Trains...

So last night,Aaron and I and my friend Beth went out to Celebration in the Oaks, a holiday light display set up every year in City Park. Part of the huge display was a fairly large model train set-up, which I tried to film several times, a task made difficult by Aaron and Beth constantly laughing and chattering right behind me.

But here's a clip of one of the trains...and Beth.



And yes, there was a little more than just coffee in that cup.

Adventures in Old Train Stations

So today I was up in Martinsburg tending to some business. As I was driving down Queen Street, I looked to my right down a side street and saw several old cars and what looked like movie set lighting set up on a street that was blocked off with orange and white barricades. So being me, I pulled around the corner, parked, and walked back to see what was going on.

I looked on fr a bit, then walked up to a local cop who appeared to be part of the event (he was actually assigned there for the day) and he told me that some company was making a film on the history of NASCAR and they were using the period buildings here as a set for the part that dealt with NASCAR's early days and it's origins with bootlegging and smuggler drivers. He said that they'd be here today and down in Winchester, Virginia tomorrow.

As I talked to the officer, I noticed, just a couple of blocks away, the top of the old Baltimore and Ohio Railroad roundhouse, as seen in this overflight pic I took a year or two back.

I asked if they might have it open for tours but he said that the outfit that owns it has no money so it's all fenced off and closed to the public now. He then mentioned that the film crew was using it as a base to store their vehicles and other props. This gave me the idea to go over and see if I couldn't poke around there a bit, so I thanked him and headed off to see it I could get in.

I first walked over to the new train station that stands across the tracks from the roundhouse. While there, sizing the situation up, I noticed a woman who appeared to be with the film crew coming out of the door from the walkway over the tracks. As she went out, I walked in, and I ascended the stairs and crossed over the tracks to the roundhouse grounds nice as you please.

It was here that I encountered my first snag. At the bottom of the stairs there was a guy from the film crew who appeared to be doing the security thing, no doubt to keep casual trespassers like me out. I stepped back a bit to mull this, and a moment later opportunity knocked in the form of the woman that I'd first seen on the other side of the walkway. She was coming back, now carrying a box of something. And being a gentleman, I opened the door for her at the top of the walkway. She thanked me and I followed her back down the stairs, remarking about how hot it was today. She was answering me as we reached security dude, and he apparently assumed that just because she and I were talking to each other, it meant that I had as much business in there as she did. We both passed him and I followed her over towards the roundhouse building, where I bid her a nice day as she went inside. Not knowing what was in there yet, I decided to stay out and get the lay of the place a bit before barging in. Besides, you can really only play the "I'm with that person" game for so long before "that person" figures out what you're doing.

What a wonderful old building. It's one of the last remaining Civil War buildings in the area and it saw a lot of the action then as Confederate General Joe Johnston send Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson up here to disrupt the Union supply lines. Raiding it twice during the war, Jackson's troops destroyed or stole hundreds of freight cars and over forty locomotives, some of which they actually dragged back south on wagons to re-purpose them for the CSA. They also tore up lots of rails and even pulled up the roundhouse turntable in 1861. They came back and burned it in 1862.
The roundhouse and it's repair shops survived the war though, and the B&O continued to use it until 1988. Just imagine the history this pace has seen in the thousands of trains, both steam and diesel, that have been through here. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started here too, and soon spread across the country. It took federal troops to put that armed rebellion down, and only after a lot of people were injured or killed on both sides.

I saw a couple of people inside the roundhouse at a table by the door, but they barely glanced at me so I walked in and right past them. Nice thing about perimeter security is that everyone relies on it and assumes that if you got past it, you apparently belong inside.

So here's the inside. And yes, it looks much bigger on the inside.

There are a couple of faux locomotives inside. I was disappointed to find out that they weren't real or even good replicas.

The turntable is still there though. This big wheel allows multiple locomotives to come in one door and be shunted onto one of several different sidings for work.

Can't say as I care for the railings, which are not original to the turntable, but I guess that tourists today aren't as careful as the average railroad shop worker was back in the day...or perhaps they're just more litigious.

There is a caboose in there though. It's in horrible shape, but it's real.

Here's a look back at some of the movie people's stuff.

Here's a couple of small work carts. The one in the forefront has some interesting guards around the wheels that the back one lacks. Protective shields to keep feet out from underneath, perhaps?

Here's a door into another part of the building.

