For my 2025 visit to New York Capital Region I turned my attention south of the city to Amtrak's Post Road Branch and the former Conrail Boston Line to revisit some infrastructure I had not kept up on for over 15 years. Unfortunately actual encounters with train movements was rather slim so I have included additional photos from SS72 DEVON junction on the New Haven Line plus some MARC Camden Line activity so I hope you all find this worth your while.
Albany can be considered the Harrisburg of the New York Central. A major hub located in an eastern state capitol that has to coordinate multiple flows of freight and passenger rail traffic. Located at the junction of the old New York and Hudson River, Mohawk and Hudson, Boston and Albany and West Shore Railroads this created quite a bottleneck in the downtown Albany area where all of these rail lines met. Operations were further complicated by a pair of swing span drawbridges and "stiff" (for the New York Central) grades on both sides of the Hudson Valley. All of these problems were solved by the 1924 Castleton Cutoff that provided a low grade freight route that completely bypassed Albany and Schenectady. The signature work of engineering was the high level Alfred H. Newman Smith bridge over the Hudson River Valley. The entire mile long bridge recently underwent a renovation that cleared the right of way, repaired the steel supports and re-pointed the concrete footings.
You can see some of the specific work that was carried out with replacement beams and gusset plates painted a lighter shade of brown and the new concrete also readily apparent. The new steel also used high strength bolts instead of hot rivets.
The Smith Bridge features two steel truss spans over the Hudson River navigation channels, one of 404 feet and the other 610 feet.
Despite the renovation work, CSX did not use the opportunity to demolish the old base of SM tower which stood at the eastern end of the bridge where the connecting track to the Hudson Line branched off. Today this branch typically sees a daily overnight freight round trip to and from New York City.
It was here I caught the sole freight train of the trip, the cars making a bit of noise as they pounded the frog on the #3 switch at CP-SM.
In recent years I have been using the Thanksgiving travel season to document more of the signaling on the Reading and Northern main line which now runs between Reading and Scranton on former Reading, CNJ and Lehigh Valley trackage. These trips provide me the chance to catch some action on the old PRR Main Line near Harrisburg as well as the RBMN's Scranton to Mach Chunk excursion service in the Poconos. 2024 was no different and I came away with ( mirror ) an informal train chase between CP-ROCKVILLE and CP-CANNON as well as RBMN photos at CP-LAUREL RUN.
My first goal was to catch Amtrak's westbound Pennsylvanian Train 43. Arriving at a highway overpass at the eastern end of CP-ROCKVILLE, I saw NS AC44C6M locomotives #4314 and #4256 moving slowly towards a Restricting signal indication ahead on track #2 of a manifest freight consist. A Clear signal on track #1 was presumably for the Pennsylvanian.
My assessment proved accurate when Train 43 arrived on the scene with P42DC #119 and pulled past the NS freight.
While I knew there was no way I could catch up with the Pennsylvanian, the NS freight was still moving at a crawl so I jumped in my car and hightailed it across the Susquehanna River to CP-BANKS.
Since it was still moving pretty slowly I figured I could get ahead of it again at the old Cove, PA signal location. Sure enough when I got there I saw an approaching headlight, but to my surprise instead of the pair of AC44C6M's and trash cubes, I saw NS SD70ACe #1149 and AC44C6M #4190 ahead of a different manifest freight on track #1. This train was likely running ahead of the one I had previously seen, which explained the Restricting signal indication, and then crossed over to Track #1 at CP-BANKS.
As it slowly moved passed, likely still on signals for Train 43 ahead of it, #4314 and #4256 appeared again, still on track #2 and making up ground on the train in track #1.
After spending something like $40 to get from Trenton to Long Branch and back earlier in the summer, when I heard that NJT was doing one of those free fare promotions around the Labour Day holiday I decided to pounce and take a trip up the NEC to get some photos at the Edison and Metutchen Stations. Both offer great NEC views along with position light signals and, in the case of Metutchen, the old LINCOLN interlocking tower. Also included in the photo set ( mirror ) are some pitches in and around the Trenton station.
To make NJT truly free I parked at the Bordentown RiverLINE station to avoid having to pay to park in the garage at Hamilton. Weekend scheduled have the LRV's passing just south of the station so I managed to catch #5313 heading south and #5306 heading north.
Because NJT hates creating reliable connections I had to book it from the RiverLINE to the Northeast Corridor platform to catch the NEC local. I typically relax and catch the express, but my plan was to move that layover to the Edison Station platform. As soon as I got off at Edison I spotted the Amtrak Acela Express trainset with power cars #2012 and #2013 approaching southbound and I got video of it passing my northbound NJT Northeast Corridor Line local with cab car #7048 and ALP-46 #4633. After departure, the local knocks down the 1N signal at EDISON interlocking to a Restricting indication.
EDISON interlocking provides access to the west end of the Edison Yard from NEC tracks #1 and #2. Back in the region's industrial heyday the yard was a hub for local shippers including a large Ford assembly plant. Most of these have since closed, but there is enough traffic to keep the infrastructure around. Unlike most interlockings, EDISON's limits extend nearly a mile between what would normally be automatic block signaling locations. Here we see a fox crossing over tracks 1 and 2 in EDISON interlocking.
Just before the NJT weekend express train arrived, I was able to witness a pretty epic race between southbound Keystone Train #663 on track #3 and Regional Train 153 on track #4. Train 663, hauled by ACS-86 #670, made up a 30 second deficit with Train 153, hauled by ACS-86 #663, eventually passing it just before the New Brunswick Station!
