New 6 axle power on the Virginia Midland

VM #281 switching Mid-Atlantic Feeds

 

 

A closeup of VM #281

 

Virginia Midland needed some 6 axle power for their increasing workload. Being on a branch line, most 6 axle power cannot be used. A SD20-3 was constructed from SD35. It does well for all the switching on the line. A SD20-3 is basically a SD20-2 like Chessie System and CSX have but it has 4 stacks instead of 2.

Decided to weather up a covered hopper also.  This patched hopper looks as if it was decaled, but right out of the box I covered up the reporting marks and data with tape.  Weathered it and then took the tape off.  An easy way to make a freight car look as if it got a new owner.