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 the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
