10-03-01 PHOTOS: Caltran Caltrain III

Last March I was once again sent out to the West Coast on my employers dime to attend a week long conference in San Francisco. As always I took an early flight to give myself about 6 hours on Monday to ride the Caltran Caltrain down to San Jose to see a friend there. Unfortunately this is the crappy time of year in the Bay Area where the weather is uniformly gray and wet and this day was a particularly bad example. However I was not to be deterred and came away with quite a few good photos, even if they aren't railpictures.net quality.

Many of the photos were simply a third pass at documenting the signaling and stations along the route and because of the general "gray" quality of the pics I don't plan to subject any of you to them, but if you have an interest just follow the link to the main set of photos and check them out. I documented ever signal and interlocking between San Fran and San Jose.

The photos document a trip taken from the Millbrae Station to the San Jose Diridon Station, which also serves Amtrak and the Altamont Commuter Express and then a second trip from the 4th and King St Terminal to San Carlos.

You can find all of the photos at the following link.

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/10-03-01_CALTRAIN_III/-Thumbnails.html

Also if you want to keep track of where things are a fairly up to date track diagram can be located in the 2007 Caltrain ETT Suppliment.

We kick off with F40PH-2CAT #918 in push mode with a mid-day local just north of Hayward Park.

Someone at the yard must have been trying to be clever as F40PH-2CAT #919 was pushing behind the following local just north of San Antonio.

The preserved CLARA tower is still standing next to the recently re-configured CP-COAST north of the Santa Clara station with some Caltrain maintainers standing by.

 Since I had last been here the new yard and maintenance area north of San Jose had been completed. Here we see the new shop building with some gallery cars and F40PH-2 #907 hanging out behind it.

Also in attendance in the yard with trainsets are numbers 908, 916 and 906.

Moving through CP-JULIAN at the northern throat of the San Jose terminal we see that the leads to the old yard tracks west of the station have all been cut since my last visit. Moroever the old yard isn't just disused, its been completely ripped out.

Arriving at San Jose the Track 2 signal on the "473 Bridge" in CP-JULIAN was already displayed for the next northbound train.

On the adjacent Track 4 was an Amtrak California trainset with Superliner Cab Car #8313.

On the storage track 6 was another Amtrak California trainset with Superliner Cab car #8307.

There must be some maintenance issues as standard Amtrak P42 #177 was subbing for the more usual Amtrak California branded equipment. In the background we also have MPI built F40-2CAT #920.

The other trainset is also using substitute power in the form of P42 #13.

Behind #13 on Track 6 was one of the Baby Bullet trainsets lead by Bombardier Coffin Car #112.

I believe that #920 was behind the next northbound train. That would mean that on this day we would have trainsets powered by 918, 919 and 920 one after another.

10-02-14 PHOTOS: South Jersey Snow

If am sure that everybody remembers the great Snowpocalypse of 2010. Well one week after that event, during the President's Day weekend, I made a trip around South Jersey with Chuchubob checking out his standard list of haunts. I figured it was a good way to be exempt from his daily barrage of photos taken at Cove Road, 36th St and Pavonia Yard :-P

I have also heard that some folks complain that my photo sets don't have enough trains in them. Well this set will almost be entirely trains so you can now sit back and enjoy the exact same sorts of photos that everybody else throws up online.

We'll begin in Baltimore showing the large amounts of snow still piled up in the track area a good week after the Blizzard. Here we see a K-Car split level cab car on the F track waiting out the weekend of inactivity.

And an HHP-8 laid up on #5 track with one of the longer Push-Pull sets also consisting of split level K-cars.

We move onto a video selection of an eastbound NJT Atlantic City Line train crossing the Delair Bridge which currently celebrating its 115th Birthday. The engine involved is #4202



Moving onto Cove Road we catch NJT RiverLINE #3514A heading southbound.

A few minutes later the RiverLINE mast signal at CP-HATCH was pulled up to display Medium Approach Medium for a northbound RiverLINE train. The rest of CP-HATCH consists of dwarf signals and defines the junction between the old Bordentown Secondary, the Fish House connector to the Delair Bridge and another connector to the Palmyra Industrial Track.

A short while later northbound RiverLINE #3508 appeared to knock down the signal. 

To increase capacity a new intermediate signal, 401S, was installed on the RiverLINE between the interlocking at 36th St and Hatch. Seen here with #3514B.

 

Moving on to the 36th St RiverLINE station Bob and I discovered a Conrail Quality SD40 #8817 coupled to a rare NS SD45-2 #1701.

