Eastern Roadtrip 2017 Report - Scranton to Roanoke

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USSHelm

Member
On 7/21 I rolled out of Richmond bound for Dayton, OH to visit the USAF Museum. Two day drive with a stop in Cincinnati. Spent a couple days in Dayton at the museum, great museum and amazing collection. After the USAF Museum, visited family in northern PA and then began the rail leg of the trip. On the drive back to Texas I had the opportunity to visit Steamtown, the Strasburg Railroad, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, the B&O Railroad Museum, and the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Didn't do much railfanning trackside, with the exception of a couple hours in downtown Roanoke.

Some highlights from Steamtown:

Lackawanna 664 reverses towards the station to begin the Scranton Limited excursion
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Climbing out
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Lackawanna duo
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Big Boy head end
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Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in Strasburg. A lot of good looking power in a very nice display hall. Great museum.

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From Baltimore, I rolled down through the Shenandoah Valley to Bedford. Spent an evening and morning in the Blue Ridge Mountains before shooting into Roanoke. The Blue Ridge is a gorgeous area, Texas doesn't have mountains like Virginia. Our mountains are taller, but dry as a bone. After hiking for a couple hours it was time to head down to Roanoke, but I had three hours to burn before the Viriginia Museum of Transportation opened. So I walked through downtown Roanoke to the Norfolk Southern shops, and back to the MLK pedestrian bridge over the tracks. It was a pleasant surprise to find that unlike most pedestrian bridges over railroads, this one didn't have chain link fencing on the sides. The tally on the morning was two trains, and a light power move.

Two panoramas from the Blue Ridge. The first at sunset on 7/29 from an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, the second is from the summit of Sharp Top near Bedford on the morning of 7/30.

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Trains.

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The final section of the rail leg was a visit to the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Home to NW 611, 1218, and (until 2020) 2156. They also have a good variety of 1st and 2nd generation diesels which operated on the N&W.

This post concludes the trip report. If you made it this far down the thread, I hope you enjoyed it. For those interested, more photos can be found on Flickr.

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Looks like a great trip. I'm retired Air Force and have been to the Dayton museum a few times, and it is indeed a great collection. I need to get back east to the PA rail museums again though.
 
The final section of the rail leg was a visit to the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Home to NW 611, 1218, and (until 2020) 2156. They also have a good variety of 1st and 2nd generation diesels which operated on the N&W.

Great photos. The old steam engines are great, but I wish some Virginian Trainmasters and electrics had been preserved as well.
 
Looks like a great trip. I'm retired Air Force and have been to the Dayton museum a few times, and it is indeed a great collection. I need to get back east to the PA rail museums again though.

I've been to the Pima Air & Space Museum, both National Air & Space Museums, and now Dayton. Dayton wins. Best collection and nicest to visit.

Great photos. The old steam engines are great, but I wish some Virginian Trainmasters and electrics had been preserved as well.

Thank you. The VMT does have a Virginian EL-C in it's collection.

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