Waking up frosty East Strasburg. It's not even 7AM yet and the sleepy folks in Pennsylvania Dutch Country are getting a rather spectacular wake-up call as the last operational Norfolk & Western M-Class 12-Wheeler, #475, makes a spirited charge up the hill toward Esbenshade Crossing, in East Strasburg, PA, hauling a replica branch-line mixed train just moments after the early November sunrise. The occasion is a 2021 photo shoot organized by Historic Transport Preservation (HTP) and directed by John Craft.
Sporting a 4-8-0 wheel configuration, some rail enthusiasts have been known to refer to the 475 as a "Mastodon", but according to her current owners, Pennsylvania's Strasburg Rail Road, the N&W never referred to their M-Class Locomotives that way. Instead, they preferred to use the term "Twelve-Wheeler."
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom seen beauty of railroads from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding sunset to sunrise surprises!)
