10-08-21 PHOTOS: Point-of-Rocks

Point of Rocks, Maryland is located at the the point where the Catoctin Ridge crosses the Potomac River. It is also the junction between the Baltimore and Ohio's Old Main Line to Baltimore and its Metropolitan Branch to Washington, DC. The junction takes the form of a Wye with an interlocking at each apex and a station building/MoW base in the middle.

The Old Main Line is exactly that, the original B&O Main Line between Baltimore and Ohio constructed in the years after 1831. Today most traffic heads to and from the double track Metropolitan Branch as the OML has a large number of tunnels and is not cleared for double stacks. Furthermore to improve clearances from their 1830's design the line was single tracked in the 1950's further restricting capacity and combined with its slow curvy track it made the Metropolitan-Capitol Sub route the preferred one even if it is several miles longer.

Point of Rocks remains a passenger station on the MARC Brunswick Line and sees weekday directional service to Washington, DC. It also sees the daily passage of Amtrak's Capitol Limited with the eastbound Train 30 passing around 11am and the westbound Train 29 passing around 5:30pm.

This selection of photos was taken on a trip to Point of Rocks last August and highlights the various rail action as well as the fixed infrastructure available. The presence of the station makes Point of Rocks a very accessible railfan location with platforms and walkways that put you right in the middle of the action.

You can find the full set of photos here. As usual I will be posting a variety of select photos, but the train shots will be down at the bottom to encourage you to read through the entire essay :-P

We begin with the Point of Rocks station building. It was constructed in 1873 and is a Nationally Registered Historic Place. I believe it is still staffed by a CSX ticket agent, one of the last in the entire company and the job position probably stretches back to the early days of the B&O, nearly two centuries ago. A newspaper article profiled the woman who worked there and at the time CSX had opted not to bid to continue running the MARC commuter service and there was a big thing about her finally going into retirement. However with CSX continuing to run the service I am assuming that the agent position was saved and with it a piece of living history.

The station also serves as a crew base for local CSX track and signal maintainers and there is a large parking area for CSX owned trucks and hi-rail vehicles. The south side platform canopy was damaged in the February 2010 blizzard, but as of January of 2011 work had been started to restore it.

Of course as a railroad crew base the required motivational safety poster was present.

The inbound platform had been provided with rather austere bus type shelters for waiting passengers, but in 2008 these were replaced with a new design that matched the look and feel of the 1873 station building across the tracks.

The main island platform between the two main lines is still equipped with its original brick paving as well as cast iron lampposts and signs. (Alert Forgotten NY!) Still a second, modern type sign has been provided at a lower level, probably for ADA reasons.

POINT OF ROCKS interlocking comprises the west apex of the wye and is a double-track flat junction between the Old Main Line and Metropolitan Sub with the OML being given the straight route and the Metropolitan Sub the diverging. As the Metropolitan Sub begins a few miles to the west at Brunswick trains taking the same logical route at the junction must actually make a diverging move. In this case looking east we see a Medium Clear indication displayed on the #2 track mast for a diverging route from #2 track to...#2 track.

A conveniently placed set of duckboards allow one to stand right in the middle of the interlocking. Here we are looking west at the parallel set of crossovers for the double track main line split between the OML and Met subs. While each individual interlocking that makes up the Point of Rocks Wye only contains a half crossover, combined there exist a full set of crossovers for all tracks.

Here we see CSX C44-10W #939 splitting the westbound OML mast signals as it moves from OML track #3 to Met Sub track #1.

Behind 939 was fellow AC4400 #501 at the head of a long strong of empty coal cars headed westbound.

10-08-13 PHOTOS: Along the Waterfronts

Well that's the best title I could think of for a compilation of random photos taken in August of 2010. Yes I will visit at least two waterfronts in this series, but there's not much more binding things together. Also, because there are not enough train photos available I'll sprinkle in some gems of Baltimore's outer harbor. That's right, outer harbour. Think bigger and much more industrial.