The weekend express was hauled by #4612 with cab car #7060 on the rear seen here at Edison and Metutchen respectively.
The Metutchen Station features PRR era station buildings with Penn Central era canopies.
A westbound NEC local was quick to arrive with cab car #7001 and ALP45 #4548, but I was going to take the hour long headway to explore the station area.
Crossing over to the westbound platform I caught an eastbound Keystone with Metroliner Cab Car #9638 and ACS-86 #632.
This was followed by eastbound Amtrak Acela Express with power car #2023 and #2025. I got a video passing through LINCOLN interlocking and the Metutchen NJ Transit station.
LINCOLN tower was built by the PRR around WW2 as part of a general trend to replace older wooden towers with mechanically worked switched. It was closed in the early 1990's, but still stands as an MoW office.
Here I caught a southbound Amtrak Regional with ACS-86 #621.
The Metutchen station platforms extend on bridges over Main St.
The arrival of another eastbound weekend express with ALP-46 #4652 and cab car #7002, indicates its almost time for my own train back to Trenton.
That train came in the form of a single level set with Comet V cab car #6039.
Fast forward to Trenton and my train, with ALP-46 #4659, pulled into Track #5 adjacent to a laid up SEPTA Push-Pull set with ACS-86 #912. For some reason I saw multiple ALP-46 number boards with stenciled digits.
I had a few minutes before the RiverLINE departure and while I was waiting an inbound SEPTA R7 pulled in from the storage tracks east of the station. The leading pair of Silverliners IV, #101 and #102, were the first of 44 pairs delivered to the Reading in early 1976.
While the SEPTA R7 pulled in, and eastbound Amtrak Keystone arrived across the platform with Metroliner Cab Car #9635.
While walking back to the concourse, southbound Amtrak Crescent Train 19 arrived behin ACS-86 #619.
Comet V #6039 again at Trenton track #5 and ALP-46 #4628 pulling in from Morrisville Yard.
My final travel leg of the day was RiverLINE the back to Bordentown using the same LRV that had taken me out to Trenton, #530.
That's all for my trip to Metutchen, if you'd like to learn about the super rare left handed PRR dwarf signal at LINCOLN you can read about it on my other blog.
When Amtrak re-signaled the Connecting Railway between ZOO and NORTH PHILADELPHIA interlockings around 2005, the short block distances resulted in a split signal arrangement with brand new 4-track gantries erected at Columbia Ave (eastbound) and Susquehanna Ave (westbound). The Milepost 86.8 signal bridge at Columbia Ave in particular was less than a half mile away from MANTUA interlocking's westbound signal bridge creating a high quality viewing location from the Oxford Ave road bridge that sat between the two signal locations. It was this area that I set out to explore ( mirror ) in August of 2024.
First one has to get to Philly, which in this case involved catching an Amtrak Regional at BWI and then the SEPTA connection to suburban. Locomotives encountered include MARC SC44 #87, the class leading Acela trainset with power car #2000, Amtrak ACS-86 #634 and SEPTA Silverliner IV #435.
The Connecting Railway portion of the NEC hosts the standard list of Amtrak trains plus SEPTA R7 Trenton and R8 Chestnut Hill West service, NJT Atlantic City Line trains and Conrail freight trains to Frankford Jct and Pavonia Yard. Here an eastbound SEPTA R7 with Silverliner V equipment rolls by taking the Clear signal indication on track #1.
This was followed by northbound Regional with Veterans ACS-86 #642
and a northbound Silver Meteor Train 98 with ACS-86 #628.
Track #1 is also used for the Atlantic City trains like this southbound example with Comet V cab car #6019 and GP40PH-2B #4204.
A southbound Acela showed up with power cars #2024 and #2021.
As freight traffic on the NEC's center tracks was replaced by high speed passenger trains in the 1970's, Amtrak had to essentially undo many of the PRR era infrastructure optimizations that separated freight and passenger traffic. One of these was at ZOO interlocking where the center tracks would lead to the freight only High Line forcing high speed passenger trains on track #3 to make a 30mph diverging movement to track #4. Amtrak remedied this situation by re-aligning the track to make track #3 take a straight route towards 30th St station and the "local" track #4 the diverging route. This sort of realignment is known as a "poor man's high speed turnout".
The Acela action resulted in this southbound Amtrak Regional with ACS-86 #640 to run on track #4.
Up next was on track #3 was ACS-86 #611 at the head of another long southbound Regional.
This was followed by a northbound Acela with power cars #2019 and #2012.
As the Acela rolled past a CSX transfer run between Pavonia and South Philly showed up with ES44AH #728, ES44AH #957 and SD40-2 #8881.
Amtrak tends to run SEPTA R8 Hill West trains out on track #2 to reduce the number of route conflicts. Here SEPTA Silverliners IV #313 and #12 take the Approach Slow indication for the slow speed diverging route onto the Chestnut Hill West Line at LEHIGH interlocking.
The SEPTA R8 move forced an eastbound Keystone with ACS-86 #632 over to track #1 while the CSX manifest freight waited for a signal at CP-PARK.
I waited around a bit, but the CSX transfer run was stuck fast and I ended up needing to wrap things up.
I did have a friend with me on this trip and they were able to get video of most of the train movements which I have compiled into a short montage.
Heading home to New Jersey my eastbound PATCO train made an unscheduled employee stop at the yet-to-be-opened Franklin Square station.
I'll close things out with this cool reflection of 1 Liberty Place across from the old PRR Suburban Station building.
Make sure you tune in next week as we fire up Reading #2102 for a round trip ramble to the Pittston Tomatoe Festival.
