|
A long time friend and I occasionally spent Sunday mornings along the Reading's Wilmington & Northern Branch following the southbound Reading to Wilmington, Del. through freight RW-5. The train did not run on Saturdays but was very reliable on Sundays, leaving Reading around daybreak. We usually managed to intercept it somewhere north of Coatesville, Pa., get a couple of shots in that section, and continue the "chase" after the train did its setoff and pickup work at Coatesville, site of a large Lukens Steel mill. The train was usually shorter leaving Coatesville, carrying southbound Lukens traffic destined to interchange with the B&O at Wilmington and other miscellaneous freight for Wilmington including carfloat traffic for chemical plants across the Delaware River in New Jersey. Sunday, December 28, 1975 was a sunny but cold day with not a trace of snow on the ground. We got our first shots of RW-5 crossing the Brandywine Creek near Brandamore, Pa., about 7 miles north of Coatesville, then again just north of Coatesville. The train was powered by a GP30/GP35/GP39-2 set. It had 59 cars into Coatesville and left with only 27. The third shot we got that day was passing the old station at Pocopson, Pa.
|
