Point of Rocks, MD: (CSX+MARC)/B&O Depot and Tower (KG): B&O vs. B&O

(Satellite)

Darren Reynolds posted
Point of rocks Maryland station and Tower(KG)
The tower was closed in the mid-50s when they put CTC the interlocking..
[Note the signaling pipelines in the right foreground.]
Randall Hampton shared
Darren Reynolds posted
David Andrew Wieting: That makes since as even now, the Met Sub tracks go into the OML alignment, as if the OML was still the primary route. B&O never could decide which one really was the true mainline and CSX maintains the duality today. Agnes almost made the decision for B&O but using Chessie's coal money they rebuilt it, and eventually restored the CTC. I have many times seen the helpers come back from Barnesville grade and have to negotiate the crossovers at ROCKS, twisting like a couple of sockhop dancers. To this day ROCKS is laid out for the OML.

This junction is where the new main line joined the old, or original, main line.

Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted via Dennis DeBruler

Marty Bernard posted
B&O Point of Rocks Station, MD summer 1978, Bill Howes photo.
Thomas Dorman: E. Francis Baldwin, architect.
Ray Shaw: Windows now "boarded up". I peeked inside before this. Sorry interior is not "restored" and available for passengers, as is the station in Harper's Ferry. I understand "why not", but I remain sad.
Marty Bernard shared
Robert Bufkin: The Point of Rocks station is one of the US stamps.

 

Marty Bernard posted
B&O-Chessie Point of Rocks Station, MD winter 1983, Bill Howes photo.

Chris Ness posted

Point of Rocks

Point of Rocks, Maryland station. Now CSX, it was Baltimore and Ohio and Chesapeake and Ohio railroads.

The line to the left goes to Baltimore. The one to the right is the line to Washington.

03/04 [2021]

David Coldren: A classic. Right on the oldest US mainline. I hear it’s not in great condition these days. No passenger waiting room. Just offices for the CSX maintenance department. Think I better get some pics!

Edward Bluebaugh posted
Rick Hahn: Now on US Stamp.

 

Matt Clumac posted
Maryland Department of Transportation F9PH #7185 at the Point of Rocks Station in Point of Rocks, MD on April 23rd, 1985. It was originally built for the Baltimore and Ohio as an F7 in 1952 as #4590. In 1980, #4190 was sold to Maryland Department of Transportation and was rebuilt an F9PH and renumbered #7185. In 1984, #7185 was sold to MARC but kept its MDOT paint scheme. In 1989 the locomotive was renumbered #85 and was finally repainted in MARC livery. In 1996, #85 was sold to the St. Louis Car Company to pull excursions and was renumbered #102. In 2005, #102 was sold to the Railroad Passenger Car Numbering Bureau and was renumbered #1020. In late 2005, #1020 was sold to Kansas City Southern and operated a few excursions in 2006. Shortly after being purchased by KCS, #1020 was sold to the Norfolk Southern to pull excursion trains and was renumbered #4271. On March 21st, 2019, #4271 was renumbered #271. In 2020, #271 was sold to the Aberdeen, Carolina and Western where it pulls excursions today. (C) Joe Osciak.
David Andrew Wieting: Those MARC cars are very likely former PRR Budd built roomette cars comverted to coaches by PRR for the expected influx of travelers for the NY Worlds Fair in 1964. They were later in NY&LB commuter service and then taken over by NJ Transit. When the electrification was extended to Long Branch in 1983, the GG1s, Budd Coaches and E8s were all retired. The coaches then went to MARC. Some operate on the B&O RR Museum, others ended up in storage on the WMSRR. Two were restored into parlor cars and received late era PRR markings, and were participants in the N&W J 611 excursions between Lynchburg and Petersburg in the years immediately after 611's return to service. Since the implementation of PTC and the freezing out of most mainline excursions, these two coaches have been recently transferred to new owners and have moved to Indiana.

