21-03-26 PHOTOS: Hudson Line Cleanup

For many years I have been taking trips to the New York Capitol Region around Albany as I have good friends that either went to school there or have family there. Typically I would take Amtrak's Empire Service to and from as I would have access to a vehicle at the far end to carry out the various cultural and outdoor activities that we had planned. However in recent years this vehicle access went away and while a rental filled the gap in 2019 and 2020, the COVID pandemic in the spring of 2021 made rail travel somewhat less attractive and my friend and I decided to drive up instead. The silver lining was that I would be able to visit a couple of signal locations on Amtrak's Hudson Line that were in danger of replacement by the creeping re-signaling project, specifically ones I had missed on my two previous Hudson Line signal documentation trips based out of Westchester country. You can find the full set of these photos here ( mirror ).

As all of the signaling worth seeing is north of Poughkeepsie, I would take the Thurway to US 44 and cross the Hudson via the Mid-Hudson Bridge. Of course this would require a stop at the Walkway Over The Hudson and despite the rather meh weather, I managed to score a photo of an northbound train of autoracks on the former Conrail River Line hauled by a single CSX AC4400, #474.

The fact that a single unit can manage such a long train belies the relative low weight density of motor vehicles compared to other freight.

The Hudson Valley Rail Trail, running over the old Bridge Line to Maybrook Yard, has parked an ex-PRR N5 caboose at the west end of the Hudson Walkway, despite the fact that the line was a major New Haven route.

North of the Amtrak/Metro North division post at CP-75 in Poughkeepsie, traditional New Yok Central / Conrail signaling is still in service with many classic signal bridges over what used to be a 4-track right of way. The Milepost 83 automatic signal is co-located with the Conrail, Staatsburg, New York defect detector and a grade crossing. Linespeed here is 95mph, but in the pre-PTC days it was not uncommon for engineers to get a little bit more with the fastest speed I observed on the detector readout being 103mph.

I was on hand for the appearance of a northbound Empire Service train led by Amtrak P32AC-DM #706.

21-03-21 PHOTOS: BROWN Berlin

Rebuilt in 1934 to help join the former PRR and Reading networks in South Jersey after the PRSL merger, BROWN interlocking was located at the crossing of the former Reading owned Atlantic City Railroad and the PRR owned West Jersey and Seashore Railroad main lines in Camden, NJ. Controlled by BROWN tower until the 1980's, the interlocking was drastically simplified under Conrail, although the PRR style position light signals remained until 2002. Even with Conrail signals in place, increases in South Jersey freight traffic brought about a second re-building with new signals and a new interlocked connection to the former Reading Bulson St yard around 2018.

The area can be generously described as rough, but it is an interesting location when one is lucky enough to catch a train, which I was not. Unfortunately the southbound PRR signal bridge was removed about 15 years ago, but the footings can be seen behind the southbound mast signals.

The Berlin, NJ train station was built for the PRR controlled Camden and Atlantic in 1856 and served as a stop on later PRSL and NJDoT train services to Atlantic City until 1983. Today the station building houses a historical society.

When When NJT restored Atlantic City Line service, the old Berlin station stop was moved to a large Park-and-Ride facility about a mile south of town in the town of Atco. Unfortunately the expected Park-n-Ride traffic never emerged and lightly used trains, like this southbound with Comet V cab car #6050 and GP40PH-2B #4215, now pass by the Berlin station without stopping.

Originally a high speed double track main line, the the NJT ACL was restored as a single track line with a number of short, 1 mile passing sidings. The Lucas siding is one of two between Winslow Jct and Lindenwold and show off the very rural nature of the line despite being only about 15 miles from Center City Philadelphia.

Despite NJT's best efforts to discourage such actions, use of the railroad right of way for personal wheeled transport is pretty common.

With protracted Covid headways I had plenty of time to set up for and catch the next northbound train with NJT GP40PH-2B #4209 and Comet V cab car #6008

21-03-11 PHOTOS: Tennessee Pass Line

Punching a rail lone through the Rockies is no easy feat. Today the preferred route is going around the mountains via the Union Pacific Main Line over Sherman Hill or the BNSF routes further north or south. If one absolutely has to go through the Rockies, the Moffat Tunnel route exists for trains traveling west of Denver. However the Moffat tunnel was completed in 1927 so what did one do before that? Well the original route through the Rockies was via the Arkansas River valley and the Tennessee pass. I have previously covered both the Moffat Tunnel and the Tennessee Pass in a previous post, but today I will take a closer look at the Tennessee Pass line on its eastern approach to the summit and what it's been up to since Union Pacific suspended service in 1997. Also included are photos off the San Luis and Rio Grande Railroad yard in Alamosa, CO before its collection of passenger were auctioned off in bankruptcy in 2021. The full set of photos can be located here ( mirror ).

Like I said in the intro, the Tennessee Pass like has been out of service since 1997 after Union Pacific saw no need for a second route between Denver and Salt Lake City. Previously the line had belonged to the Denver Rio Grande and Western, a corporate entity that also owned Southern Pacific. Union Pacific had envied a takeover of SP due to SPs ownership of the Oakland Container terminal and had gone as far to use some underhanded tactics to block the ATSF merger of the 1980s TLDR, the Rio Grand route across Colorado was an afterthought for UP and the Tennessee Pass line was removed from service, but not abandoned because it could serve as an emergency backup in case the Moffat Tunnel suffered a catastrophic failure.

Today the Tennessee Pass line is a railroad preserved in amber. Not only is it protected against re-signaling protects or PTC, but the arid mountain climate literally protects the infrastructure from rot and corrosion. Everything was left in place from the rails to the signals to the interlocking appliances. Here we see the signals at the west end of the Nathrop siding and an example of why The West is such an amazing place.

The relay hut was unsecured and although scrappers had hit the coils and the wire, the relays themselves were piled, unbroken, in a corner.

The Arkansas River defined the Rio Grand's first assault on the Rockies. The biggest problem is that trains can only access this route from Pueblo, 120 miles south of Denver.

It seems these days I can't do any railfanning without spotting a bald eagle. The bald eagle population has quadrupled since 2009.

Being into infrastructure renders "out of service" meaningless. East end of the Nathrop siding.

Don't let the Vader hoods fool you. These signals are old school GRS Type D's, not Safetran CLS-20s seen here at the east end of the Brown Canyon siding.

In the age before radio readouts, detect detectors had to use wayside indicators like this blue strobe light at the Milepost 2218 intermediate signals,.

The line was also a superb reservoir of General Railway Signal Model 5D point machines. The 5D can be differentiated from the later 5H by the presence of a braking clutch box on the motor.

Salida, Colorado is one of the larger communities on the Tennessee Pass. The town celebrates its heritage with a large white S on an adjacent mountain in addition to a former DRGW caboose. Salida was the base for most of the DRG&W's narrow Gauge operations that served small mining communities throughout the Colorado Rockies.