25-11-01 PHOTOS: Stamford

Recently I have discovered that travel to and from Stamford has above average value for railfan purposes. Not only is it the gateway to Metro North's Connecticut branch lines and related museums, but tickets functionally cost the same as one to/from New York City. As as Acela stop one can get close to an hour of additional ride time for no extra cost. Of course the big issue is blandness of Metro North and its infrastructure, but Stamford is at least good for a couple visits before it turns stale. So sit back and enjoy a parade of M8's along with a couple Amtrak trains.  

I mostly slept on the way up, but I did manage to catch ACS-86 #668 in the push position on one of the push-pull Regionals. 

My Regional Train 160 was able to traverse the newly opened eastbound HAROLD duckunder track. Built as part of the East Side Access project, the HAROLD duckunders eliminate conflicting movements between Amtrak trains to New Englande and LIRR Main Line trains. The eastbound duckunder was opened first to support the temporary closure of East River Tunnel Line 2 for rehabilitation.

The weather that day was absolutely fantastic and even side window photos from the train, like SS28 GREEN here in Cos Cob, looked great.

I'm not sure if my Regional Train 160 was late, but at Stamford it had to wait on track #4 while an all stops local to Grand Central crawled out of the yard. As T160 was able to depart it passed the inbound GCT express from New Haven which provides local riders with a timed transfer at New Haven.

While the Stamford Station is a great location for photos I got a tip off about another spot a bit south of down behind a DoubleTree hotel. The nearby glass covered office towers provided a natural fill lighting at this time of morning. Here is a montage of Metro North / CDoT M8 MU trains. West of Stamford the NHL sees 4 trains per hour, 2 express and 2 local.

Because of the timed transfers the westbound local and express trains tend to race each other out of the station, although meets between east and westbound trains are not uncommon.

25-10-28 PHOTOS: Next Gen

In August 2025 Amtrak's Next Generation Acela equipment entered service after years of delays due to both the pandemic and disputes with Alstom. Although I caught one of the new trains on its first day of service, it was not until late October that I finally had the opportunity to ride one and actually confirm or disconfirm the many criticisms that had been circulating online. Also included in this set are photos of equipment in the Penn Coach Yard prior to departure as well as stuff encountered on the lead-in and lead-out of the trip. 

On the way out to 30th St station I was lucky enough to catch a southbound NNJT Atlantic City Rail Line train heading through the Haddonfield Trench with GP40PH-2B #4216.

My PATCO ride for that day was provided by rebuilt car #1083.

For years Amtrak's Penn Coach Yards at 30th St station Philadelphia have been largely devoid of coaches or other passenger equipment.  The Acela Next Gen saga changed this as delivered-but-not-accepted trainsets slowly filled the yard after being constructed by Alstom Hornell, NY. On this day in 2025, four sets were hanging out in the yard, Set 9, Set 10, Set 24 and an unidentified set  whose numbers were not visible. Note that the sets were not delivered in order of their dispatch numbers and set 9 still has yet to enter service.  Also in the yard was the first of the new Siemens Cascade Service trains making use of Charger locomotives and Venture coaches as well as three HHP-0 "Cabbage" conversions. .

The HHP-0 (or HHP-C depending on who you ask) cab car conversion project seems to have become just as fraught as the HHP-8 class of locomotives they were based on. After being withdrawn after barely 15 years of an expected 40 year life expectancy, the HHP-8's had to first clear a 20 year lease-back arrangement before Amtrak was free to acquire them outright. 

To remedy some of the HHP-8's ride quality issues, Amtrak embarked on a cab car conversion project that likely involved removing weighty propulsion elements like motors and transformers. Originally planned to be used on the Ethan Allen express in 2022, the project was nearly 4 years late by this point. Numbers 9750, 9751 and 9752 were in the yard that day in the new Phase VII livery.

