Auto Train

On the second night of a three-day shortline tour of the Sandhills of central North Carolina, chaser pal Ben Wells and I found ourselves on the station platform in Hamlet just after sunset. The CSX freights in and out of the Hamlet bowl began to dry up, and the wait for the Silver Meteor's stop at Hamlet seemed too long for too little. Where can we go from here? Suddenly, I thought about Auto Train. We checked the timetable and then checked the online status -- How did we railfan before the smartphone? -- and then we decided we had enough time for a tight repositioning move from Hamlet over to Pembroke. (Pembroke, because it was the closest town on the CSX main south of Fayetteville, which we knew we could not make in time.) We "lit out" of Hamlet. The mid-route decision to stop at a Wendy's for a late on-the-go supper almost cost us the meet, as we rolled up on the Pembroke diamond with just a minute or two to spare before we saw ditch lights and horns to the north.

No. 53 with all her length and at CSX track speed is an impressive sight, as noted elsewhere. No. 53 at track speed pouding a standard-gapped diamond crossing is likewise an impressive sound. In the haste to get set up, I miscalculated how much residual shock would be sent up my video tripod sitting so close to the diamond. Although the second half of the video was largely unusable for watching, the audio carries the message of Auto Train from start to finish. 53 was, as I like to say, 'hauling the mail' through Pembroke. I'm glad we got to the diamond in time to see her, because there's no chasing Auto Train once she has moved on down the line.