You can see the entire potpourri of photos right here, but if you don't feel like looking at some thumbnails strap yourself in and feel the burn of large photos downloading!!

We begin driving along the NEC on I-495 in Delaware. I was probably heading home for the West Jersey NRHS Chapter Picnic. A friend had decided to drive me so my hands were free to shoot from the side of the car and was lucky enough to capture Acela Express power car #2013 as it blasted southbound.

Not far south I got a great picture of BELL tower.

And the old PRR freight flyover...made obsolete by the replacement of the center freight tracks with express passenger tracks.

Since the picnic no longer includes any rail related action we now cut to Haddonfield, NJ where I was waiting for a PATCO train when NJT Geep #4212 showed up in the trench with a Philly bound Atlantic City train. It was actually pretty common to catch ACL trains here given my schedule so instead of stills I went for video.



And zoomed in for a shot of its C-IV cab car #5023.

Then much to my surprise another ACL train showed up about 5 minutes later. It was sequentially lead by NJT Geep #4211 and this time I decided to go for some some stills.

And the trainset had Conet IV cab car #5031 on the rear.

Later that week I was in Washington, DC for a conference and the MARC MP36PH-3Cs were just starting to become commonplace. Here is #14 waiting to lead a train outbound.

10-07-30 PHOTOS: Cumberland Roadtrip

Last July I had to take a trip out to Cumberland, MD to see someone about a horse and that provided a wonderful excuse to get out and take some pictures at some of the well known railfan locations long the CSX Cumberland Sub. You might remember these locations from such trips as CSX Freight Spectacular and my B&O Survey 2009. This time I was actually going to put some boots on the ground and see these locations up close and personal.

Unfortunately I didn't get much if any actual train action until I hit Cumberland so anyone who tunes in for trains instead of signals and scenery do not have to read more. For those of you who are still interested my road trip included stops at the very popular Magnolia CPLs, the Paw Paw CPLs, Green Spring interlocking, the abandoned tower at Patterson Creek and finally the railfan bridge at Mexico. The first two locations are situated on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Magnolia Cutoff which was built around 1914 and literally cut off several miles of curvy Main Line track that followed some twisty bends in the Potomac River.

Blah blah blah you can see the full set of photos here.

We begin with the CPLs at MAGNOLIA which are located just east of the Bridge-Tunnel-Bridge complex where the Potomac takes a sharp dip the the south forcing the B&O Main Line to cross into Maryland for the duration of the 1600 foot Graham Tunnel. While the day wasn't too hot, it was still the height of summer and the sun was nearly straight overhead. The intense light, heat and humidity not only made the photos somewhat bright and washed out, they also were affecting the quantum structure of matter causing it to distort in the same way one sees with gravitational anomalies in Star Trek.

You can see the effect here in this telephoto shot of the Graham Tunnel across the first Potomac River bridge. It is hard to emphasize how huge that tunnel is although it is still not able to accommodate double stacks due to the arched roof profile.

In the heyday of the B&O both the cutoff and the old alignment were in use and the line had three or four tracks between West Cumbo interlocking near Martinsburg and Mexico interlocking at the eastern end of Cumberland Yard. On either side of the cutoff signaling was mounted on bridges that spanned all the tracks. On the Magnolia Cutoff, which was built as a 2 track RoW, signaling came to be mounted on bi-directional bracket masts, of which a pair was installed at Magnolia. The eponymous Magnolia CPLs are a bit less impressive when you meet them in person as opposed to how they appear on Wikipedia due to the fact that they are approach lit and in this sort of sunlight tend to blend into the background.

Up close the brackets are clearly in need of buckets and buckets of Rustoleum and it was no big surprise when photos appeared last month of new CPL masts getting ready to replace the westbound bracket. It is for these reasons that it is so important to document this classic infrastructure before it is gone forever.