1953 Point Of Rocks Quadrangle @ 1:24,000

Mugunth Ragunathan, Sep 2020

This photo also has a CSX truck in the background.

Mdean.finley, Jun 2021

Phil, Apr 2021

Clear Signal NOVA posted

On a beautiful spring afternoon, Amtrak's capital limited rolls past the historic station in Point of Rocks, Maryland on its eastbound journey from Chicago to Washington, DC.

Point of Rocks is located at the junction of the original Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Mainline from Baltimore (to the right) and the Metropolitan Subdivision from Washington, DC (to the left). Today, it is the modern junction of the CSX Old Main Line Subdivision and Metropolitan Subdivision.

According to the Wikipedia on the station:

The main station building is a 2+1⁄2-story, triangular Gothic Revival with a four-story tower and a 1+1⁄2-story wing at the base. The tower has a pyramidal roof containing a dormer on each side. On top is a square cupola supporting a pyramidal peaked roof.[6]

The station building itself is not open to the public and is used by CSX as storage and offices for maintenance of way crews. In 2008, new platforms and platform shelters were built for MARC commuters traveling east towards Washington DC, replacing older bus shelter–style structures which were erected in the mid-1990s.

During the blizzard of 2010, the south side awning on the main building collapsed under the weight of record snow fall, and was later removed, leaving half the building missing cover. In January 2011, work to rebuild the destroyed part of the structure began.

The Point of Rocks Railroad Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973,[4] and reopened for the Maryland Rail Commuter Service, now called MARC, which established the Brunswick Line.

Randall Hampton shared

Point of Rocks Train Station posted four photos with the comment:

Today 30 June 2022. 

The station looks so much better 

All the window new plywood has been painted black.  

Not the original look, but I thank CSX for trying to make the boarding up look better, and same time reduce the vandalism to the most photographed train station in America.  

Yes, we do believe that 100%

Randall Hampton shared

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Shippingport, PA: 1976-2019 2.5gw Bruce Mansfield & 1957+1976&1987 1.8gw Beaver Valley Power Plants and FGD Gypsum

Bruce Mansfield: (Satellite)

1976&1987 Beaver Valley: (Satellite)

FGD Gypsum: (Satellite)

The first commercial power nuclear reactor, Shippingport Atomic Power Station, was built on this site in 1957. 

John Gallagher posted
The shutdown Bruce Mansfield coal plant in Shippingport, PA taken from my office window at the Beaver Valley Power Station.
Tom Runyon: I think that burning up the scrubbers and stack was just too costly to repair. I only worked there from 2002-2012. We dealt with a lot of issues over that time.
Cory Stansbury: Tom Runyon They weren't allowed to pipe fly ash to little blue run pond anymore, either. They had to barge it and send it up-river. I'm guessing that wasn't cheap.

2013 11:16 video of a tour of Bruce Mansfield "largest coal-fired plant in the First Energy System"

 

Ron Franko posted four photos with the comment:

Bruce Mansfield Power Plant

The Turbine Deck

Size: 195,000 Sq. Ft. | Dimensions: 1,080 ft x 180 ft

Side Wall Height: 50 Ft.

Clear Height: 50 Ft.

