the Fast Mail runs again

operating as CSX P984-06, the Amtrak/US Postal Service "Celebrate the Century Express" special scorched the ballast through Washington Grove on October 6th on its way to a weekend display at the nearby Montgomery County fairgrounds.  running at track speed its passage was too swift to be captured by a slow digital camera (we tried without success).  once the strikingly-painted special was tucked away into the siding we caught up with it. 

click on any image to enlarge
 

the special: Amtrak Genesis locomotive 100, baggage car 1255 and coach 21044; followed by Jim Bistline's RPO car SOU 36 (AMTK 800700) and heavyweight observation MKT 403 (AMTK 800393) in traditional Pullman green.  and now for something a bit more conventional: the special is passed by a westbound Q4xx series freight.  some of its seven locomotives are just along for the ride, deadheading to the backshop in Cumberland. 

the coach and RPO have been fitted out with special displays (the latter including a videotape loop of mail being picked up on the fly from Kensington MD just nine miles in on the Metropolitan Subdivision). 

the special's stop in nearby Gaithersburg was a bit of a homecoming for at least part of the consist, as the RPO car had been stored for years on a siding in Old Town Gaithersburg.  once it finishes the tour it is to be donated to a museum. 


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