Even tho the Cuttoff and its CPLs are configured for bi-directional CTC, the ultimate fate of these signals will be sealed by the pole line that still transmits signal state and electrical power. Old school pole lines are a big ticket maintenance item that also have serious reliability ramifications as well. The current state of the art in signal power and communications is to transmit block state through coded track circuits in the rails and deliver electric power either through a utility grid connection or via solar panels and batteries. The old state of the art was a classic multi armed telegraph pole carrying a multitude of single strand copper wire.

These copper wires would transmit single bit state information between the signaling locations such as if the local signal was at Stop and Proceed it would cut voltage to the state wire to the next signaling location triggering an Approach indication. Also included would be some sort of code line to transmit information to any interlockings via pulse code modulation as well as a 400-480v AC power line that would be appropriately rectified at the signal sites to light the signals and power the relays and track circuits.

Here we see the eastbound Magnolia bracket with its wrist thick umbilical of copper signal wires stretching from the telegraph pole to the relay boxes. The box hanging below the crossarm is most likely a power transformer changing the 440V power feed to a lower voltage for consumption by the equipment in the relay box. You can see the difference in the insulators between the ones for signal state and the ones for power supply.

Looking west along the pole line we can see how only a small number of wires are needed for a modern two-track CTC setup. Back in the day before modern communications this pole would have been crammed full of telephone wires connecting not only lineside booths, but also railroad towers and offices stretching hundreds of miles in either direction. Keep in mind that before such things as the power grid and public switched telephone network existed the railroads had to roll their own.

Here we can see the top of the westbound bracket. The sheer quantity of rust is one indication as to why this unit may be marked for replacement.

Here we see the eastbound bracket from the rear showing the pole line and its subsequent journey up and over the mountain that the Graham tunnel bores through. Is it any wonder that pole lines are near the top of a C&S department's capitol improvement list?

Magnolia is also the site of a pole line utility power feed. The power for the pole line's 440v single phase supply has to come from somewhere and this is one of those places. The power comes from a utility pole, through a meter, through some sort of converter box that probably changes the frequency to 100hz or something and then onto the pole line's feeders.

Moving on to the next location we find the CPL bracket mast at PAW PAW. Unlike Magnolia, this signal governs eastbound trains only as the Carothers Tunnel and a curve blocks the sight lines in the westbound direction.

10-07-03 PHOTOS: Philly walk-A-Thon

I am sure those who read this enjoy rail transportation and as anyone who has attended my Mid-Winter trips knows in Philly there are many different modes to choose from. However I am also not afraid of physical activity and again as anyone who has attended a Mid-Winter trip knows you can double your fun in Philly with a bit of walking. Last July 3rd was an absolutely marvelous day, sunny and not to hot, it proved the perfect opportunity to get in a bit of railfanning with Chuchubob and later hang out with a friend to take in the various Welcome America 4th of July festivities that were in full swing that day. What started out as a loose plan to head out to the Route 11-CSX Darby diamond crossing eventually morphed into an epic voyage around University City.

Part one of the plan worked out well as Bob and I caught a Rt 11 out to Darby and proceeded to photograph the diamond crossing. I then walked a few blocks to fully document DARBY interlocking and its CPL signals. We then caught an 11 back to the Woodland trolley depot where we disembarked for more photos. Then, instead of getting back on the trolley we walked across the Grey's Ferry Bridge to Grey's Ferry to get some photos around the railfan hotspot over the old B&O tunnels and even tried to get close to RG tower and the CSX yard. After that we returned via the University Ave Bridge before walking along the NEC past Arsenal Tower, then up the SEPTA line past University City station and Franklin Field before getting back to 30th St station.

At that point I switched Bob with a non-railfan friend and we walked back down to his Brothers place also in Grey's Ferry via the new bike path along the Schuylkill river (and happily adjacent to the CSX Philly Sub), then walked back up to 22nd and Market, took the MFL out to Spring Garden (via Frankford Terminal d.d b.b) and then walked down Delaware Ave to Penns Landing where we good pictures of the USS Bulkeley (DDG-84) which was in port for the holiday. Then to kill time before the fireworks we walked down to about 9th and South to find a non-crowded cheese steeak place, then back to Independence Mall for some Frisbee then finally back to Penn's Landing for the fireworks before I walked back to 8th and Market to catch PATCO home.