I didn’t take these pictures. Got them from shippingportindustrialpark.com

Richard Smith: In 1979 I was offered and accepted the job of operations supervisor at D. B. Mansfield plant. I was in charge of operating the three 800 MW Boiler/Turbine supercritical units along with around 200 operators. My prior job was at the Niles, Ohio plant with the same title. There were two generating units and a fuel oil turbine with around 50 operators. Niles was capable of generating around 350 MW's. A very big difference in size and technology. Niles went on line in the 40's. Mansfield around 1970, unit 3 in 1980. Mansfield was a very challenging and demanding operation. The average age of operators was very young around 22 years old. The average age at Niles was probably 50 to 55 with lots of years of experience where as at Mansfield with a few operators transferred from other sites, brought some experience to the job. Technical background was not a strong requirement to work in this highly technical environment. Lots of mistakes and shutdowns. I served until 1983 as the operations supervisor over the plant. Then the plant was divided four ways. The three units and everything else. I got everything else including the coal handling, lime and sludge operations plus little blue run where all the ash was stored, and also the storeroom and tool room operations. That was a daunting job also but successful and I left the plant in 1989 to take an engineers job in the corporate headquarters in Akron, retiring in 1998. I also worked at the W.H Sammis and Toronto plants prior to going to Nile's and Mansfield plants. I bring this up because all four of these plants are now shut down. Sammis is being torn down and Niles and Toronto are completely gone. Mansfield is on the market to be sold. It's sad to be in the area of these great facilities and know they no longer have hard working employees making a living for their families. Thank you Ohio Edison, Pennsylvania Power and FirstEnergy for a wonderful career and the privilege of working with dedicated men and woman.

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Davey Rundt commented on Ron's post
Good times and alot of nights by myself wandering around that place in between coal runs in my short short time there.

HistoricPittsburgh
Description: Three plants are featured in this image. Above the bridge is the coal-fired Bruce Mansfield Plant. Directly below the bridge are the cooling tower and containment dome of Beaver Valley Power Station #1. Beaver Valley Power Station #2 is under construction; the pit to the right the cooling tower will become the containment dome for #2. At the bottom of the image is the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, located on the Ohio River in Shippingport, Pennsylvania. It was opened by President Dwight Eisenhower on May 26, 1958, as a part of the “Atoms for Peace” program following World War II. Shippingport was the first commercial, central electric-generation station in the United States that utilized nuclear energy. The plant was designed by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation, who worked in conjunction with the Division of Naval Reactors of the Atomic Energy Commission. Power first originated from the Shippingport station on December 18, 1957, providing energy to the Pittsburgh metropolitan area. Twenty years later it became home to the United States’ first light water breeder reactor. The station was jointly run by the Duquesne Light Company and the United States Department of Energy. In 1984 the United States government decommissioned the plant and began the process of dismantling the facility. In 1989 dismantling of the plant was completed, making the Shippingport Atomic Power Station the first nuclear plant to be decommissioned and dismantled.

Bob Ciminel posted
In 1970, I began my career in commercial nuclear power at the Shippingport Atomic Power Station at the bottom of the photo. Beaver Valley Unit 1 and the Bruce Mansfield plant were both under construction. I transferred to Beaver Valley in 1974 and spent the next three years putting it into operation. This photo was taken in 1976. Both Beaver Valley Unit 1 and Bruce Mansfield were operating and the reactor containment excavation for Beaver Valley Unit 2 is being dug.
Don Conner: I worked at the Mansfield Plant from 1974 to 1987. I remember the old nuclear plant. When the excavation began for the old nuclear plant an almost complete Mammoth skeleton was found. It was eventually sent to a museum. Smithsonian I believe.
Bob Ciminel: Don Conner I remember that being an urban legend at SAPS.
Don Conner: Bob Ciminel I seen the tusks at a local home before they were crated and shipped.
Neil Mor: I worked at the Shippingport Atomic Power Plant from 1980-1984 and Beaver Valley from 1984 to 2017. Good plants. BV 1&2 were uprated around 2007. They went from 888 to 1000 mwe and their operating licenses were extended 20 years.
[There are several more interesting comments about the history of Shppingport Atomic Power Station.]

The Beaver Valley Nuclear Plant avoids 12t of CO2 every year. [power-technology]

Like some of the nuclear plants in Illinois, state politics has helped to keep this plant running. [StateImpact] (I wonder if the power company also used bribes like ComEd did.)

Adam Horniak posted, cropped, 2019
This is "Power Alley" in Shippingport PA. The lower plant, (three cooling towers) is Bruce Mansfield coal power station and the two upper cooling towers are Beaver Valley Nuke Power Station. Since this picture was taken, the Bruce Mansfield plant has been shut down. I worked at Beaver Valley for over 30 years. This picture was taken by me as we were on approach to Pittsburgh Airport in a Southwest Jet. That is the Ohio River...
Joseph Hallstrom: Don't forget the original Shippingsport Nuclear plant - the 1st in the USA. It was next door to Beaver Valley.

