Shortly before departure from Durbin, W.Va., on Feb. 23, 1951, the crew of the Chesapeake & Ohio doodlebug assigned to train 143 eyes the photographer before he climbs aboard for the ride down the Greenbrier River valley to the main line at Roncerverte, W.Va.
A. C. Kalmbach photo
Was all excited when I guessed the correct road this morning.
Then the creepiness started. The lady to the left has a white ball of energy or something for a face. The folks on the platform look menacing. The crew looks even more menacing. The branch veering off to the right and into the distance even looks menacing.
You are correct Firelock…the Doddlebug is a strange one all right and is reminiscent of Gort! That big bulbous overhang and those antennae or ray guns off to the sides along the top!
Um, ya, the lady on the platform is walking away from the photographer, and wearing a scarf on her head - very common for women in that era. As a kid in the 1960’s I remember my mom and sisters wearing them when we went to church.
Um, no, look carefully at an enlarged view and you can clearly see her right shoe and ankle; she’s walking toward the camera. So there’s some more photo artifact here than meets the eye. I do agree that head coverings are a major factor here.
Much of the creepiness in the ‘crew’ goes away when you look at their facial expressions up close, particularly the engineer.
As we all know kids are very smart. Think back to when you were say, 8 to 12 years old and then came upon this scene with a couple of buddies on a summers day, just doing some ‘exploring’ …you would instinctively freeze and then run…if you ran down the tracks of that branch on the right I think you go straight into the Twilight Zone! Stuff of kids legends!
We had a neighbour on one side of us when I was a kid and if any kind of ball went over a very high hedgerow fence it was never ever coming back. We, my pals and myself, called the lady Mrs. Crabtree. Mrs. Crabtree must have had one heck of a collection in her basement or taken out for garbage.
It was spooky just to peek through all that thick hedge and ‘see the other side’. All I remember clearly of her backyard was the impeccable lawn and one of those big glass balls on a pedestal. A monument to all the absconded balls? Thats kind of funny.
I can see what you are saying about the lady but if you blow it up a bit you can clearly see she is walking to the camera and facing us. Look at the right leg…the shoe and ankle are coming right at you, the left leg is in a back to front swing.
Likely a scarf, but as Overmod pointed out some kind of photographic effect is going on, perhaps in the developing step.
It is a beautiful and historic area and important from a railroad operations and railroad history perspective.
Cass Scenic Railroad in video provided by Wanswheel.
Ya looking again it does look like she’s walking towards the camera. Women back then did sometimes wear a sheer scarf that would cover their face - normally it was easy to see through it, might be the light is hitting it just right in the photo that it makes it look more solid? However, the engineer looks quite happy; the conductor looks more bored than menacing…“OK, take the picture so we can get on with our work!”.
Hagerstown Daily Mail, April 11, 1959 – Passenger Train Goes – Yesterday marked the end of three quarters of a century of passenger service on the Western Maryland Railway. The railroad’s final passenger coach was removed from its run yesterday after it completed a round trip from Elkins to Durbin, W. Va. The West Virginia Central and Pittsburgh Railway instituted passenger trains between Cumberland and Elkins in August 1887, and shortly afterward the WVC and PR extended its tracks 47 miles south to Durbin.