All in all by the end of the day I had walked a total of 11 miles and to visit all of the above locations I only needed two SEPTA fares. Just goes to show what one can accomplish with a little physical activity in place of either a car or transit day pass.

Well for those of you who are interested here is the full log of my travels in chronabetical order. For those who prefer to be spoon fed their information here is a narrated highlight reel.

Having taken us from Center City SEPTA K-Car #9026 departs westbound towards the Darby loop across the CSX Philly Sub.

 The 2x1 diamonds were updated a few years ago replacing the standard type of diamond with flange riding crossings. This eliminates the maintenance intensive flangeways on the mainline CSX track at the expense of the SEPTA trolleys having to take the crossing at low speed.

Another disadvantage is that with all the weight of the vehicle being applied through the flanges, they begin to slowly eat into the railhead which may or may not cause problems with metal fatigue in the future.

Another awesome feature of the crossing are the pedestrian walkway crossing gates which were made from recycled GRS semaphore signals. This was a pretty common B&O practice with a large number of of these gates in service in Cumberland, MD for example.

Of course there was a good amount of return traffic such Rt 11 K-Car #9086 shown here negotiating the diamonds.

DARBY interlocking, which is just visible from the crossing, is the start of the double track segment that runs all the way to VINE interlocking across from 30th St Station.

It features a CPL Combo-mast which combines a high CPL signal with a dwarf CPL signal mounted in a semi-bracket configuration. These were popular with the B&O as they single-tracked a number of their main lines with CTC.

The crossing also features a number of old school school short-arm grade crossing flasher cantilever masts. This freshly painted example is standing next to K-Kar #9042 as it heads westbound.

 Moving on to the Woodland depot we find the Woodland Diamonds, where the Rt 11 splits from the Rt 36 which also serves the Elmwood Depot which is the major carbarn on the south side. While not a Grand Union, the diamonds at Woodland are impressive nonetheless. 

Here 9086 on an 11 routing waits on Wooland Ave for the light to change.

10-06-20 PHOTOS: C&O Main Line Survey 2010 - Washington Power Change

In the hopes that the 400 or so odd C&O Main Line photos wouldn't overshadow the smaller amount of admittedly more interesting photos when my train #50 arrived in Washington Union Station I am presenting them as a supplement to the main batch posted previously.

The setting isn't anything spectacular, just the lower level of Union Station where our diesel P42DC was swapped for an electric AEM-7. However it was sunny out and the southbound Crescent, Train 19, arrived with two private cars on the rear so the photos are worthwhile from that point of view.

In case you need reminding the full set of photos can be found here and just scroll down to the final 30 or so to check out the ones that pertain to this subset.

I will actually start a little before the arrival in Washington DC when our train was waiting at CP-VIRGINIA for its lineup off of CSX territory. Yup, even when trying to leave their system CSX makes you wait. Fortunately just as I poked my head out the dispatcher gave us our signal and you can just see the Medium Approach indication on the new track #3 signal. Below the new cantilever is the old PRR signal bridge that was taken out of service around 2005/6. I really regret not getting photos of that when had the chance. :-(

On the other side of the train we can see the pocket track that is being debated for use by VRE trains as a turnback to ease congestion in Washington Union Station. With yard space virtually at capacity this pocket train could hold an additional train over the course of the day. Also note the space on the CP-VIRGINIA cantilever for a signal governing the pocket track if it were to be extended into the interlocking.

The old PRR VIRGINIA tower is still standing strong at CP-VIRGINIA which has now been re-signaled twice since the old girl was closed.

Closeup view of the upper story and bay window on VIRGINIA tower.

