Well with last week's Caltrain post this would arguably be Part 2, but I'm treating the photos I took in and around San Francisco while attending the 2010 RAS Security conference as a separate event. Unlike the last photo set where I could safely discard most of the photos as poor quality signal fluff, in this case most of the photos are of generally good quality and covering various transit vehicles so for the sake of everyone I'll split it up into two parts, the first covering the MUNI light rail system, the second the Cable Cars.
In this trip I decided to cover the one remaining line I had not yet ridden, the K Ingleside. I also covered the J Church returning from a brief layover at the Balboa Park station. The remainder of the photos were of course taken at various points along the F Market because who is going to railfan San Francisco and not hit up the F market.
You can view the entire photo set here, but this post will only be covering the first half or so of the photos.
I shall begin by showing the new tracking system implemented on the MUNI light rail system that shows the location of every MUNI trolley across its entire network, excluding the F Market. Hmm, how many instances of bunching can you count?
Here we see the West Portal portal with an inbound M Ocean with LRV #1413A.
There were quite a few LRVs stacked up at West Portal. Here we see two more including 1427A on an inbound K routing.
Approaching the M/K divide at St. Francis Circle we were being followed
by an outbound M Ocean with #1460A. The St Francis Station features a
pair of platforms on the central reservation, ADA mini-highs and a
trailing point turnback.
The Junipero St alignment of the K features its own Right of Way similar to the Rt 36 Eastwick.
#1409B on Ocean about the make the turn onto Junipero.
MUNI #1432B at the Phelan Station which is located just south of City College.
Upon reaching Balboa Park we have my previous ride, #1510B, next to 1494B.
They say that every cloud has a silver lining. Well the Bay Area in March is nothing but clouds so I sort of had no choice but to root out the silver. In this case since reasonable still photography was out of the question I switched my camera into video mode and boarded the first Northbound Baby Bullet express train which, thankfully still uses Gallery car equipment. The baby Bullet service is equivalent to the Metro North New Haven super-expresses or NJT NEC Princeton Expresses. This particiular run made only 4 stops on the 60 mile run between San Jose and San Francisco, Mountain View, Menlo Park, Millbrae and 22nd St.
The run is almost entirely at 80mph as there are few of the curves that plague rail lines elsewhere and since railroad managed to squash NIMBY complaints they can run full speed over the grade crossings and through stations. Also because Caltrain does a good job with dispatching and scheduling we got clear signals the entire way from CP-JULIAN to CP-ARMY, which isn't so cool if you like interesting signal aspects.
I felt it was important to take this video because I wanted to show what will be destroyed if the line is rebuilt by the High Speed Rail nuts in the state. Gone will be the quaint downtown stations with trackside parking. Gone will be the tall stads of whatever sort of trees they have out west. Gone will be the accessible right of way that can be easily traversed without having to hike to a limited number of overpasses. This video will show that the Caltran Caltrain line is plenty fast already and does not need to be grade separated or run with Euro-trash MU cars.
If you would like some reference materials here is the original 2005 Caltrain Timetable and here is the 2007 update.
I began the video at Santa Clara because I was dealing with limited memory card space and I didn't want to waste video time showing the train crawling out of the San Jose Terminal so I just started filming at CP-FRANKLIN where the speed was already at 80mph. The first video runs between there and Mountain View. After the train passes the CP-DE LA CRUZ crossover north of the Santa Clara station look for the begining of the Speed Signaling territory which replaced the former Southern Pacific route signaling system. Past that we enter the southern 4-track passing zone where local trains which depart in advance of the expresses, are then passes by the expresses on the center tracks. This run however does not pass a local here. Oh that strange noise that occurs every time the horn sounds was some problem with the air system.
Next we run from Mountain View to Menlo Park. The Menlo Park station replaced the one closed by the Pennsylvania Railroad when it opened MetroPark in the late 1960s although it is not very convenient for Menlo Park residents to use.
Next we have the run from Menlo Park to San Carlos. Due to constraints of storage space I cut the video at CP-DUMBARTON to a previously recorded front end video taken in 2008 in sunnier weather. San Carlos was not a stop for the train I was riding last year. This segment contains the previously grade-separated bit and you can see how much less scenic it is compared to the traditional portions of the line.
This video picks up at San Carlos at the full track speed of 80mph and runs to the BART connection at Millbrae.
Next we have the run from Millbrae to 22nd St. There is a small cut after Bayshore due to my needing to swap out memory cards.
Finally we have the short hop between 22nd St and the 4th and King street terminal. We pass a southbound train in Tunnel Number 1 which releases a wee amount of diesel exhaust into the confines of the tunnel, but it is nothing to really bother electrifying over. On the compact signal gantry into CP-COMMON we see the proper way way to pull off Medium Approach Slow with R/Y/Y, Also note the double slip switches and pneumatic point machine in the 4TH ST interlocking as well as the new lunar marker lights installed for the Terminal Slow Approach and Terminal Slow Clear indications which basically drop slow speed from 20 to 15mph.
So I mentioned that Caltrain changed to a speed signaling system in 2004. Well they decided to implement a brand new set of signal rules, inspired by NORAC and Seaboard, but with a few tweaks to eliminate several problems therein. For example R/Y is now Medium Approach while Restricting uses a flashing red. The clever boffins who designed this new system also designed Amtrak's high density cab signaling between Portal and A on the NEC so double gold star to them. The Caltrain system is the best non-position signal aspect system in North America today and Caltrain went even futher to ensure that almost all interlocking signals had 3 full heads, all distant signals had 2 full heads and all simple block signals had 1 full head weather they needed all those lamps or not.
Anyway I mention this because I have two additional videos taken at night between Millbrae and San Francisco that show a diverging route taken at CP SIERRA and CP TUNNEL. I provide a little commentary on this one and for the record I was right, Limited speed on Caltrain is 50mph, as opposed to 45 in the east.
Here is the segment between Millbrae and just past Tunnel 3 where my batteries suddenly died. This was the last northbound express train of the night.
And between 22nd St and the King Street terminal. In this case I was wrong the R/Y/Y was Medium Approach Slow, now Limited Approach Slow.
Anyway let me know if you would like to see me go back and voice over some commentary to these videos or if you would like me to stick with my usual policy of allowing the route to speak for itself. I really don't want to narrate the videos live because it makes me look like I'm talking to myself :-
If you want a more Cinematic experience you can watch the whole thing with one click by invoking my Let's Ride Caltrain playlist here.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
