Railfan Photos from Atlanta, Georgia in October of 1999

My brother's birthday is October 1st so I decided that as we are serious Atlanta Braves baseball fans I should take him to Atlanta for the last two regular season games.

Of course that meant I had to find the best railfanning spot in town and shoot some pictures. Naturally the weather didn't cooperate during the small window I had for railfanning so the photos came out less than perfect. I managed to tweak most of them up to acceptable viewing quality, but they sure won't make it into any books!

I was pleasantly surprised to find that our 12th floor hotel room looked down on the one open viewpoint of the line through downtown where there is a grade crossing protecting a parking lot at the east leg of the wye! Trains crawl through there so I had convienient warning with plenty of time to shoot them before they were in view. It's just too bad I had to shoot through the glass as it was not possible to open the windows.

Most of the photos are from HOWELL interlocking where CSX and NS cross each other and interconnect several different ways. Some think of it as one of the best railfanning spots in the country and I have to admit the action was most impressive! I don't think there was even 10 minutes when a moving trains wasn't in view! It reminded me of my visits to FW interlocking in Buffalo as a teenager in the 70's. If you ever get to Atlanta be sure to hit HOWELL at the foot of Foster St. near the Atlanta Water Works.

Arriving at HOWELL the first thing we saw was a Amtrak Genesis unit waiting for the signal on the northeast leg of the wye. After crossing in front of it we met a man with his young son railfanning. I knew that railfanning session would be blessed as soon as he told us that an NS cop had just been there 5 minutes ago! Shortly after arriving the man and his boy as well as the one other railfan at HOWELL left and we had the whole plant to ourselves for about an hour and a half. As you can see by the photos there was PLENTY of action!

Of course, being from Buffalo, NY and visiting Atlanta we expected to be overwhelmed by CSX and NS power. It turned out that we saw more CONRAIL power than anything! Conversely, here in Buffalo it seems like we have been getting all the "poo-doggy" CSX and NS units lately :)

- Henry