17-05-21 PHOTOS: Reading Line East

With the ongoing re-signaling project on the former Conrail Reading Line I have been making a point to document the old stuff before it is gone for good.  Last November I took a road trip to capture the western end of the line between CP-WEST LAUREL and CP-ALBURTIS.  Now it is time for the eastern end of the line comprising CP-ALBURTIS through CP-ALLEN and CP-HAM on the adjacent Lehigh Line for good measure. Located on the main east-west freight route out of the New York metro area there is no shortage of NS freight trains and the route is littered with so called railfan hotspots.

You can browse through all the photos taken on this trip here, but some of the less signal related highlights are below.

Allentown, PA was a huge hub for the Reading System and the associated Central RR of NJ.  Already a giant industrial center thanks to Bethlehem Steel and the nearby cement belt, Allentown marked the transfer point between the RDG and its subsidiary CNJ for traffic originating from the NY Metro area.  Both the CNJ and adjacent Lehigh Valley RR had large downtown passenger terminals on their own bypass tracks serving downtown Allentown.  After passenger operations collapsed the old stations were left stranded, but fortunately the old CNJ terminal has survived as a restaurant.

 CP-HAM is located on the former CNJ main line running north out of Allentown.  Back in the day the route between NYC and Scranton attracted new fewer than three rival railroads, the CNJ, Lehigh Valley and DL&W.  With the collapse of the coal based economy in the 1960's and 70's, Conrail reduced the operation to a single main line route.  The resulting Conrail Lehigh Line mostly used the the Lehigh Valley alignment (hence the name), but between Allentown and Lehighton, PA they switched over to the CNJ.  CP-HAM is the southern end of a controlled siding on the Lehigh Line as well as the western end of Allentown Yard.  The two headed searchlight signal is lit up due to the non-signaled yard track and displaying Approach to help flat switching movements.

Of course before the railroads there were canals.  The Lehigh Canal was one of many serving the coal region of PA.  At Easton the canal would transfer loads to the Morris Canal to NYC or the Delaware Canal to Trenton.

 NS has a fun habit of keeping its SD40-2 helper and switching sets in sibling pairs.  Here #6141 and #6140 flat switch at the west end of Allentown Yard, rounding the curve towards CP-HAM.  The units are set up for remote control operation, but were being run in the traditional fashion on this day.

Reading and Northern hopper car sporting a pretty nifty anthracite coal logo.  Previously popular for home heating, today anthracite is mostly used as a metallurgical source of carbon. 

Here a westbound manifest train works it way out of the yard and past the flat switching duo with C44-9W #9345 on the front.

Included in the consist was former Southern high hood GP38-2 #5019

 The full lashup consisted of C44-9W #9354 and 9609, ES44AC #8141, GP38-2 # 5019 and GP40-2 #3026. 

Here the train is crossing the famous CP-ALLEN truss bridge.  While typically a truss signifies a large span, in this case it was employed due to needing to allow clearance for canal traffic.  Today the former lock gate has been replaced by a concrete dam.

Some impressive graffiti  on a CSX box car crossing the Lehigh Canal.

Short video of the train crossing the Lehigh Canal with associated waterfall sounds.



So here was the crown jewel of my trip.  Conrail scale test car #80017.  The car is ex Pennsylvania Railroad PRR # 999953 and was built 1919!  Typically placed towards the end of a train this car is a known weight and is used around the system to calibrate weigh in motion and other scales. 

End of the merchandise train.  The scale test car is two from the rear.

Lit signals with replacements for eastbound movements at CP-ALLEN.  Most signals in the area were approach lit due to the reliance on batteries and unreliable railroad supplied electrical power.  From this point the Reading Line is operated under single direction Rule 251 ABS, thus the reverse direction dwarf signal.

Reading Company Lehigh River bridge.  The bridge was rebuilt in the 1930's, but the original stone abutments remain.

In an effort to improve diversify its market away from coal, the Reading and CNJ rebuilt Allentown Yard in the 1960's with a modern push-button hump operation.   The hump is interesting as it is built to the right of all the through tracks and also makes use of the natural geography of a hillside instead of an artificial mound of fill.  On station at the top of the hump is an NS road-slug set with Geep slug #736 paired with GP40-2 #3039 along with an additional GP-40-2 #3099.

Zoom, view looking westbound showing the hump, hump tower and CP-CANAL.

NS C44-9W #9862 leads an eastbound doublestack train through CP-BURN, just south of downtown Allentown.  The following units are NS SD70M-2 #2681 and C44-9W #9858.

CP-BURN is where trains can switch to/from a bypass track that takes trains south of the Allentown Yard complex and its slower speed trackage.  Because Allentown Yard is not an intermodal terminal, this train takes the switch onto the connecting track that will lead it to the Lehigh Line at CP-BETHLEHEM.  The connecting track was built by Conrail making it one of the few parts of the Conrail system not constructed by a predecessor railroad.    

Here is a video of the above movement.

Moving east now to the 12th St crossing we catch another eastbound intermodal train with SD70M-2 #2757 on point with C44-9W #9111 following behind elephant style.  The railroad actually runs diagonally across a road intersection!

 Video of the same train at the 12th St crossing.


A short while later a local freight sneaks into the parade of eastbounds on its way to Allentown Yard.  Lead unit was SD40-2 #6137 and behing that was GP-38-2 #5664.

Next stop was the E321 signal in Emmaus, PA.  This is located at the site of the old Emmaus Jct, where the Perkeomen Branch split off to Oaks, PA on the Reading main line. I got there just in time to catch SD60E #6952 passing by with a train of autoracks.

#6952 taking a Clear indication on the E321 automatic.

End of train passing the same signal.   A second later the approach lighting would kick in and deluminate the searchlight.

Unfortunately I would not be as lucky at the E262 automatic, missing a westbound light engine movement by just 30 seconds :-(  This signal, in Macungie, PA, is popular with railfans as it is located next to a VFW hall and event field.  There is also a railfan park about a quarter up the road in the downtown.

A local railfan was trying out his new drone in the nearby event field.

At CP-ALBURTIS a new westbound mast was in place on track 1, ready to replace the reverse direction dwarf signal when the Rule 261 is put in place.

Well that's it for this journey.  Next time we continue our look at canals with a trip out to the Paw Paw tunnel on the C&O Canal in Western Maryland.