The lead example of the new Amtrak Cascades service train was also in the yard for high speed testing on the Northeast Corridor. Despite WSDoT owning 9 SC-44 Chargers to power its existing trains, the 8 new sets come with the new ALC-42E locomotives as the SC-44's are likely in need of overhaul. #70000` (later renumbered #7001) was paired with cab car #79501.

As mentioned before 4 Next Gen Acela sets were in the yard awaiting various levels of modification or fitting out. Three NG sets had been accepted by August 2025 to allow for the start of revenue service with a pair of BOS-WAS round trips, but by October 2025 7 sets had been accepted. Penn Coach Yard was doing more than just storing the delivered NG trains as some amount of interior fitting out, like the cafe equipment, was also being performed.

25-10-25 PHOTOS: HARRIS+

When the leaves start turning colors I am suddenly reminded that I need to get out to HARRIS tower before it closes for the season. 2025 would be no different, but earlier in the week I had spent some time at the Hanover Road grade crossing on the CSX Capitol Sub to catch some afternoon MARC Camden Line runs so I am going to combine those two events into one set of photos. 

Starting with HARRIS tower, NS Pittsburgh Line traffic was robust as ever. First to pass by that day was a three unit light engine move consisting of NS AC44C6M #4626, C40-10W #7558 and SD70ACe #1023, heading to the Harrisburg fuel pad from the Rutherford intermodal yard. 

This was followed by a westbound intermodal train with C40-10W #7592 and AC44C6M #4665,

After that was an eastbound TOFC train with 2 C40's-10W #7536 and #7698 running elephant style.

HARRIS tower's latest attraction is a web enabled PRR position light mast that can cycle through all of the popular signal indications using an interface on the HARRIS tower website. 

While out front I managed to catch several passing locomotives through the chain link including AC44C6M #4794, C44-9W #9920, AC44C6M #4621, GP38-3 #5835 and GP38-2 #5665.

25-10-12 PHOTOS: Meet The Fleet

In the fall of 2025 New Jersey Transit announced a "Meet The Fleet" open house at Hoboken Terminal where they could put a portion of their heritage and special scheme units on display. This is a typical low cost thing for families and kids who love their trains, however it also provided a rare opportunity to have a white card to take photos at the Hoboken Terminal platform ends, a space that often results in security getting called out. Anyway, I marked down the event on my calendar and set up for the usual Bordentown shuffle to reach the event from the Philly Area. The full set of photos also includes additional coverage of TERMINAL TOWER trackwork and signals. 

While Hamilton might offer a one seat ride on the NJT Northeast Corridor Line, it also costs a fair amount to park there. Parking at the Bordentown RiverLINE station is free however and even after paying the RL fare one still comes out ahead with money going to the service vs a parking lot troll. Here we see RL LRV's #3518 heading south and  #3519 going north.

At Trenton the eastbound SEPTA R7 had arrived on the North High track with Silverliner V #735 leading. 

NJT service was running normally and I soon found myself at Secaucas Transfer where one can get an idea of the high density signaling that was installed in the late 1990s to support the project, by watching how quickly the signals progress.

This is probably only my 4th or 5th time using Secaucus since it opened and it still looks pretty good including classic electri-mechanical split flap displays.

NJT was running a special Meet The Fleet shuttle between Secaucus and Hoboken with a leading Comet V cab car that wasn't actually part of their fleet!

At the terminal buffers I caught this lineup of three Comet V cab cars, #6027, #6060 and #6073.

The "Meet The Fleet" event proper was situated on track #17 and featured new GP40PH-2B heritage units #4202 and #4208 in PRSL and Conrail colors respectively. Also in hand was Morristown and Erie GP15-1 #25, former Erie Lackawanna / NJT U34CH #3372, PRR heritage ALP-46 #4636 and EL heritage ALP-45 #4516. Beyond heritage NJT had also rolled out the #4506 that on a hat unit and the #4502 Veterans unit. 

