11-04-14 PHOTOS: Springilanious

So last spring I was going on some trips, they were just with other non-railfan friends and therefore most of the photos taken were sort of ancillary to the real tasks at hand. I grouped these small batches of miscellaneous photos into a single set for your viewing convenience. Most involves a series of trips taken between Philly, Baltimore and Washington, DC.

We begin with a photo of your stimulus funds at work in the form of a brand new 25hz transmission line stretching between the former PRR substation in Landover, MD to the BRAND NEW substation located in the Ivy City yard (suck on it Will D). This new substation is a much needed supplement for the old arrangement wherein 12Kv power was sent via feeders from Landover about 10 miles to a switching substation at Union Station adjacent to the old express building. This left the entire DC terminal not only under powered, but also subjected to power disruptions.

Back in the PRR era power for Union Station was actually provided by the Capitol South substation which was fed by transmission lines along the Potomac Yard freight yard (later Conrail Landover Line). When freight operations ended Amtrak turned down ownership and support of Capitol South and made do with the Landover feeder arrangement. In the photo below you can actually see the two Landover feeders on the small catenary pole, one on the crossarm and another near the top of the I-beam post. At the time this photo was taken the new transmission lines were still not yet in service.

Switching to the DC Metro we see 2000-series car #2012 hanging out at NCR.

On another day we find nearly new 6000 car #6160 at Greenbelt.

A few moments later a DC bound MARC Camden Line train shows up for a station stop at Greenbelt Station with single level cab car #7745 in the lead.

Providing power was brand new MP36PH-3C #32.

Pulling out of Greenbelt my Metro train has a little race with the MARC train. Of course we quickly got the upper hand, but don't click the video off as when my train flies over the Camden Line the southbound mark train meets a northbound with a GP40-2WH/MP36PH-3C lashup.



Last spring wire work over night on the Shore Line was forcing Amtrak to temporarily utilize an innovative form of reliable dual mode locomotive which was constructed by coupling a P42DC diesel with an AEM-7 electric, a strategy NJT might want to pay attention to. Here we see P42 #109 coupled to AEM-7 #941.

Heritage baggage unit #1241 on the head end of Train 67. The two overnight trains 66 and 67 were the only Amtrak trains that got this special treatment.

  Amtrak #109 and the wet Baltimore platform.

In this busy video we see northbound Amtrak Train 180 arrive with #918 on the point just as Train 67 departs southbound with #109 and #941.



A few weeks later I returned to find P42 #104 providing the diesel pull with #939 attached for the electric.



Here we see #104 waiting to depart from track #7.

MARC K-car #7754 looked on from 5 track, laid up for the weekend.

11-04-02 PHOTOS: Philly Sights

Spring is usually quiet for me rail photography wise due to the rain and mud so here is the first of a pair of "short subject" sets that were taken in March and April of 2011. Here I was taking a quick trip to Philly with a friend from Arizona to show her around and along the way I managed to get in a few rail and semi-rail related photographs.

I began at 30th St Station where I caught a Regional Rail train downtown into Suburban so show my friend around the City Hall area. 

Just like Silverliner II #269, evidence of the old Pennsylvania Railroad is still littered about such as this example at the 16th St entrance to Suburban Station.

And of course the main entrance to Suburban Station.

Across the street the new Kabletown Comcast USB Stick rises from the PRR overbuild. 

And the newly sand-blasted City Hall clock tower rises in the opposite direction. For those of you who don't know this is the second tallest stone masonry building in the world.

While for decades a gentleman's agreement kept City Hall as the tallest structure in the city, #2 on that last is the now Nationally Registered Historic Place PSFS Building, which was one of the first modern style skyscrapers built in the United States, opening in 1932, with such innovations as air conditioning. Because the building is now a hotel that means one can simply walk in and take an elevator to the former PSFS board room, which is now used for event hosting. Here we can see a more even view of the city skyline including Liberty Place 1 and 2 as well as the Comcast USB stick.

