Today's Train of Thought- Having a Ballast in a Winter Wonderland, Jan 6th 2010

I don't have to go too far back in time for this one, as today's train of though features an accumulation of snow left behind from the same blizzard I waited out in upstate NY and left the Big Apple furious at their own Sanitation Department over the slow cleanup.

However, this is a little further south- the wintry, picture postcard scene snapped here is actually along the CSX main line between Rocky Mount, NC and Richmond, VA. Even a mild dusting of snow is quite unusual this far south, but the December 2010 blizzard dumped anywhere from 10-15 inches of snow in the northern reaches of the Tarheel State.

Railpictures.net user Nick McLean ventured out into the snow in the days immediately following the Christmas blizzard and was rewarded with memorable images of CSX, Amtrak and Gulf and Ohio's Nash County Railroad digging out from under the white stuff in and around the Rocky Mount, NC area.

Here, we see CSX SD40-2 #8084 leading a former Conrail SD60I on a northbound Herzog ballast train as it makes its way the middle of Enfield, NC on December 27, 2010. The train is roughly halfway between Rocky Mount and the NC/VA state line.