Monday, April 23, 9:41 a.m. EDT
While looking for something else I found the following this weekend, in Delaware and Hudson In Color Volume 2 by Jeremy F. Plant and Jeffery G. Plant, published by Morning Sun Books:
On page 14 the location noted is Half Moon [NY]. A photo has this caption: "The massive construction in Albany during the Rockefeller years required large amounts of gravel to be transported to the city for the South Mall and I-787 projects. D&H contracted to haul gravel from a pit in Half Moon, between Mechanicville and Waterford on the Albany lien, in solid trains usually hauled by a pair of RS3s or RS11/36s. Jim Shaughnessy climbed high above the loading area to capture this shot of two RS3s waiting for their train to be loaded in August of 1970.
The locos, in the blue, gray and yellow lighting stripe livery, are coupled at the front of train, which includes at least black 30 hopper cars, extending around an S curve with the other end out of sight. Norfolk & Western's initials are visible on the first four cars. The first 12 or so cars have been loaded, evidently by a what appears to be a front-end loader on the outside of a sweeping curve. About 5/6 of what is visible is gravel and/or sand, with verdant woods to in the upper right and at the very top of the picture below a bit of blue sky with clouds. A typically great shot by Mr. Shaughnessy!
I still think there was an article on the arrangements made for these trains some time back in the BLHS Bulletin, but I simply haven't yet had time to make a systematic search for it in my nearly complete set of back issues of that publication. I probably won't be able to until I've finished my writing for its upcoming June and July issues, traveled by Amtrak to and from the reunion of the class of 1968 at Oberlin College in Ohio May 24-28, and finally finished a long-overdue updating of my D&H modeling bibliography.