19-06-30 PHOTOS: CALN

On the former Pennsylvania Railroad Main Line between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Thorndale was the western end of the Philadelphia and Trenton low-grade freight route and a helper base where steam and electric helpers were attached to help westbound freights get up and over the hill at Gap, PA.  As part of the 1937 electrification project, a new interlocking plant and tower, THORN, was constructed at Thorndale which also controlled a number of remote interlockings with the western most located about 2 miles away at a location called CALN.  This served as the western end of the Thorndale yard, but as freight traffic moved off the old PRR Main Line the interlocking was simplified until it was serving mostly MoW moves and, after 1999, the occasional jump around of a SEPTA train stopped at the new Thorndale Station. 

Around 2019 there were rumblings that the slow Harrisburg Line rebuilding effort was finally going to move east from Parkesburg so I headed out to get some photos of the classic layout as well as some new photos of THORN which can all be found here. 

While the current state of CALN is pretty bare with the interlocking only in service on tracks 1, 2 and 5, the 1937 vintage overhead wires show the true history of the layout.

The westbound signal bridge also has a number of ghost signals with the old track 4 signal being converted to an automatic. 

I had arrived in time to catch an eastbound Keystone train with Metroliner Cab Car #9644 in the lead and  ACS-86 #670 pushing.

CALN's current claim to fame is a vintage Penn Central interlocking signal. 

THORN tower is located directly behind a small strip mall on US 30 and is still in service as a manned interlocking tower as of 2019.

Despite all manner of abandonments and simplifications, THORN still supports a 6 track full crossover and has a beefy pneumatic plant to power all of the vintage point machines. 

THORN is an example of the last style of PRR tower, all brick with no bay windows.

Today the Thorndale SEPTA station is the terminus of the busy R5 line out of Philadelphia.  Standard practice is for westbound trains to cross over all 6 tracks to stop at the single high level platform on track #1.   Here we see an R5 Thorndale train of Silverliner IVs led by SEPTA #124.

As Keystone trains run on a fairly infrequent headway, most mid-day and weekend Thorndale trains lay over for about 20 minutes before heading back to Center City.  Here we can see Silverliner IV #397 doing the honor. 

When a SEPTA local isn't blocking track #1, Keystone trains are free to speed through at 90mph.  Here we somehow see Amtrak ACS-86 #670 again leading an eastbound Keystone trainset with Metroliner cab car #9645 on the rear end. 

19-06-15 PHOTOS: PATCO Shoppe Tour

In June 2019 I finally got in on a PATCO shoppe tour.  Typically organized by my local West Jersey NRHS chapter, these tours have been happening with some degree of regularity for years, but despite having been a PATCO rider since age 3, I had never had an opportunity to get in on one until this point.  In fact, I had actually gotten in on a Baltimore transit shop tour before  managed to get in on a PATCO one.  You can find all of the PATCO Shoppe tour photos here (mirror) and I encourage you to look at them as I am only going to be posting a small sample here. 

The group met in the parking lot.  It was a pretty good turnout, which is not surprising given the type of event.

First stop on the tour was the axle press that separates or joins various axle components including wheels, bearings and gearboxes.

Next stop was the machine shoppe area with the typical slate of drill presses, lathes and band saws.

 PATCO's wheel truing machine is an older style that requires the trucks to removed and placed onto the machine with a crane.  Newer wheel machines can work on trucks that are still under the vehicle. The machine grinds down worn wheels to restore the profile and remove flat spots.

Speaking of trucks, PATCO is one of two remaining users of the Pioneer III truck, the other being Amtrak with the Amfleet series.  The P-III was designed by the Budd company as a lightweight  truck that would derail less on bad track.  It was available in both powered and unpowered variants and was previously installed on the SEPTA Silverliner II and MTA M1s.

The truck frames some in two halves and as you can see they are very simple affairs. 

 

 These gearboxes are connected to the truck and transmit power from the motors to the axles.

Here we see spare axle and gearbox assemblies ready to be connected to a truck.

PATCO uses GE 1255 A3 motors rated for 140 HP at 650/325 volts DC and 4600 RPM.

 Two motors are mounted on each truck for a total of 560hp/car.

Finally the truck is mated to the car via this bolster, which I think uses an air bag suspension system and creates the soft bouncy ride.

19-06-08 PHOTOS: Balt-Wash

A number of my larger photo sets have a few Baltimore/Washington area photos scattered in so I am going to just consolidate them into a single post here.  In June of 2019 I had a number of events take place around DC which resulted in MARC, Amtrak and DC Metro photos including an extended stint at the Metro's New York Ave station.  You can find most of the photos at the bottom of the PATCO Shoppe Tour photo set here.

First up is the Amtrak BWI Airport Rail Station seen here in the midst of a rebuilding effort that was replacing the brutalist concrete facade with hopefully non-flammable architectural panels.  Opening was still a number of weeks away, but even incomplete the improvement is marked.

My goal was to get to Washington, DC and my mode was a MARC train of Bombardier split levels with cab car #8046 in the lead.

 Transferring to the METRO at Union Station I grabbed a photo of an outboud train of 6k cars including #6087.

After a day of moving and shaking I was back on the Metro at Gallery place where it was mothing but 7k cars on the Red Line.

Traveling to New York Ave to kill time before my scheduled MARC train, I observed Amtrak ACS-86 #657 in MARC service pushing a trainset into Washington Union Station.

An outbound Metro 7k train  then showed up.

 Before I caught Amtrak ACS-86 #649 hanging out for a power change operation.

A few 6k cars were still roving around in the early evening. 

As I waited Brunswick Line MARC MP36PH-3C #16 and Bombardier cab car #8045 pass under K TOWER's J Bridge en-route to the CSX Metropolitan Sub.