something cool.

We were driving north on Highway 13 in Virginia when Kris said, “Let’s take a left here.”

“OK.”

So we did, and we drove into the village of Cape Charles, where we found an unlikely railroad museum.

Among other things, it featured a replica ball signal—illustrating the early use of such hardware on the Delmarva Peninsula—a Bay Coast GP10 (an ex–Illinois Central Gulf Paducah rebuild), plus a selection of railcars. All are static displays.

We also discovered the Cape Charles Brewing Company, a beach, and vestiges of the old Pennsylvania Railroad, which at one time operated Chesapeake Bay car floats from the local harbor.

On the downside, we found that, apart from the museum, there’s not much railroad remaining on the Delmarva Peninsula in Virginia.

I made a few slides with my dad’s Leica M4. These are my digital photos as the film is still in the camera.
Site of the former Pennsyvlania Railroad yard at Cape Charles, Virginia.

Tracking the Light Posts About Railroads Almost Every Day!

Happy Birthday Conrail!

Conrail began operations on April 1, 1976.

On May 14, 1985, I photographed this Conrail GP10 with a former Pennsylvania Railroad caboose working as a local freight toward its interchanged with Pioneer Valley Railroad at Westfield, Massachusetts.

The location is just west of milepost 107 in Westfield. At the right is my father’s 1978 Ford Grenada, which was the car I drove a lot before getting my own set of wheels in 1986.

At the time of this photograph, Conrail rarely assigned GP10s to its New England Division locals, which makes this a relatively unusual photo in my collection.

My new book Conrail and its Predecessors published by Kalmbach Books will be available soon!

https://kalmbachhobbystore.com/product/book/01309

Tracking the Light Posts Daily!