25-10-08 PHOTOS: The Two Laurels

They say its easy to overlook the familiar. Despite living south of Baltimore for many years now I had never visited the MARC Camden Line station in Laurel, MD, except while riding the service in passing. Well in the fall of 2025 I set out to not only capture most of a rush hour at Laurel, but also walk west to the nearby signal location and then east to the famed Laurel Racetrack station, where the service consists entirely of three weekday afternoon flag stops, all in the DC bound direction. The photos from this adventure can all be found here.

The Laurel depot building was constructed in 1884 and was rebuilt after a serious fire in 1992. More recently the platforms were rebuilt with long duration plastic lumber. Today it is open during the morning and afternoon peak times for waiting passengers and also houses a ticket vending machine.  

A deadhead equipment move kicked off the afternoon rush with cab car #8047 and MP36PH-3C #22.

25-09-26 PHOTOS: St. Louis Arch

Apart from a brief station stop on the Texas Eagle in 2019, my only visit to Saint Louis had been visiting a friend back in 2005 and although I did get to run a lot of MetroLink, I was limited in photo capacity and time available to explore downtown. In 2025 I had the opportunity to return to Saint Louis and this time was able to allocate most of a day to "stupid railfan stuff" as my friend likes to refer to it. This was topped up with a late afternoon visit to the arch, although I lacked the time to actually go in and ride the arch. The resulting set of photos cover the MetroLink Blue Line, walking across the Eads Bridge and a good chunk of time walking around the new Gateway and old Union stations. 

My place of lodging was relatively close to the Shrewsbury–Lansdowne I-44 station so that's where we started off the day. Here is Siemens SD-460 #4002 waiting at the platform. MetroLink came into service in the early 1990's with an initial order of SD-400's and then later added three more batches of updates SD-460 vehicles. #4002 here was purchased in the final batch in 2004-2005.

Here we see SD-460 #4012 at Laclede's Landing station, which is built into the western abutment of the Eads Bridge, which was the first bridge ever constructed across the main line of the Mississippi River using the then-revolutionary technology of tubular steel. 

The Eads Bridge has a pedestrian walkway and a MetroLink station at each end which allows one to get in some steps while also getting in their required arch photos.

A significant rail freight corridor was in the path of the Gateway Arch urban renewal project. The solution was to create an overbuild that would hide the trains from view. Here we see BNSF ES44AC #5728 and C44-9W #5475 entering the eastern portal of the north tunnel. 

Here we see SD460 #3016, #4002 (again), #3002 and #3004 at the East Riverfront station.

25-09-09 PHOTOS: Cleveland Circle

 In September of 2025 I was able to score a work related trip to Boston and since I have been making about two trips per year to that city for the past decade it was somewhat difficult to figure out a railfan mission besides ride up and ride back.  I ultimately came up with a nighttime round trip out on the Green Line C Branch to Cleveland Circle. This set of photos also has the distinction of being taken entirely with my phone camera as I was always in low light or actively traveling. 

As is typical my trip kicked off at the Amtrak BWI Airport Rail Station. Upon arrival I caught ACS-86 #634 with a southbound Regional, however I would be on classic Acela set #17 with power car #2022 leading train #2252. At this point in time the Next Gen sets had officially entered service, but with only a single weekend round trip I would not be on one.

Here are some videos from the side window of #2252 including racing cars at the BELL flyover and passing through Trenton non-stop.

 

At the Penn Station "halftime" break I grabbed a photo of NJT ALP-46 class unit #4600.

Crossing the Connecticut River Drawbridge, work had started on its eventual replacement, which did not seem to be making use of the piers the New Haven had built for that purpose.  

 

 

Old #2022 completed its trip, pulling into Boston South Station's track #6. I then proceeded South Station Under to catch a Red Line train to Shawmut.

Instead of waiting around at South Station Under, I caught a Braintree train to JFK UMass where a CRRC train with #01936 arrived for me to complete my journey down the Ashmont Branch. 

Fortunately there was still plenty of classic rolling stock running around on the Red Line like 1970 vintage Pullman Standard car #01617.