#1701 was one of a batch of SD45-2s ordered by the Erie-Lackawanna in the 1970's for its intermodal service to and from Chicago. The units were equipped with 5000 gallon "coast to coast" tanks, making a unique order for an already rare class (SD45-2).

While hanging at 36th St another northbound RiverLINE showed up. This time with #3515B on the end.

09-12-28 PHOTOS: SEPTA Mid-Winter Trip IX

One advantage to being about 11 months behind in photo processing is that the pictures from the previous years' SEPTA Mid-Winter trip can act as a promotion for the current year's trip (Dec 27th @ the SEPTA Market East Station, 8:55 AM). Anyway the 9th Annual SEPTA Mid-Winter trip was one of the more successful trips with excellent weather, a fantastic turnout and lots of great action. It was also the first ever trip to include a Trackless Trolley and also the first trip where a sizable portion of the attendees actually missed a connection (more on that later).

You can see a Google Map of the trip route here and at 63 miles this is one of the shorter Mid-Winter trips. This was because instead of traveling long distances I decided to include a pair of extended photo stops on the Regional Rail in the hopes of catching some Silverliner IIs and IIIs. While we were to be a bit disappointed on that front it was still a great trip.

You can view the entire set of photos in chronological order here: http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/09-12-28_MID-WINTER_TRIP_IX/-Thumbnails.html

The Trip started off with a little informal event. I was looking for a way to get some front end video on a PATCO Express run without getting bitched at by the operator. The solution was to involve team play where strategically placed railfans should block the view of the operator with a newspaper allowing the railfan with the camera to shoot unmolested. That part of the plan worked like a charm, but unfortunately PATCO had canceled all of its express services in the week between Christmas and New Year. Anyway, here is the result, a video of a standard local run between Woodcrest and Haddonfield through a very dirty window.



So while PATCO was a bit of a bust the official trip began with a Regional Rail ride to Jenkintown where we would hang out for a bit to photograph the parade of RRD trains passing through the busy junction there. While out on the 4-track Reading trunk line I began to take some photos out the front window before opting to get some video through 16th St junction as we paced another RR train. Unfortunately an asshole trainee in hanging out in the front cab had other ideas.



See why I might be a little hostile to the "concerns" of SEPTA crews about half-width cabs on the S-Vs?

JENKIN interlocking at Jenkintown is the junction between the SEPTA Main Line (R's 1,2 and 5) and the Neshaminy Line (R3). Even though it was recently rebuilt and outfitted with useless Metro North style signals. Here is our R5 train, jerk crew and all, departing Jenkintown taking the left hand route on a Cab Speed signal.



JENKIN tower still stands and there is more than ehough hot SEPTA MU action. One can consider Jenkintown as the Mineola or South Norwalk of the SEPTA system.

As the former movable point diamond was replaced by a pair of turnouts just about the only interesting bit of signaling left at JENKIN is this twin mast of Safetran Unilens solid state searchlight signals needed to fit under the platform canopy.

Jenkintown could also be considered the Metro Park of the Reading, providing an important Suburban stop for its premier Philadelphia to New York train, The Crusader. As such the station was fitted with full length covered platforms, a handsome granite station building, and convenient facilities for drop off and pick up. BTW can you spot the railfans in this photo?

There was some weird single tracking going on on the R3 so here we see SEPTA S-IV #170 arriving inbound on the wrong platform.

 Front view of JENKIN tower. The tower had its top floor replaced around 1990, but had probably been closed as an active tower sometime before then. It's functions were transfered to the WIND panel in WAYNE tower.

SEPTA S-IV #446 brings up the rear on an outbound R2 train. About 2 miles up the Main Line it will diverge at CARMEL interlocking onto the Warminster Line.

Here S-IV #452 brings up the rear of an R3 train running on the proper track outbound from Center City as it takes the right hand route at JENKIN.

SEPTA S-IV #294 arrives from the Main Line with three SEPTA crew-members stuffed into the front cab.

SEPTA S-IV #128 then showed up next on the train we would need to take to Fern Rock. There was some sort of service disruption going on so these trains were pretty full. Of course the front cab had its usual compliment of three SEPTA crewmembers. Does anyone notice a pattern here?

09-12-27 PHOTOS: Nostalgia PATH

Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Railfan, I ride it so you don't have to!

While the fate of the 2010 Nostalgia Train is still in flux I thought I might usher in the holiday season with a few photos from last years Nostalgia Train. After I had so much fun riding the 2008 train I returned in 2009 partly to complete a full set of videos of the shortened V route in the Southbound direction. I was also lucky enough to draw a set of the older cars on PATH both in and out of the city and yaddie yaddie yadda I have stills and video of the above ground segments.

