Here’s an image from my recent DC trip to share. Autoracks heading across the Potomac.
Nice shot, only thing missing is the B&O CPL signals!..
How far is it from DC to HF?
ed
Took me a little more than an hour… maybe an hour and 20 minutes?
Well DC is down the river as the crow flies. Call it Route 15 from Point of Rocks past Lee’s Ferry towards route 50 then turn left and run 20 odd miles more to get to DC the hard way.
Sharpsburg is a day’s walk (March) from HF and DC is another 20 miles thence.
Keep in mind that Frederick is about roughly 15 miles to north and east and DC is about roughly 40 miles south of Frederick on that 270.
That is a fine picture. Looks like the Amtrack Platform yes?
One thing I would think is that water in the rivers (Plural) below will be rather high this season.
The camera does a good job illustrating the distance between the shooter and that tunnel at the end of the bridge. One has to be there physically to appreciate just how LONG those big bridges are.
…That is a beautiful photo…{content and quality of photo}, taken at HF…I keep kicking myself of having never made the complete effort to go there…and I’ve been rather close to it perhaps several times in the past decade. Really like that photo.
What is the length of the bridge?
Is this a busy line? Any commuter trains one can take to HF?
ed
I don’t know what the length is, but it looked pretty long to me (lot of help that is, huh?). I would guess a 1/3 mile? (I’m really guessing).
There are commuter trains there, but they only run in to DC in the very early AM and out to HF in the evening, so if you’re going by public transport, trains may not be the way (Amtrak comes through twice a day, noonish from Chicago and sixish from DC).
This is a heavy freight line, although the day I was there I got sort of skunked. I saw five trains all day (I think due to MOW work). I was told that I should have seen something like a dozen to 15 in the time I was there.
Yes… it is the Amtrak platform.
And ModelCar, like you, I’d been there many times before, but never railfanned it (believe it or not, I can’t recall having seen a train on previous trips). Glad I finally did. I’ll be back again.
I think that bridge is on the order of about 800 feet. I will have to pull up other HF photos and start counting freight cars on it and adding up the feet.
Think those rocks above the tunnel mouth were about 500+ feet high. Ive been up there once or twice. There are old stone carved grafitti from Civil War Artillery Crews up there.