23-10-21 PHOTOS: Lancaster Distants

With Amtrak's proposal to remove the wayside distant signals on the Harrisburg Line west of Parkesburg, I once again found myself driving around Amish country to properly document things before the ax falls. Specifically I visited three locations west of Lancaster, one in the small community of Florin. Unfortunately actually getting photos of trains did not seem to be in the cards so I proceeded on to HARRIS tower to fill out the content portfolio. You can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).

The only Amtrak train I managed to catch out on the Main Line that day was an eastbound Keystone led by ACS-86 #616, seen here passing the milepost 70.8 intermediate signal. I was unfortunately not quick enough to get into a good position for the photo.

When Amtrak re-signaled the western end of the Harrisburg Line in the middle of the 2000's, it implemented cab signals without fixed wayside signals except on approach to interlockings. This was to support the case of speeding up traffic in the case of cab signal failure. Due to the presence of LITITZ interlocking on track #2 west of CORK interlocking in downtown Lancaster, the eastbound approach signals are offset by about a mile. Signal 708 here has a lower head to support diverging movements at CORK. For reasons unknown many of these wayside signals no longer display an Approach indication, changing from Stop and Proceed to Clear.

The track #2 signal, #718, is just visible about a mile down the tracks.

The #708 signal location is adjacent to a surprisingly intact Pier 1 Imports store. The chain closed down for good in October 2020.

Meanwhile, the #718 signal is located near the now closed Rohrerstown Rd grade crossing.

This was previously the location of the first automatic block signal location west of Lancaster, the mounts for which are still attached to the overhead catenary poles.

The Milepost 81.5 signals are the westbound distants to RHEEMS interlocking, which replaced the old FLORIN temporary block station and hand throw crossover.

These are also offset a bit due to the placement of a hand throw industrial siding. The western part of the Harrisburg Line has a robust amount of on line customers.

HARRIS tower is never lacking in rail traffic and shortly after I arrived I caught C40-10W #7563 and AC44C6M #4386 leading an eastbound intermodal train.

This was followed by a westbound trailer train with three units on the head end, C44-9W #9898 and AC44C6M's #4388 and #4092.

My first EMD unit for the day was SD70ACe #1206 running ahead of AC44C6M #4576 on a westbound stack train.

A following westbound manifest run with fairly new AC44C6M #4513 and not at all new C44-9W #9828 stopped short of CP-HARRIS and conducted a crew change. AC44C6M #4258 was providing some help at the end as distributed power.

Zooming in towards the station track I caught PRR GG1 #4859 sitting next to Veterans ACS-86 #642.

NS C44-9W #9918 and AC44C6M #4355 running lite to the Harrisburg fuel pad from Rutherford Yard.

While I was too late for westbound Pennsylvanian Train 43's arrival, I was able to catch Train 42 with P42DC #129 leading.

Final train of the day was an eastbound manifest with ES44AC #8013 and SD70ACe #1232.

That's all for now. Next time I'll be heading to Grand Central Madison via Freeport, Long Island.

23-10-16 PHOTOS: Exton

SEPTA's Exton Station on the R5 Thorndale portion of the old PRR Main Line is arguably the most important station west of Paoli. The station is served by both SEPTA and Amtrak, and was recently upgraded with high level platforms and a new station building. With service steadily expanding in the 21st century and a vintage PRR signal location adjacent to the parking lot I made the effort to stop by in the fall of 2023 where I generated this set of photos ( mirror ), which also includes a bunch of Baltimore area MARC and light rail photos.

New rebuilt Exton station features two high level platforms and a station building with a waiting area and rest rooms. The new amenities opened in 2018 replacing low level platforms with a mini-high for ADA access. For years crews on the line used the concept of time consuming ADA process at Exton to cover up for small delays that may have been their own fault. The magnitude of ADA-linked delays may have actually accelerated the high level platform project.

