18-10-01 PHOTOS: West Slope

The second day of my Fall 2018 PRR Main Line trip started at Altoona and would cover the West Slope between there and South Fork with stops at The Brickyard, Horseshoe Curve, Gallitzin, Cresson, Cassandra, Portage and Summerhill. All of these places are well known railfan hot spots and rail enthusiasm is even a local tourism industry with multiple beds and breakfasts and even a stretch of PA Route 53 signed as a railfan byway. At each of these locations I documented the endangered PRR style position light signals, but due to traffic levels on the main line I also caught a healthy mix of NS freight including four(!) "specialty" units and two rare instances of foreign power.

You can view all the 1300 or so photos here or here.

The day started at the railfan bridge over what used to be CP-SLOPE. The fog was pretty thick, which would limit infrastructure photos, but since this area had been re-signaled in 2012 there wasn't too much I personally was interested in. While most railfanning involves a lot of futile waiting or chasing down trains with the help of a scanner, the old PRR Main Line has sufficient traffic that even a brief stopover makes catching something likely. In this case an eastbound intermodal train rolled out of the fog led by NS C44-9W #9841 and UP SD70M #4500.

ALTO tower was still standing in downtown Altoona. Although owned by the nearby Railroader's Museum, the wooden structure is unoccupied at at a high risk for arson. 

From Altoona my friend and I drove about a mile up the line to a location known as Brickyard as it was at the site of an historic brickyard. Although the former PRR Position Light signal bridge was replaced by an NS style cantilever in 2012, it is still a popular location due to a grade crossing and a defect detector. We were just in time to catch an eastbound merchandise train descending the East Slope on track #1 and in an amazing feat of good luck, the NS SD70ACe "Barcode" unit #1111 was first under the signal, followed by a significantly less interesting Tier IV ES44AC #3612.

On the rear of the long train were two SD40E (former SD50) helper packs, with two units each, NS #6324, #6329, #6302 and #6327.

The fog lifted on the uphill drive west to the famed Horseshoe Curve where I grabbed this obligatory photo of PRR GP9 #7048 that is on display at the park there. 

Although Pittsburgh Line traffic does come in waves, I was not to be disappointed as a westbound doublestack train soon appeared headed by NS Wabash SD70Ace heritage unit #1070 with mechanically heritage C40-8W #8350 running behind.

Assisting from behind was a sibling pair of SD40E helpers #6331 and #6330.

About 5 minutes later an eastbound oil train descended the grade on track #1 with Central of Georgia heritage unit ES44AC #8101 followed by sister NS ES44AC #8106.

Helpers on the oil train were NS SD40E's #6321 and #6303 and while they passed a second, westbound, oil train was making its ascent on the far track. 

Eager to get going on the day's signal stops I headed down from the curve just in time to miss eastbound Amtrak Pennsylvanian Train 42 led by P42DC #122.

After that it was on to Gallitzin for some cheanup shots at AR tower. 

Heading over to the western Allegheny Tunnel portal and Summit of the PRR railfan park, I caught an NS shoulder ballast cleaner working on track #2.

The cleaner would scoop up track ballast outside the tie gauge with a giant wheel, run it over a shake grate to separate out the smaller bits of material and dirt, before depositing the cleaned ballast pretty much right where it was picked up.





Next stop was the Milepost 249 automatic. where I caught an eastbound doublestack train on track #3 led by NS C44-9W #9358 and SD70M #2646.

After getting a tip from Twitter, I headed over to Cresson, PA where I managed to catch my THIRD heritage unit of the morning, OG NS ES44AC #8114 along with "regular NS C44-9W #9204, before grabbing lunch at CP-VITO's.

While waiting for my calzone an eastbound TOFC intermodal rolled by with Ns SD70ACe #1075 and SD70ACU #7288 with a bunch of Amazon' trailers in the consist.

The scrap yard north of Cresson was filled with old SD90MAC cabs (surplus after the SD70ACU conversion) and old NS standard cab C40-8's.

The Cassandra Railfan Overlook is a thing, but all we saw there was some MoW tree trimming before moving on to the Jamestown Road signals.

At the Milepost 257 eastbound automatic signals I caught doublestack train heading east on #2 track led by NS SD70ACe #1106 and ES44AC #8167.

These two signals are mounted on a public road bridge in arm's reach of the deck.

Moving on to the MP 258 automatics at Portage, I caught a westbound commodity train led by AC44C6M rebuild #4139 and ES44AC #8147 with a road slug combo running behind featuring GP40-2 #3011 and RP4C slug #754.

Helping on the rear with the descent was s set of SD40E's consisting of #6324 and #6329.

Shortly there after i caught SD40E's #6330 and #6331 returning lite eastbound after completing their mission of getting the Wabash led double stack train over the Allegheny front.

The last position lit automatic signal location on the West Slope is at Milepost 263 in Summerhill, PA. These signals are notable for the modification made in the eastbound direction when the Main Street crossing was eliminated in favor of a bridge, blocking the old sight lines.

While on the bridge I managed to catch a May-December lashup with a fairly new NS ET44AC #3671 paired with an elderly CSX C40-8W #7826.

Colorful PROX tank car #75365.

Tail End Charlie passing under the Summerhill signal bridge.

We'll wrap up this descent of the West Slope with a quick photo of another SD40E helper pack drifting westward past CP-W with #6311 and #6309.

Next week we'll return with a trip to Conpit Junction and Latrobe, PA, home of Mr. Rodgers, Arnold Palmer and Rolling Rock Beer.