A single pusher unit helps its train crawl toward the Allegheny summit.

A mixed freight, which appears to have an open auto rack as the second car, blasts out of the east portal of Falls Cut Tunnel and across Wills Creek on its journey towards Cumberland.

From a vantage point high on the opposite side of Wills Creek, westbound Q217 rolls through Fairhope.

A sharp looking western visitor leads a CSX tank train past one of the viewing platforms along the side of Sand Patch Grade.

A long CSX auto train weaves its way through the valley below Foley Overlook as it heads east for Cumberland, MD on a humid and hazy afternoon.

Q359 slowly makes its way through Fairhope on a very rainy, dreary, Saturday evening.

I finally decided to go see CSX's Sand Patch and when I see this coming I know it is going to be a slow day. A Shuttlewagon pushing two flatcars with lights and a cherry picker on them for tunnel ... (more)

The view from the dome: the eastbound Amtrak Capitol Limited descends Sand Patch Grade on a bright fall morning in 1985. Up front are a pair of Amtrak F40PH diesels.

With colors approaching their peak on B&O's Sandpatch, the eastbound Capitol Limited descends through the S curves west of Hyndman, enroute to Cumberland, Hancock, and points east on the B&O mainl... (more)

The grade here is 1.59%, and two big GE's are easing a heavy manifest eastbound down grade. The battle to hold back weight is almost as awesome as the climb uphill! Note the pretty spring color, a... (more)

An eastbound drifts downgrade into Fairhope, PA.

I had always been curious of what Sand Patch Grade was like between the east end of Falls Cut Tunnel and Fairhope, PA. On Aug. 1, 1981, I decided to find out and hiked it. About midway down ther... (more)

An eastbound grain train works around the curves at Fairhope.

A CSX work train drifts downgrade at Fairhope on a beautiful fall morning.

Considering its remote location, one would have never thought Falls Cut Tunnel would have become a trouble spot. Such was not the case. In the early 1980s, the excellent swimming hole below the ... (more)