Here we can see the statue of Billy Penn and the Concast Stick in the background. Hopefully the rise of the Comcast tower won't result in another 25 year sports curse.

Another unique feature of City Hall is that it is covered in hundreds of sculptures by Alexander Milne Calder (no, the other Calder). There are so many pieces of art that some consider the entire building to be one large public sculpture.

Moving on to Penn's Landing we find the oldest steel warship still afloat, USS Olympia (C-6), moored next to WW2 era, GUPPY converted submarine USS Becuna (SS-319). The museum that owns and operates the two ships is currently having major funding problems and cannot afford to conduct repairs on the Olympia and has been saying that the ship may need to be scrapped or sunk if such funds cannot be sourced.

Driving along the trolley line on Delaware Ave was an Magnette ZB.

I was back on rail transportation with a quick ride on the MFL out and back to Frankford Jct to kill some time. Here my return train pulls out of and crosses over at Frankford Terminal.



Here is a picture of M-4 car #1136 at Berks.

And another railfan window ride from Spring Garden to 2nd Ave. This is the part that runs down the middle of I-95 before diving into the Market Street tunnel.



Well that's it for this little set. Stay tuned for another set covering various random photos taken in the spring.

11-02-05 PHOTOS: Icy Princeton

Have a little winter preview here taken last February at the Princeton Junction train station on a foggy evening with snow on the ground and a nice winter mix falling from the sky. Not a huge photo set, but still interesting.

Here we see an ALP-46 pulling out of the eastbound platform past the 470 signal on 2 and 3 tracks.

NASSAU tower and the Dinky storage track.

ALP-46 #4622 pushing at the rear of a westbound train.

Same train departing.



Empty station with the 470 signals from the eastbound platform.

Close view of the 470 signals over track 2 and 3.

That's it for now. Stay tuned for photos from my Port Road Trip.

11-01-14 PHOTOS: Lucky Seven

It's a New Year for my photos as I charge ahead in clearing the backlog. As I get off for MLK day I figured that the best way to celebrate was to head to New York City and try again to complete a full photo survey of the Flushing Line via its surviving railfan window. Previously every time I had set out to take video or photos of the line I had been thwarted by poor cloudy/rainy weather. This time, while there were some clouds in the sky to begin with, the day was a lot clearer than the others I had been faced with. Also threatening to throw a wrench in the works were the service cutbacks that had eliminated mid-day express service. This forced me to take a very early morning Amtrak train (early enough that I was able to catch T67 southbound at Baltimore) into the city in order to get my ass out to Flushing before the hammer dropped at 10am.

Anyway I did manage to catch literally the last express run of the morning before then meeting up with Rich Greene for a little mid-day action on the G before lunch and then a complementary sunny express run on the <7> in the afternoon when the service resumed at 3pm. In the morning I just took photos out the back of the train as I didn't feel like taking reverse direction video, but in the afternoon I did complete the segments I needed for a full video tour of the 7 which I will post separately. The afternoon run also featured a run in with a douche bad T/O that tried to inform me that taking photos was illegal, but I wasn't about to interrupt my video for that and I just hold him he was wrong. He retaliated by giving me a really slow express run, but oh well, can't really do much to fight passive aggression.

Anyway you can see the full set of photos which include a full signal survey of the flushing line express track right here. You can also read on to see a well chosen sample of high def photos that I took during the trip.

We begin with an exciting catch at Baltimore Penn Station where P42 #107 leads AEM-7 #904 on the southbound Train 67. Catenary work in Boston was causing this odd dual mode mashup where the P42 would power the train through the de-energized sections and then the AEM would provide power the rest of the way.



I begin the 7 line tour at the Hunters Point portal and I was lucky enough to have a nice layer of snow coating the El structure throughout my photo excursions that day. Anyway I'll start things off with this photo of an R62 inbound at 45 Rd.

I caught the NYCTA patriotic car #1776 at 43rd St.

And an inbound express with #1811 in the lead at 50th St.

