A beautiful afternoon on Norfolk Southern's New River District

On March 13th, 2011, I set out on a picture perfect day to photograph some Norfolk Southern trains in Southwest Virginia. Switch trouble in Bluefield backed up trains and made for a busy afternoon. The Dispatcher had his hands full trying to get 6 westbounds and many eastbounds in and out of Bluefield yard.

We head to Newbern to photograph 25N passing through the beautiful wide-open fields. 25N's crew will have a very long day having been delayed 4 hours after meeting 23G, 202, and I3G.

Next we arrive at Eggleston for the arrival of 186. Soon, a pair of Dash-9's pass the massive vertical cliffs on their way to Roanoke.

We over hears the dispatcher advising 185 that he'd be meeting 18M at Pembroke. So we quickly head to Pembroke to document. The normal NS engines leads a short 185 through Pembroke.

After the end of 185 clears the switches at Pembroke, the dispatcher lines 18M out of the siding. 18M will have a clear shot the rest of the way into Roanoke after he met 185.

We next find out that a westbound hopper train is heading up the old VGN PD district toward Elmore. Here, 8747 leads a hopper train across the nice looking trestle at Oakvale in nice evening light.

As I'm photographing NS 8747, 188 passes behind me eastbound on the Christiansburg district with a pair of new NS ES44AC's leading. We beat him back to Glen Lyn for a quick shot.

We shoot 188 one last time at Stock Pen Mountain Road in Narrows, VA.

A HUGE thanks goes out to my good friend Jonathan McCoy, for constant updates on trains.