If you look at fallen flags train site here > http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ww/ww.html you will see that Winchester & Western is listed as a fallen flag railroad. The story description has there operations listed only in Virginia hauling mainly Silia sand. There roster also included Alco and EMD GP-9 locomotives. The Wichester & Western did not fall, they just moved operations. Even though this thread is for fallen railroads, this one is still listed as being fallen. I figured I would put some pictures and explain thier operations which they still perform to this day. Winchester & Western railroad biggest product was still sand, gravel and silica since we have a big huge supply here, but that seem to have slowed down a bit here. Also a Propane company moved in town, so now the biggest product is propane and my town is just loaded with tank cars everywhere. Other products being delivered include soy beans, wheat, corn, and corn syrup. Winchester & Western bought the shortline in my town after Conrail abandonded it back in the 80's. My town was actually on the top 10 list of the most industrialized towns in the nation, now it's just the top 100 of the most poor. Railroads ran everywhere here and now most have been torn up. The railraod here was originally owned by Jersey Central Line, I have heard stories of huge yards with steam engines everywhere and coal was a big thing. Conrail of course took over and then nothing, we were without a railroad for years. There are still abandonded track in some places never to be used again, but I say about 50% of the original track has been replaced and updated which is still used. The Winchester and Western has a full shop also for doing and repairs necessary on locomotives and rail cars. I will post pictures of Winchester & Western for those interested from time to time.
WW locomotives The Winchester and Western still uses EMD GP-9 locomotives, I believe they are up to 6 locos at my location now, 4 that are in the Winchester and Western paint scheme, 1 ex-conrail still wearing it's blue paint and the other is a unknown ex-railroad to me, it is all black with white stripes all over it, looks almost like a Zebra. I was able to get a couple of shots of 2 Winchester and Western in the original paint scheme locomotives. The crossing in which I took these pictures at was trecherous and cursed by every driver back in the Conrail days. There was 5 tracks originally crossing this road as the switch yard was literally in the road. They used to have to throw flares down because there wasn't even a working signal, many deadly accidents happened here. The road started to callaspe around the track making huge pot holes, many who had nice cars would never dare take this road and find a alternate route. Winchester & Western thankfully came along, riped up all of that track from the road and now there is only one track, they have removed the train yard from the road. Although the yard is right up against the road, so if they are switching you will be there for a while. Ambulances and Fire Emergency vehicles are told not to take that road. Picture #1 Winchester & Western #517 helps push a line of empty tank cars back into the yard after the propane was off loaded. Picture #2 Winchester & Western #811 is lashed up with #517 to help get those heavy tank cars in the yard. Noctice the crossing, it never looked like this back in the day. Imagine that narrow road with 5 tracks and a busy yard crossing over it. There were more car hitting train accidents here than I can remember. The biggest one I can recall is when a defective flare was set out at night, it ignited and lit up but them shortly went out when the rail yeard people walked away. A local tow truck company flat bed headed down that road and the train was in that dark intersection. He plowed right into that train and survived, the tow truck was totaled. Today there is nice street lights there also. Picture #3 You can see the rail yard is much smaller today. The track the white box car is on to the left would cross the road as well as the track that the train is switchig into. There were 2 other tracks besides the 3 you see they were torn up and a siding was made for a shop and the office is a old pullman passenger car. Can you imagine 5 tracks coming out onto the road, I don't cause I remember it when I was a kid.
WW Hopper cars Hopper cars in my town are very common, there seems to be a equal amount of covered and open hoppers. Many hopper cars are leased, but Winchester and Western has been buying some of there own, repairing them and repainting them. Right now it seems that Winchester and Western only own thier own covered hoppers and all of the open hoppers so far have been lease company owned. Picture #1 Winchester & Western 3 bay covered hopper car which is primarily used for soy beans, wheat and corn products most of which is designated for farm animal feed. Picture#2 Winchester and Western owns about 10 of these neat 2 bay ACF hopper cars. The bridge this train is on is over a major highway believe it or not. Although this highway and bridge would be small by any big city standards, it is our major landmark inot our town. The bridge is the original one that Jersey Central had and is that last operating train bridge in my town. Yes there were others and all have been torn down for the exception of one which was in a park and a trash truck that someone had forgot to turn off the PTO and the body had risen up knocking down the last historical bridge. Now there is just a plaque there. The dump here in own has been closed for at least 30 years. The bridge in this picture has since been dug out from under it to allow for bigger trucks to get under, but is still tight at 13ft 7in leaving most modern trucks only 1inch to spare. I have seen this bridge hit on many occasions until the raod was dug out. Pictures #3-#5 Winchester and Western 2 bay covered hopper cars which cross that same bridge as seen in picture #2 to get where they are in these pictures.
WW accident - train derails Winchester & Western has a good track record for no derailments, but on this day they wouldn't be so lucky. The farmers needed to store soy beans as they all did not sell. There was a storage silo for such product not far, but would take days to get all of the product there by truck. Putting it all in train cars was the perfect solution, so it seemed. The problem was the tracks that ran by the silo was never updated and had not been used in years for such heavy loads. These tracks in this area was commonly used to go to a glass factory with sand and silica, but the factory shut down in the 70's. The go ahead was given with a strict 5 mph speed limit, the train never made it, with 100,000 lbs of product average on board each hopper car, the rotten rail ties gave out. It took 4 side winder bulldozers to get each one back up because the track was not even safe for a crane. Worst even yet, derailed cars blocked on street also for days and people had to take alternate roads and people living in homes there were worried about 911 access emergencies. The mess was finally cleaned up and new track laid in. Pictures #1-#3 are from the train wreck, the rotten wood ties just collasped from the heavy load.
