The six-days-a-week Pine Belt Southern turn from LaFayette slides down CSX toward the downtown NS crossing.

Black and white geeps and dead winter vegetation provide little color to the scene as a healthy long-distance local pulls in to work Opelika.

Four minutes after midnight, CSX 1 leads the office car train past the Western Railway of Alabama coaling tower in Opelika, Alabama, bound for Mobile for post-Hurricane Ida use.

A honey-hole of sunlight hits L&N 4124 at just the right moment - the exact opposite of what usually happens to me on partly cloudy days.

Frequent problems restarting Atlanta-bound trains after the required stop at the Southern crossing in Opelika led to the practice shown in this photo. Crews stopped their trains on the downgrade ... (more)

The usual high-horsepower SP/SSW four-axle power leads CSX intermodal train 144 as it passes Roanoke Junction. The diverging line originally went to Roanoke, but by the time of the photo had been... (more)

Built for San Francisco commuter service, 7602 was one of just three GP40P-2s constructed by EMD. In 1994 the rare diesel was at the head of a northbound CSX freight, coupled to slightly less rar... (more)

The daily Hamlet-NOLA run-through freight heads for Montgomery where it will move on to L&N rails.

Hamlet-NOLA run-through train 215 - operating as Extra SCL 1610 on this day - rolls across 10th Street. Construction on an overpass has started, and in a few months this at-grade crossing will be... (more)

Two GP40s and two first generation geeps are cresting the hill just east/north of Opelika. From this point forward they will mostly be dropping as they head for the Chattahoochee River at West Po... (more)

On what I believe is one of the last runs, the GLE (or American Orient Express) heads west on the former Central of Georgia toward Birmingham. Once the route of some important midwest-Florida str... (more)

That lead SD40-2 may be 'foreign', but it is a much more common sight in these parts than the home road unit behind it - one of CSX's much-loved BQ23-7s.

SCL, L&N and Western Railway of Alabama - The Family Lines - initiated two pairs of run-through trains in 1973. One pair - 215/216 - ran between Hamlet and NOLA. The first couple years of operat... (more)

Back in the day, the procedure for Southern and Western Railway of Alabama trains passing through Opelika included a full stop at the crossing of the two lines. After a crew member ascertained th... (more)

Southern had a big fleet of GP35s, mostly numbered in the 2600s and 2700s, with all but two in that series riding on AAR Type B trucks. There were also 5 or 6 GP35s that were bought and sublettere... (more)