The day I found a Love for the GP9
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Here is a little story from a couple of years ago—a day at work on the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. We left Staunton that morning with a crew of three: the engineer, a trainee engineer, and me, as conductor. By chance, Mike Derrick, publisher of Shortlines USA, was visiting that day to take photos for his website. We had, as I recall, 10 cars loaded with soy meal headed for Pleasant Valley to be transferred to the Norfolk Southern. ---- Here is your author throwing the North Weyers Cave siding switch. ----
We proceeded North to Verona, where we did some switching and picked up five empty propane cars. Then we continued on to Weyers Cave where we picked up five more loads of soy meal, bringing our total to 20 cars—15 loads and five empties.
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Here the Valley Local eases north exiting the Weyers Cave siding having made the pickup.
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At Mt. Crawford we cut off the locomotive, so my engineer could take the engine around the curve up ahead, sanding on the way up and back. This was necessary because of the heavy load. We then picked up 5 more loads and headed toward Pleasant Valley with 25 cars--2250 tons—the engine laboring in notch 8, and the wheel-slip light flickering constantly.
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Here we pass a small pond as we leave Weyers Cave.
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About that time, we ran out of sand. Leaving the trainee engineer to handle the throttle, the engineer and I scooped the last of the sand out of the tank and emptied it into a hard hat, which we held between us, sprinkling sand on the rails from the pilot.
On the approach to the Friedens Church road we ducked into the cab for the crossing. The train had enough momentum now so it was not slipping much, and we decided to save what was left of the sand for the approach to the derail at milepost 5, the railroad division between us and NS and the end of our run.
I have read a story about an N&W fireman who, after setting his fire the way he wished, was found sitting on top of the tender of an A Class (like 1218) listening to the double lick of the Stack. Fifty years later I was standing on the cab floor of a GP9 hanging out the window and looking over the hood and the exhaust stacks. I took my earplugs out and reveled in the sound of former C&O 5940 working its guts out. Each pop in the growl of the locomotive was deafening, yet I stayed there, in awe of the sound and power
Approaching the MP5 derail, it was obvious that if we stopped we would never get the train moving again, so I ducked into the cab and grabbed my keys. Running out the door I yelled at my crew to slow roll as best they could, and off I went, down the long hood end of the locomotive, down the steps and onto the ground. I ran ahead of the train to the derail and removed it, then jogged back toward the locomotive, which was out of sight around a small curve from me.
But the slow roll wasn’t working. We had lost too much momentum and the locomotive was losing traction. My engineer was running ahead of the train, carrying the hard hat, and trying to get enough sand on the rails to keep us moving. But the hard hat ran empty just one car length short of the derail. We had to tie the train down in place and ease the locomotive onto the siding, where we waited for the bigger motive power of the NS to come and pick up our cars and take them North.
It wasn’t a glorious trip, but it was the day I fell in love with EMD's model GP9! Nathan ---- Here is a shot of us at Plesant Valley. Making a switch move to put some box cars on the end of V93 after they picked up our cars. ---- All photos taken by Mike Derrick, used with permission. Shortlines USA