Anyway, without further McAdoo you can find all of the Nostalgic photos here.

We begin on a classic PA-1/3 pulling out of Newark Penn Station. Early on a Sunday morning there were hardly any riders in the rear car who could might be in a position to object to someone taking photos out the back. Also, sitting in the real railfan seat there was, and I kid you not, a dude dressed in Wahhabi Islam garb (white robe, red checked head thinggie) with a long beard and reading a Koran. I figured that next to him even a railfan taking photos wouldn't look suspicious XD

Anyway, as we pulled out onto DOCK draw an inbound PA-1/3 trainset was pulling in.

Departing Harrison I noticed Amtrak has installed a brand new signal gantry for westbound trains into DOCK interlocking. It was not yet in service and it seems that Amtrak still can't gets its act together on the proper shape of the lower head backings for PRR type signals.

Caught an AEM-7 hauled regional passing under the signals for the newish REA interlocking.

A single unit PA-1/3 car was trundling around the Harrison yard under the care of a hostler.

The diamonds on the PATH main line that are interlocked as part of Amtrak's HUDSON interlocking. NJT #4303 sits patiently in Hudson Yard.

Moving onto the old PRR branch to Exchange Place we pass one of the PATH substations and the Karny pocket track with the NEC flyover in the background.

A CSX lashup was hanging out in the intermodal yard.

PATH is probably one of the last railroads to employ smashboards at its movable bridges. Here are the eastbound pair at the HACK movable bridge. 

And another set of old cars heading down the ramp to cross the Jersey flats.

That blue bridge cabin in HACK tower which controls not only this drawbridge, but the one next to it and several other nearby interlockings.

Rounding the curve through the west end of the Bergen Hill cut we pass yet another train of old cars.

09-12-23 PHOTOS: PAOLI Snow

Last December the Northeast got a little preview of the massive blizzards that would paralyze it later in the next year. The December blizzard dumped a lot of snow, but it was mostly powder that mostly dissipated, but there was enough to give the region a nice coating of white for a week or so. This combined by my need to gain some more Amtrak Guest Reward points gave me the idea to take an Amtrak Keystone round trip between Philadelphia and Paoli (total cost $13) with a 1 Keystone Headway wait at Paoli where I could take photos of the interlocking, station and half hourly SEPTA action.

Later, still trying to round up some AGR points I took another trip out to Paoli to rendezvous with a friend to drive me south after Christmas. Again I got some pictures of the station and interlocking, but this time they were at night to offer a contract to my previous mid-day photos.

The full set can be viewed here.

So I caught a Septa RR train to 30th St where I would pick up the Keystone and I was surprised to get a S-II/III set consisting of S-III #225, Reading S-II # 9008 and S-III #229.

With some time to kill I went to the Circa Center garage and caught the inbound Keystone with Metroliner cab car #9643 on the point.

Arriving at Paoli Metroliner cab car #9651 had a Clear indication displayed on the 12L signal. Power was provided by AEM-7 #924.

The still active PAOLI interlocking tower (built 1896) provided a nice backdrop for the departing Keystone train. The snow covered rails on the center tracks shows just how much they are used.

 Expecting to just lark about taking pictures of the old PRR signals I was very surprised when a SEPTA Bomber set showed up on a deadhead move to the mantanence facility at Frazer. It was led by AEM-7 #2306.

09-11-27 PHOTOS: Black Subday

Every Black Friday it has become a tradition for me to journey to the Windy Apple to take a ride on the NYC Subway system. With the retirement of most of the fun vehicles just about the only thing left to do is scout out the interlocking towers and ride the (7), which is exactly what I did for Black Friday 2009. My journey consisted of taking the 'C' train down to Lafayette Ave to take some pictures of the IND interlocking tower at the end of the side-wall platform there, then continuing to catch the Franklyn Ave Shuttle to Prospect Park. From there I somehow got on the (7) train to Roosevelt Ave where I could transfer to a Queens Blvd train back to Manhattan.

That's pretty much it, you can see the whole set of photos which are heavy on the Flushing Line here.

So anyway we begin at Chambers St with R32 #3664.

AVE interlocking controlled a singe crossover on each of the local express pairs as well as a pocket/turnback track between the two express tracks. Here is the #31 signal next to the tower displaying an Approach Medium indication after my departed C train while a westbound train passes on the express track.

A bit later the signal turned Clear and a captured it with another westbound express train passing. Here you can see the single local to express turnout.

Slightly different angle of the riot proofed interlocking tower, a single green lamp visible on the mode board. The tower is normally closed and left in automatic mode when not needed for exceptional circumstances.

A (Q) train of R68's at Prospect Park.