This led into a large open hall and it was filled with tables and chairs and a catering company was setting up lunch, probably for the crew. I just said hello, got a glass of iced tea from them, and walked out the back of the room into what looked to be an old foundry area.

I'd noticed by now that everyone in here, me excepted, had ID badges on their shirts or hanging around their necks. This meant I had to be careful.

Next, I went back outside and attempted to check out another large building there, but it was filled with cars from the movie and a large guy with a beard really started giving me the eye. I think that he, at least, was suspicious. He started coming over my way and I thought fast. Pulling out my phone, I stared at it as if it had actually been buzzing me then put it up to my ear as if I was talking on it. No one likes to bother people on phones, right? But he kept coming, still looking askance at me as if he wasn't really sure or not. As he drew within earshot, I remembered what the cop on the set had told me.
"So you're going to be in Winchester tomorrow, right?" I said to the nonexistent person on my phone. That apparently did the trick, and Mr. Large Bearded Guy walked right on past without even looking back at me. Where were these wonderful phone props back when I was young and did this sort of thing regularly? Back then I had to carry a clipboard and try to look official as I trespassed on construction sites and in factories. And the success rate was much lower back then, especially before I realized that, in the 1980's, no one anywhere near as young as me worked in Henry Ford's auto plants around Detroit. (It took a while for me to figure out how they always knew I didn't belong there.)

Some outside shots from back around the other side.

There would have been another roundhouse here, I think. But it's all gone now.

A look into the building where the cars are, this time from the back doors where no one's paying any attention.

Now I'd seen all, and it was time to go. The best operations like this are the ones where they never even knew that you'd been there. So I walked back to the walkway over the tracks, thanked security dude as he opened the door for me, and headed back to where I'd parked.

Then it was .22lr steel plate time for the Ruger 10-22.

All in all, a pretty good day

Fly Day!

Yesterday was such a nice day that I was able to get out flying again. Bruce, having nothing better to do and being a glutton for punishment, came along.

The first twenty minutes or so were "interesting" enough that I didn't get any pictures. We were hitting convective currents that had the aircraft bobbing up and down like a yo-yo or suddenly trying to go perpendicular to the horizon without warning. So because both hands were actually needed to fly the aircraft, no pictures got taken until we got down to Front Royal, VA, where those convective currents made for a seriously sporty landing that had Bruce looking just a bit nervous (as in "pulling the grab handle off of the side of the cockpit") but I still managed to get it on the runway and back off again without leaving any parts behind.

Normally I like this sort of challenge and would have stuck around for a few more shots at it, but I've learned over time to be sensitive to the feelings of my passengers, especially since when they barf, it's in my plane.

Here's a nice shot of the Shenandoah River, with Front Royal in the background.

And here's a close-up of the river, with my plane's shadow visible below...at least I hope that's MY plane's shadow.

And then, since we were in the neighborhood, we dropped by my friends at Mount Weather. Looks like someone is doing some new construction on-site.

Neat berm they've thrown up around it, either for privacy or security. Wonder what's that's all about.

And here's a nifty little secure compound within the overall secure compound that Mt. weather is.
That's a double fence with a clear gravel visibility zone in between them and just one gate on the west side.

And those three box-like objects you see there? Almost certainly massive air-conditioning chillers. Look on the roof of that big four-story building in the foreground and you'll see chillers on that roof. Look how small that building's chillers are compared to those monsters in the secure zone, that, to the casual eye, are on the roof of nothing. Well that should give you an idea of how large the underground spaces beneath this complex are. (The Wikipedia article claims 600,000 square feet.)

Here's another view.

And here's another "compound within a compound" on the east slope.

The building that looks like a church or a firehouse is one of the two main entry portals to the tunnel complex. But there's another one on the west slope that doesn't have that security perimeter around it, so there's got to be something more in this area.

I love watching this place and speculating. Just wait until I get a better camera.

(Hey Mt. Weather guys--this is what happens when your helicopters mess with G.A. pilots who are just flying past in the unrestricted airspace, minding their own business. Some of us get pissed and/or curious and come back again and again and again.)

Next, it was up the Shenandoah River into West Virginia, where this little blue house surrounded by evergreen trees set off both the "cat" and "liberal" detection alarms.

Sixty degrees out, but still a lot of ice on the water of the quarry below.

And here we are over Harpers Ferry, WV, where the Shenandoah River flows into the Potomac River, sixty miles above Washington, DC.