It is interesting that different sources specify different megawatt capacities.

"Unit 1: 913.7 MW (1976), Unit 2: 913.7 MW (1977), Unit 3: 913.7 MW (1980)" It was supercritical and burned bituminous coal. Units 1 & 2 were retired in Feb 2019. Unit 3 was deactivated in Nov 2019. The plant was idled in Feb 2016 "due to the low prices for electricity." [gem] I'm reminded that Pennsylvania is one of the areas in the US that had big shale formations that now produce lots of natural gas because of fracking.

Richard Smith posted
Circa 1982 D. Bruce Mansfield plant.
Photo was taken for the grand opening and tour after unit three came on line.

Comments on Richard's post

Ron Franko posted three photos with the comment: "Bruce Mansfield Power Plant taken 8/12/22"

[From some comments: the stacks are 950' and 650'. The cooling towers are 500'.]

Bill Salm: Wow! 2500 megs. Incredible.

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Dana Rukse posted seven photos with the comment: "A few from the Bruce Mansfield Plant."

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Kirk James Watson Sr. posted two phots with the comment: "Bruce Mansfield and Beaver Valley power stations back in 2010 when all 5 units were cooking. They say the heat from those two plants used to influence the local weather patterns."

[There are several comments about the plant affecting the local weather including the generation of snow from the cooling towers.]

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Wayne Karberg posted
Bruce Mansfield Unit #3 (950MW GE S2 Turbine) just before "stacking iron". The longest shaft length GE ever made. I was the turbine generator erector for this unit. A great place to work! In Crossview Stereo.
Chris Austin: Looks similar to Homer City unit #3.
[There are some interesting comments about operating and tripping off line.]

Charlie Anthony posted
I so want to crack open a corona with a beach chair and umbrella. Hedge rows of FGD gypsum.
Mike Stover: And people in America have no idea why American homes have been built with drywall since the 70s or where the drywall comes from. The Bruce Mansfield plant in Western PA has a conveyor belt that runs from the scrubbers out from the plant, under a road, and into a drywall factory.
[Gypsum is a byproduct of scrubbers that use pre-ground limestone. So when they shutdown the power plant, they also shutdown a drywall factory.]
Charlie Anthony: Mike Stover all for costly environmental compliance. None of it pays for itself. The slurry is harsh on our warman pumps. I manage the FGD system.
Mike Stover: Look up "Baby Blue" lake in South West PA. First Energy pumps the slurry from Bruce Mansfield, down the Ohio River several miles then up over the mountain to a lake created by the largest earthen dam in America. Kinda cool but the lake has no fish and there are no bugs or life anywhere near it. Gets really creepy quiet at night. [I think he means Little blue Run Lake.]
Robert Kish: Bruce Mansfield Plant is shut down at this time Little Blue Run is being capped.

Wayne Karberg posted
Tops-Off alignment of the original HP turbine section, Bruce Mansfield U3.  Circa 1979, In crossview stereo.  If you look close, you can see the tightwire strung through the centerline.  A real tripping hazard if there ever was one!
You can screenshot the picture, then switch it for parallel view (for a typical viewer) if you download Stereophotomaker freeware (google it), open it with that software, and click the red-blue arrow button at the top (windows only). You can also print stereo cards within that software, as well as a host of other stereo editing. BTW, this was photographed with film. Or, you can just go here for a tutorial to view it in 3D as-is, WITHOUT a viewer. https://www.studio3d.com/pages2/freeview.html

The chain hoists in the rigging are interesting. I presume that allows them to lower the different corners to get a better mating with the foundation.

Wayne Karberg posted
Setting the (middle) standard. Bruce Mansfield Unit #3 turbine, Circa 1979. In crossview stereo.