Express train lead by #1746 inbound at Junction Blvd.

R62 trainset on the layup track caught while approaching 111th St Station.

111th St tower which has control of the line east of Queensbobo Plaza.

My 7 train continuing on from Willets Point. I got off there was I didn't want to miss the last express trying to make the transfer at Flushing Main St.

Despite the presence of a trainset the express track was not being used for express trains so after some confusing I hot footed it over to the inbound local platform where I became increasingly worried that I had missed the last express run as nothing but locals came through.

10-12-28 PHOTOS: SEPTA Mid-Winter Trip X

See, I'm making progress. Last year I was able to use the Mid-Winter Trip IX report as a promotion for Mid-Winter Trip X. This time around I haven't even gotten around to announcing the date, which just happens to be December 27th this year so mark your calenders. Anyway last year the originally planned MWT was postponed a day on account of blizzard conditions so with a change in date and piles of snow still disrupting travel turnout for the milestone 10th anniversary trip was a little lighter than I had been expecting, but still a good time was had by all.

After a very Regional Rail intensive trip in 2009, MWT X was going to fall back to the city trolley division with an R1-Rt 36-Rt 10-Rt 15 connection in the morning followed up by a novel Rt 66-R7-BSS connection after lunch. The weather was superb with bright sun in the sky and a thick coating of white snow on the ground. For those who choose to show up they were in for a real treat.

Now as I tend to get caught up in these trip with both running the trip and talking to people my photo output can actually end up pretty light and MWT X was an example of this. Part of the reason was due to the very productive Snow Day trip the day before and part was that I didn't have a lot of railroad signals and such to document on this more trolley heavy routing.

So, if you want to see the entire set of 90 some odd photos I did take please click here either before or after you continue on to see a more selective sample.

We begin with Silverliner IV #280 depositing us off at the Eastwick Regional Rail station before our half mile or so walk over to the Eastwick Rt 36 trolley loop.

Hanging out at the loop were K-Car trolleys #9009 and 9041.

9009 would be our ride back into 30th St and after traveling up the Island Ave Right of Way and turning onto Elmwood we saw #9016 fall in behind us before pulling into the Elmwood Depot. 

As we approached the 40th St portal I saw a bit of a trolley traffic jam behind us at 43rd St.

At 30th St we transferred to a Rt 10 trolley with K-Car 9079 here shown at Girard shortly after dropping us off.

While waiting for an eastbound Rt 15 we were presented with two Callowhill Depot pull in moves using the Rt 15 tracks on Girard. The first was K-Car #9103.

The second was K-Car #9043, although some random holeless guy kinda ruined my shot.

If two pull-in wasn't enough, behind them came an orange SEPTA work vehicle carrying a bed full of trolley axles. I wasn't sure if they were for K-cars or PCC IIs.

We then saw an inbound Rt 10 with K-Car #9025.

10-12-26 VIDEO: PATCO in the Snow

While the previously discussed festivities involving the post-blizzard SEPTA system was cut short by a particularly mean spirited pig in a poke, it had the small silver lining of leaving me in a mood to salvage something something from the day as well as get back at the man. So when I nabbed the front seat on a PATCO train at 15/16th and Locust I noticed that the operator had closed the curtain to prevent anyone from looking in....but also preventing him from looking out which meant I was free to take video from the front of the train without harassment.

While the window was its typical dirty self, I was able to get reasonable videos that culminated with a dual departure on the platform at Haddonfield. Anyway you can watch the entire trip from Broadway to Haddonfield, in 4 parts broken up at station stops, right here.



If you are interested in specific parts here we begin at the Broadway portal, through the short Mickle St overbuild and then up onto the old PRSL viaduct before proceeding to Ferry Ave.



Here we continue on one of the longer runs on PATCO between Ferry Ave and Collingswood where the train encounters the newly re-affixed track on the elevated PATCO viaduct.



Continuing on we leave Collingswood, pass over a crossover and then arrive at Westmont also on a viaduct.