And what's that on the tracks? It looks like Mr. Peabody's coal train, heading back down south for another load.

And across the river to the north, the remains of the Union fortifications built atop Maryland Heights are just visible through the bare trees. Back in the day, they had some mighty big cannon up there that could dominate the town and river junction below, and every last cannon ball, bag of powder and cask of water had to be schlepped 1200 feet up the mountain from the river below. Not exactly a vacation assignment for the troops.

Give it a few weeks, and the leaves will render this all invisible until next winter

Another Harpers Ferry shot, just to point out all of the sediment in the rivers courtesy of last week's rains and snow melt. Normally, the water here would be almost totally clear.

Here's another train crossing the Potomac at Shepherdstown.

If you look close, you'll see that it's twelve locomotives all strung together and no cars. Interesting.

I tried to get a picture of my favorite Thai place downtown but muffed the shot.

Then it was back into the pattern to land.

Here's two of the new little Boeing C-17 transports (left) with the last two Lockheed C-5a transports that will soon be heading out to retirement at Davis Monthan AFB's boneyard.

Short final for Runway 8. Air's smooth as glass now. I hate to land.

The C-5s again. I hated them when they came here but I'll miss them when they're gone.

Time to put the toy back in the toybox with another 2.1 hours on the Hobbs. Until next time.

A Good Day to Fly.

Because Monday was a nice day, and because I hadn't flown in a few weeks, I decided to take advantage of the day and exercise the airplane. (click on any picture to enlarge.)

Today's impromptu flight plan has us flying out over the mountain ridges to the northwest.

Here's Sleepy Creek Lake, in the middle of the Sleepy Creek Wildlife Area.

Used to be a nice shooting range down there, but the yahoos and bubbas who kept bringing out household trash to shoot up (and leaving it behind) coupled with the fools that kept putting their targets on top of the backstop berms instead of in front of them, causing rounds to leave the range area, eventually managed to get it shut down. This is proof once more that unless we police ourselves, the stupid among us will cause us more harm than the most dedicated anti-gunners can.

Down below is Route 522, Valley Road, heading up to Berkeley Springs.

Over a couple more ridges and we find ourselves above downtown Paw Paw, WV at 4,000 feet.

And here's the train tunnel that cuts through the ridges as it tries to go straight across the meandering bed of the Potomac.

Following the Potomac roughly southwest from here brings me over FCI Cumberland, a federal prison nestled here in western Maryland. It's a medium security place with a lower security camp next door.

Per it's wikipedia page, it currently hosts former Green Beret doctor and convicted murderer Jeffrey McDonald, Actor Michael Douglas' drug-addled son Cameron Douglas, and anti-government whack-job Ed Brown. But it's kind of chilly outside today, so it looks like they're all inside watching TV.


Heading north a bit, I cross over the grass airport at Mexico Farms, just south of the main Cumberland regional airport.

I didn't land there this time, but looking at the picture, I sure wish I had. I love grass strips and that's a pretty nice one.


And there's Cumberland, MD, with it's regional airport, my first stop, in the foreground. I'm setting up a left downwind approach to runway 23 now. Winds light and variable.

Just north of the airport is the big CSX rail yard, formerly part of the Baltimore and Ohio system.

I see trains moving around.

"Cumberland Traffic, Super-cool Cessna is left base, Runway 23. Cumberland."

I shot a quick touch-and-go, settling down so smoothly that it took a second to realize that I was on the runway. I love this cold, dense air for flying. Then it was off again and a couple of right turns brought me right up the north branch of the Potomac again.

I cross another section of the rail yard, and spot this roundhouse turntable below.

And here's downtown Cumberland, with a shot of the river valley coming in from the west.

I head north for a while, and play over western Maryland and Pennsylvania for a bit, then I head back east, crossing over Interstate 68's Sideling Cut, a massive 340ft. deep chop through the mountain ridge that was man-made to allow passage of the highway.

And here's downtown Hancock, MD on the north side of the Potomac as I set up a left base approach to Runway 11 at their little airport just south of the river.

Around, down, in and out. I shoot a touch-and-go and follow the runway heading east along the Potomac after take-off. My GPS terrain warning alarm is going nuts as the airport sits below a parallel ridge. Does it think that I can't see the big tree-covered hill right outside my right side windows?

A bit more meandering and playtime, and I find myself back at my home field again. A smooth landing and another two flight hours (with three landings) goes in the logbook. I heart my plane.