Some videos of the Jan 10, 2018 fire in Units 1 and 2.

Thomas Gray: Unit 3 was off, unit 2 wasn’t, unit 1 was coming off. We only had one cranker When unit 1 came off and the auxiliaries were switched the other cranked tripped , black out! Unit 2 tripped and scrubber inlets didn’t close so all of the heat from both boilers went straight up the flues.

Ron R Pytash: The fires in both units were caused by heat transferring from the boilers to the Scrubbers and stack liners which were flake glass and highly flammable. The fans and scrubber pumps normally for cooling when a boiler trips were not available because 1 cranker had been out of service needing repair. As one of the units was being taken off line #2 cranker tripped causing a loss of power to the unit that was being taken off hence no fans for cooling and no scrubber pumps to cool the gas flow from the boiler. The loss of the #2 cranker which was powering the air compressors caused a lose of air to the remaining unit, the units have to have air to operate so that unit tripped with no power to operate fans and scrubber pumps for cooling the flue gas. Unit 3 was having an outage which saved it. Operators did all they could do but with no electricity not much could be done.

[Some of the comments discuss deaths that have happened at the plant including two workers killed.]

Comments on videos post

Bruce Mansfield had one of the more impressive toxic waste lists that I have seen.

• Arsenic Waste: 119,711 pounds
  • Air Release: 2,211 pounds
  • Land Release (surface impoundment): 117,500 pounds
• Chromium Waste: 186,050 pounds
  • Air Release: 2,400 pounds
  • Water Release (Ohio River): 250 pounds
  • Land Release (landfill): 183,400 pounds
• Dioxin Waste: 3.66 grams
  • Air Release: 3.66 grams
• Lead Waste: 106,234 pounds
  • Air Release: 2,010 pounds
  • Water Release (Ohio River): 224 pounds
  • Land Release (landfill): 104,000 pounds
• Mercury Waste: 1,425 pounds
  • Air Release: 185 pounds
  • Land Release (landfill): 1,240 pounds
• Nickel Waste: 149,555 pounds
  • Air Release: 2,305 pounds
  • Water Release (Ohio River): 250 pounds
  • Land Release (landfill): 147,000 pounds
• Selenium Waste: 43,876 pounds
  • Air Release: 5,006 pounds
  • Water Release (Ohio River): 250 pounds
  • Land Release (landfill): 38,620 pounds

[gem]

Chris Austin posted
Beaver Valley . 2012 I was on the Generator/ Exciter crew. Photo of exciter before the doghouse was back over it.

Bob Ciminel posted
Initial core load at Shippingport Atomic Power Station, 1953. I did rad surveys in that building in 1970.
Ralph Zupo: My beginning in the nuclear industry. 1982-1984 as a Defueling Shift Supervisor, shutdown and decommissioning. A unique expierence.
[The comments include several former employees talking about working there.]

This photo has been moved to "Shippingport, PA: 1957-1982  The World's First Full-Scale Nuclear Power Plant."

This photo has been moved to "Shippingport, PA: 1957-1982  The World's First Full-Scale Nuclear Power Plant."

 

This photo has been moved to "Shippingport, PA: 1957-1982  The World's First Full-Scale Nuclear Power Plant."

 

Quebec City, QC: Chantier Davie Canada Shipbuilding

(3D Satellite)

It looks like they were working on a military ship and a smaller boat when this satellite passed overhead.

3D Satellite

1 of 5 photos posted by Simon Provencher
Louis S St Laurent in dry dock at Chantier Davie Canada Inc., Lévis Québec 
Photo took last Sunday [Apr 24, 2022]
It’s the biggest Canadian icebreaker
[A comment explained that the lines on the side of the ship will hold a temporary roof for a paint job. It protects the paint from the sun and rain. ]

idir arezki, Aug 2018

idir arezki, Aug 2018

Sylvain Cayer, Nov 2020