This is a true story about one of our Newnan Railroads. I have lived in my current house for nearly nine years which is about a mile or so from a Norfolk Southern railroad spur line to Senoia. And since we have lived here, about once a week just around midnight, we hear the horn of what we laughingly call “the Ghost Train!”
The reason we call it the ghost train is that we have never actually seen a train on the track. We have only experienced the spectral strains of the horn as it passes in the wee hours of the morning.
However, I had a surprise today. I heard the “ghost whistle” about 11 A.M. this morning. And although sometimes when the wind is blowing just right I can hear the CSX mainline in Newnan, this sounded closer.
So I grabbed the camera, and jumped in the truck, and headed for the nearest grade crossing. When I got there, I didn’t see or hear anything so I had to guess … should I go north or south. I knew that the train might be there, I just didn’t have any idea which way it was headed!
I guessed south, and headed down the road towards Sharpsburg and Turin. After a mile or so I spotted it through the trees and it was beautiful. A General Electric C40-9W with a single car in tow, headed towards Senoia at no more than 5 M/P.H.
That meant that I could jump in the truck, head down the road and get ahead of it, take some more photos, and then head down the line and take some more.
The engineer and I even had a conversation or two as he went past … and the last he shouted was “will you post the photos online?”
All I could shout back was “Google Newnan Railroads” as he disappeared for the last time.
I hope that he finds his engine in the search engine!
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