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Chesapeake & Ohio

In early February 2023, Lerro Photography hosted a series of photo charters on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, featuring their mighty 2-6-6-2 Mallet #1309. These events were special in that #1309 was backdated and re-lettered to her 1950s-era appearance when she was a coal hauling workhorse for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. The charters saw #1309 pulling a string of 10 freight cars, complete with a caboose, along the former Western Maryland Railway mainline between Cumberland & Frostburg, MD, performing numerous photo runbys at some of the most scenic locations on this classic stretch of mountain rail. The dramatic landscapes formed by the Allegheny Mountains heavily resemble the terrain in which #1309 once labored through in West Virginia and Kentucky, and with a little imagination, one could've felt he had been witnessing a C&O coal drag in the early 1950s. We were there for two days to document this rare event on February 8th & 9th, and captured many great scenes of #1309 fighting up the stiff grades of the old Western Maryland and Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroads. A night photo session was held at the Cumberland Depot, and with professional lighting set-ups provided by the Lerro crews, the imagery was simply pristine. Sit back and enjoy as #1309 puts on a show for the cameras in her working class livery! As a special treat, we'll take a ride in the cab of #1309 as she rolls through Brush Tunnel! #1309 was built by Baldwin in 1949 for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, where she hauled heavy coal trains through the mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia and was part of an order of 10 H-6 class Mallets. She would become the last steam locomotive built for domestic use by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, as it would merge into the short-lived Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton Corporation in 1951. #1309 and her sisters served the C&O proudly, until she was retired in 1956 and would spend the next two decades in storage at the C&O's roundhouse in Peach Creek, WV. In 1975, #1309 was moved to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in Baltimore, MD where she was cosmetically restored and placed on display, a state in which she would remain for nearly 40 years. The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad purchased #1309 in 2014 and she was moved by rail via CSX to WMSR's yard in Ridgeley, WV in July of that year. Over the course of the next 7 years, it would take thousands of hours and nearly 3 million dollars to complete the restoration of #1309, along with suffering a great deal of economic losses. Despite all the turmoil, on New Years Eve 2020, #1309 moved under her own power for the first time in 64 years and testing would commence throughout 2021 before her public debut in December of that year. Enjoy!