Farmrail's Quartz Mountain Flyer

Hi everyone!  Sorry for the lack of blog posts, but Army life has been as busy as ever since we re-deployed from Korea.  I'm the executive officer for our headquarters company now, and earned my Expert Infantryman Badge back in May!

In August, my wife and I went up to southwest Oklahoma to ride The Quartz Mountain Flyer.  The Quartz Mountain Flyer is an excursion operated by Farmrail for the city of Lone Wolf, OK.  It operates on the "Orient Line."  We boarded near the Quartz Mountain Resort (At the intersection of Highway 44 and 44A) and took a nice ride on a beautiful and unusually cool and cloudy day for August.  This trip really was a treat, and I can't recommend it enough.  Here's some photos and a YouTube video from my channel:

When we got to Altus, OK the night before the trip, there wasn't much
going around the yard.  This GNBC locomotive was tied down on the
south end of the yard.

There were a couple long cuts of tank cars stored in the
Wichita, Tillman & Jackson RR yard.  From what I've heard,
there has been little traffic on that line lately.

The Farmrail crew readies GP10 GNBC 8251, which was trailing behind for the
northbound portion of the trip to Lone Wolf, OK.  

GNBC 8253 was the lead locomotive for the first leg of the trip

There is an old Cotton Belt boxcar being used for storage at Lone Wolf

Looking north down Farmrail's "Orient Line." This line doesn't get much
use, but by the looks of the pile of grain (or feed) on the tracks, there
must be some sort of traffic from time to time.

Hanging out in the vestibule on the trip back south as we
pass through the Quartz Mountains along the shore of
Lake Altus-Lugert

Posing in front of GNBC 8253 at Lone Wolf

A shot at the back of GNBC 8253 as we climbed back on for the trip south

After we got off the train near Quartz Mountain Park, I asked the engineer
if he was taking the train back to Altus.  It turned out, he was, and I was able to
chase it and get some great photos!