The parking lot serving the westbound platform is sandwiched between the PRR Main Line proper and the Low Grade Extension of the Trenton Cutoff that was built around 1906 to extend the alternate freight route from the original junction at Glendale to Thorndale. This extension was abandoned around 1980 as Conrail discontinued electric operation and through freight left The Main Line, however its impressive right of way is still intact.

To the west one can see the famous Whitford Flyover where the Low Grade Extension crosses the Main Line. The SEPTA Whitford Station is located under the flyover and due to its close proximity to Exton and much less parking it sees substantially less ridership. The 1981 construction of Exton was also instrumental in the demise of R3 service to West Chester. With 635 parking spaces, the city of West Chester fell within the new station's driving catchment and offered travel time to Philly that was 30-60 minutes faster than old curvy R3 with its many stops and 40mph top speed. To this day the presence of Exton is the largest barrier to SEPTA West Chester service restoration.

In the western direction one finds the Milepost 27 intermediate signal location looking towards Paoli. At Exton, the center track #2 is only used by the daily regional freight to Coatsville and a few SEPTA deadheads running in to the rear of the SEPTA yard and Frazer.

A westbound R5 Thorndale arrives at Exton. The station has seen a roller coaster of service patterns over the last 30 years. In 1990 most SEPTA service ended at Paoli with some continuing to Parkesburg, supplementing Amtrak Keystone service that also served all the stations west of Paoli. In 1996 SEPTA cut back service to Downingtown, but also moved its yard to Frazer, making Malvern the final stop of regular "Paoli" trains. At this point Amtrak dropped service to Whitford and Malvern. In 1999 the R5 was extended to its current terminus at Thorndale.

There wasn't much train traffic while I was getting my signal photos, but I did spot this Red Tailed Hawk scanning for prey.

Jumping back down to Baltimore, hI caught CSX ET44AC #3252 and #3262 along with AC4400 #237 between them stopped short of the Hollins Ferry Road crossing. A special "Crossing Indicator" signal informs the crew that a route is lined through Zepps Bridge to avoid blocking the crossing.

 

23-10-07 PHOTOS: Ohio 251

Starting in 2021 I initiated a side quest to get photos of all of the PRR Position Lights on the lower end of the Cleveland Line between Rochester, PA and Yellow Creek, OH. This line provides an alternate routing between Alliance, OH and Conway Yard and was cobbled together from a mash up of older PRR lines with a majority of the miles being unsignaled territory. However the eastern portion was once the PRR's double track line down the Ohio River and because dangerous through cargo can be sent via the primary Fort Wayne Line, the eastern Cleveland Line is PTC exempt. This means that it's single direction ABS position lit signaling system has survived largely intact. In October 2023 I completed my mission to document all of the vintage signals and once against stopped off at Conway Yard to get some train content for the people who like that. The full set of photos can be found here ( mirror ).

The first stop was in Wellsville, OH, 22 miles from the start of the Cleveland Line at CP-ROCHESTER. The westbound color light mast was installed when CP-YELLOW CREEK was re-signaled.

The second stop was at milepost 19 in East Liverpool, OH where one can get a sense of the priority NS gives this line as some of the rail dated from the 1940's.

The third and final location was at milepost 16 in the town of East End where I saw this little guy enjoying the morning sun.

Heading back past Conway Yard I passed by NS GP33ECO #6726 with road slug #659 near CP-FREEDOM.

Also working the west end of the yard was a sibling set with #6730 and slug #660.

Towards the middle of the yard was GP40-2 #3055 and road slug #751.

There was all sorts of neat stuff in the power storage track near the shoppe complex. This included SD70M-2 #2776, C44-9W #9738, SD70ACU #7269 along with GP40-2 #3056, SD40E #6334, high hood GP38-2 #5244 and one of 5 GP59ECO's #4655.

Upon reaching the EAST CONWAY overlook, I was just in time to catch a full length manifest train shoving westbound into one of the Conway Yard receiving tracks. Power on the opposite end consisted of NS AC44C6M #4231 and ES44AC #8160.