Who watches the watchers? Well I guess I was that day. The rail line through DC is completely encased by a post-9/11 high tech surveillance system that probably accomplished little more than padding the profit margins of some defense contractor.

Southern portal to the First Street Tunnels with a B&O style CPL signal standing guard to the Union Station terminal complex. The signals here lack any approach indication because trains cannot enter the tunnel unless there is a proceed indication displayed at A interlocking on the other end. This is to prevent trains getting stuck on signals while still in the tunnel and fumigating the passengers.

My engine, #201, in the shade on track #26.

When Train 19 pulled in it had two private cars already on the rear. The first was a former CB&Q stainless steel Budd car from the California Zephyr trainset named Silver Quail. 

It was followed by the former Canadian Pacific car Metis. Here some workmen hang out on the rear open platform.

10-06-20 PHOTOS: C&O Main Line Survey 2010

Well after my success of my 2009 C&O Main Line survey I was eager to get a second bite at the apple since I had only learned the trick to cleaning the rear Viewliner window from inside the train just as we were approaching the Southern main line at Orange, VA. Trying to get good views out the back of an Amtrak train is always a crap shoot as there can be rain or a private car stuck on the end. In 2010 everything seemed to be going my way. It was closer to the solstice so I had maximum daylight. The weather was clear and sunny. There were no private cars. Unfortunately, a month before my trip Amtrak added a baggage car to the consist of The Cardinal and decided to move the sleeper from the rear of the train to the front and in doing so I was stuck with shooting through two panes of glass at the rear of the train.

Needless to say I was pissed off and although I persisted and got the full measure of photos the quality suffered greatly with much increased amounts of grain and a red tint that I had to struggle with in post production to mitigate. Still I did manage to document the next section of C&O signaling on CSX's hit list and I documented some territory that I had missed in my first go around.

Last year I had to split the C&O survey photo set up into two parts, but this year due to the decrease in quality I don't plan to bombard you with so many photos simply because there are far fewer good ones I would want to show off. Needless to say I think I will show off the photos I took during the power change in Washington DC in a bonus set.

In case you have forgotten my goal with this set of photos was to document the incredibly senic trip of Amtrak Train 50 as it snakes its way through West Virginia and the New River Gorge. I begin taking photos just west of Russell Yard in Kentucky and continue through Huntington, WV where CSX has already ruined things with last year's re-signaling effort. After that I went and had breakfast before returning to the rear end where I took photos straight through from Montgomery, WV to Clifton Forge, VA. When it was time for lunch and I resumed photos out the side of the train between Charlottesville and Orange, VA.

The super awesome set of photos can be found here: http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/10-06-20_CnO_SURVEY_010/-Thumbnails.html and I urge you all to just sit back and take the whole trip.

We begin our trip at 6AM at the west end of Russell Yard with some good old fashioned Ohio Valley fog. I know this and the other photos I took in the fog look cool enough, but I still hope the low light performance of non-DSLR cameras improves to get rid of the grain.

Sitting just outside the east end of Russell Yard at RU CABIN was a string of AC4400's including CSX #347 and 545 on a coal drag.

The fog had already burned away a few miles later as my train went from track 3 to track 2 at NC CABIN adjacent to some sort of industrial complex that had worked through the night.

Spoke too soon. The Ashland KY Amtrak station was completely shrouded in fog as my train continued eastward through 19th St interlocking.

Between Ashland and Big Sandy Junction was a 3-track freight super line with big C&O signal gantries at every block boundary. Here at the MP 514 auto we find ourselves in a coal train sandwich.

The train on track three was being lead by AC4400 #476. CSX seems to like keeping their AC4400s as the primary source of power on the old C&O.

Around the bend we find Big Sandy Junction where the Big Sandy Subdivision splits from the Kanawha Subdivision. This impressive interlocking complex had its perfectly serviceable C&O signals removed just a week or two ago replaced by sterile crap signals.

The closed interlocking cabin still stands Big Sandy Junction complete with a vintage C&O safety sign.