Where is a great place to go see lots of rail activity in Alabama besides Birmingham?[?]
I’ve been to Huntsville a couple of times on business, and it looked like there were some potentially good hot spots there.
I once tried to railfan in Florence after dinner one night in the early 80’s. There was a two track Southern main with polished rails through town. It was about 7:30PM and they had roled up the sidewalks. I hadn’t stopped for more than two minutes and was blocked in both directions and the road side by police cars. One officer approached me and asked for my license and then asked what I was doing. When I told him I was staying in the Holiday Inn and had just come from dinner and thought I might be able to get a couple of pictures before heading back he said, “We all don’t do that round here”. He then escorted me back to the hotel. So better ask a local!
Decatur looks interesting. The former Southern Memphis-Chattanooga mainline and the former L&N Birmingham-Nashville mainline cross the Tennessee River on the same bridge.
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http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locThumbs.aspx?id=2011
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locationList.aspx?Level=3&ID=AL,US
There is a huge amount of traffic going on in eastern Alabama. I particularly like hanging around Opelika-Auburn and have been known to chase trains between my hometown of Columbus, GA to B’ham. Not long ago I spoke with the NS trainmaster out of Columbus- he said they are expanding their traffic on that line.
I like following NS because they always manage to throw in a “foreign” unit or two. I’ve seen the usual leased suspects, but I also caught photos of one freight with a CSX unit, BNSF unit, and NS unit on it. Talk about dream teams…
Erik
Decature and huntsville are good spots there is the yard in decature and several good places to view trains also the draw bridge over the TN river too.