Finally we trade the viaduct for a trench as we dive below street level to enter the Haddonfield station where I planed to exit the train with the camera rolling in order to capture any sparks from the third rail upon departure. However I was doubly lucky when I discovered a westbound train already at the platform and I was able to capture both taking off side by side.



Enjpy!!

10-12-27 PHOTOS: SEPTA Snow Day

Well I guess it should be expected that when one runs a railfan trip in the middle of Winter, weather disruptions might occasionally occur. After 9 years of reasonable December weather the 10th SEPTA Mid-Winter trip brought with it an intense northeast blizzard that hit the area on the day before the trip was to take place. With much of the city transit operating on special schedules and travel from places like New York disrupted I made the decision to postpone the trip by a day. However, with Fred G already in town and a scheduled run of the then new Silverliner V's still scheduled there was no point in letting the day just go to waste so I ventured out into the city with Chuchubob and to see what we could find.

Now while the Blizzard was over the following day there were high winds and cold temperatures so in addition to a nice coating of white, the wind was whipping up great clouds of power that would swirl and drift. To make the conditions even more interesting the sky was partly clear so you had a combination of great light and snow bits in the air. The result was a superb day for taking photos, although SEPTA would have something to say about that later.

Anyway you can see the entire set of photos at the following link. You'll need to scroll down a little bit past some semi-related photos taken at OVERBROOK interlocking that I am saving for another time.

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/10-12-27_SEPTA_SNOW_DAY/-Thumbnails.html

So our story begins with Fred G, Chuchubob and I all meeting at Market East to catch a scheduled R6 train to Norristown. The snow was playing hell with the schedules so upon heading down to the platform as discovered that not only was our train late, but it would not consist of the promised Silverliner V's :-( Fortunately what did arrive was a mixed set of II's and III's so we happily gave up on the new stuff to take a ride in the old, which in our case was reading car #9016.

Departing Market east our train made a strange crossover from Track 2 all the way over the track #4, which was normally used for inbound local trains and rarely saw outbound moves. Upon emerging from the Center City Tunnel the cause for all the delays became apparent with snow blowing everywhere and drifting against the tracks. Here we see the #22 automatic signal on the Reading Viaduct with the uncommon situation of Clear signals on tracks 1, 2 and 4 northbound.

Upon arriving at Temple University station the crew made the announcement that this train was going out of service because it was not actually the train we thought it was. This train was the previous R6 that had simply been so delayed (as an R2 into the city) that it was just going to be terminated. Fortunately there would be another R6 pulling in behind us. Anyway I got out and took a picture of the #24 signal gantry with two Approach Mediums and a Clear and a pair of Silverliner IIs hanging off the platform.

Bob and Fred were close at hand shown here getting out of LVANIA car #218.

 Yes this train was compliant with SEPTA's no solid S-II trainset policy with S-III #227 sitting in the middle of the consist.

On the end of our train was S-II #263 with cute little mounts of snow piled on the roof access steps.

Just as we were bracing ourselves for some ugly set of Silverliner IV's low an behold the scheduled Silverliner V run shows up on track #4 right behind our previous train (thus the reason for pulling up so far). Here we see the prototype single unit #701.

This photo is pretty special as it shows the front of #263 framed by the Silverliner V's railfan window and the silhouette of the SEPTA quality assurance tech who was assigned to make notes of the run from the front seat. As a side note all of the following photos are taken from the second railfan seat in the Silverliner V.

 #263 then departed Temple U north on #4 track, kicking up snow as it proceeded to Robert's Yard.

Inbound trains were confined to #3 track such as Silverliner IV #186 seen here south of North Broad.

And S-IV #428 squeezing under Broad Street.

After waiting a moment to get our lineup at 16TH ST junction we proceeded north and I discovered that the reason for the strange routing was that the point heating system at the interlocking plant had failed and most of the switches had frozen up. I took some video as we proceeded through the interlocking to give a better sense of the wind blown snow condition going on outside. It seriously looked like the arctic out there!!