
Drove down to Cumberland, MD, and rode the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad with Papa Raptor. He and I haven't done anything like that (gone on an "adventure" together, just the two of us) in years.
WMSR is... nice. The equipment is in decent shape but could use some sprucing up, as my picture indicates. I chalk that up to two things. Firstly, they're in the process of restoring a steam locomotive (C&O 1309, a 2-6-6-2 Mallet type), and the effort is now very much behind schedule and overbudget. Second, a landslide undermined a roughly 300-foot section of the roadbed last year, severely curtailing operations until earlier this year and costing over a million dollars for the railroad to repair. Also, I grew up riding the Strasburg Railroad in Lancaster County, PA, which is one of, if not the best historic tourist shortline railroad in the country, so I have a VERY high bar.
On the plus side, they have an active turntable in Frostburg (the other end of the line) and we got to watch them turn the diesel locomotive around. No pics of that, sadly, because I was shooting video that didn't turn out very well. That's what I get for trying to film with my phone and no tripod...