25-02-14 PHOTOS: Philly Special

On February 9th, 2025, the Philadelphia Eagles smothered Patrick Mahomes, former Eagles coach Andy Reid and the rest of the Kansas City Chefs in Super Bowl LIX, giving the team its second Super Bowl championship. Since I was unable to attend the parade after the "all gas, no brakes" victory over the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII, showing up for 2025 event was a top priority. Not long after the  confetti and beer cans were cleaned up, I came to learn that the downtown Macy's with its world famous Wannamaker Grand Court Organ was going to close for the indefinite future triggering another trip downtown to catch one of the "final" live recitals.  The result is a collection of photos documenting these two unique things that make Philly special. 

After the mess that was the 2008 Phillies World Series Parade, SEPTA and PATCO pretty much decided that they just weren't going to try for future parades with plans that limited service to a subset of stations with large parking lots. As a result my plan had been to taken Amtrak and and just walk to the parade route from 30th St station and I had purchased refundable tickets for the Wednesday and Thursday after the Super Bowl as soon as the Birds won the NFC Championship. Unfortunately the Eagles broke precedent and scheduled the parade for Friday due to cold weather on Thursday. This required me to fall back on Plan B, drive up and grab a parking spot at the Woodcreast Station Park M Ride at 5am for a parade that wouldn't get downtown until about noon. 

PATCO's parade plan involved dropping all passengers at 9th/10th and Locust to use the rest of the line as yard space and so that they could lock down the station concourse tunnels directly around the parade route for security purposes. 

I grabbed a spot at 17th and Parkway with my friend. I was a bit surprised by the lack of crowds, but that was probably due to the fact I wasn't aware the parade wouldn't start until about 11am and take a good 1-2 hours to reach my location. 

After the parade passed we attempted to walk via a non-direct route to the Art Museum, but the crowds were too much to get anywhere close so my friend and I decided to abort and walk along Spring Garden St to Triple Bottom brewing located inside the old Reading Spring Garden St station. On the way we ran into the Concrete Cowboys, a well known urban riding stable that had taken over the street because all the normal "rules" had been suspended for the parade xD They stopped their roundup at the String Garden St Broad Street Subway entrance as my friend and I continued on to get lunch and a green beer.

?

The point of the brewery tour was to 1) find a TV to watch the ceremony in front of the Art Museum and 2) wait out the crowds returning to New Jersey on PATCO. We were prepared to wait until 6 or 7pm, but got word that there was no wait around 5p. After walking all the way from Spring Garden my friend and I were greeted by a fresh train lead by car #1085

Despite the darkness I attempted to get a front facing video of this rare "express" service, but due to the collapse of parade crowds, PATCO shifted back to making all stops while we were en-route which impacted the resulting product. All told PATCO claimed to have handled 3 times its usual weekday ridership, although I am not sure where people parked as half their stations/lots were closed for the day.  

 

 

 

A few days later I was still in the Philly area and decided to head back downtown to catch Wannamaker Department Store Grand Court Organ recital. This was a Philly tradition that I had not experienced in decades because...why would anyone go to a downtown department store? For some reason I caught PATCO at Westmont instead of Haddonfield and here is a westbound run with cars #1056 and #1077.

 PATCO was wrong railing across the Ben Franklin bridge so I managed to get this video of the process including the long crossover at 8th and market.

In past years I could have used the concourse system to travel directly to City Hall, but it was still fenced off, forcing me onto the street. Despite cleanup efforts a lot of parade trash was still around along with this cool street art mural of Saquon Birdley.

 

The old flagship John Wanamaker department store is mostly known for three things, the Eagle, the Grand Court Organ and the Christmas Light Show. Since it was February I was only able to partake of the first two. Old John Wanamaker clearly knew how to find bargains as the Eagle statue was bought as surplus from the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exhibition and the core of the organ was bought from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Wanamaker's as a chain was purchased in 1994 by the May company and  between 1995 and 2006 it was converted fist into a Hecht's, then a Strawbridge's, and then a Lord & Taylor before it settled upon its final incarnation as a Macy's in 2006.

Although the Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ is the world's largest existing musical instrument, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ is currently the largest playable instrument with 28,762 pipes in 465 ranks. Expanded in stages between 1911 and 1930, the console and method of operation can be considered a child of the electro-mechanical era, on par with panel telephone switches and power interlocking machines. For those of you who are unaware, a mega organ such as this can be considered a pre-electronic synthesizer. Most of the 28000 pipes simulate non-organ instruments like strings and horns turning the organist into a meat based sound processor that can render music of orchestral complexity. 

The small number of visible pipes and their decorative surroundings are actually a facade lifted directly from the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. The actual pipes are tucked away in chambers behind the end wall of the grand court. An automatic louvre system helps modulate the volume. When Macy's took over, operation and maintenance of the organ was turned over to the non-profit Friends of the Wanamaker Organ. With the store closing, live performances were to go on hiatus until a sale and redevelopment plan could be finalized. 

 

 

Heading back to New Jersey I caught a pair of PATCO trains at 12th/13th and Locust. Later that evening I would travel back to the city **again** to connect with my Acela train back to Baltimore, that time using both the Haddonfield and 8th and Market stations. So over the course of the extended weekend I somehow used three different New Jersey PATCO stations and every Center City station.

Due to the lateness of the hour, I decided to use the MFL to get to 30th St. Here are MFL M-4 cars #1141 and #1030 at 8th St and 30th St respectively. 

Down on the platform I ran into ACS-86 #649 and Acela power car #2016. I would actually be on the Acela that day due to a surprisingly competitive ticket price.

Well that's all I have from the Eagles championship weekend. Compared to the Phillies Parade of 2008, things were a lot more organized even if they weren't as convenient or helpful. 

25-02-08 PHOTOS: New Cannan

One of those services that is easy to overlook is the Metro-North New Canaan Branch which runs between Stamford and the small town of New Canaan. Included in the New Haven's suburban electrification scheme it managed to hold onto its electrification unlike the nearby Danbury Branch. Today the 8-ish mile line is mostly served by shuttle trains making main line connections at Stamford and to use up some Amtrak expiring companion coupons a friend and I made plans to day trip the line from Baltimore taking Amtrak to/from Stamford and connecting to the Metro-North shuttle from there. The following is a summary of how that worked out.

In order to get all the way up to Stamford at a reasonable time we had to catch one of the first northbound Regionals from the BWI airport rail station. Power for that day's trip was ACS-86 #607.

On the trip up I encountered Acela NG power car #2104 at Philly, SEPTA ACS-86 #909 and Amtrak ACS-86 #650 with a southbound Regional near Co-Op city.

Due to the close connection at Stamford I only had had time for this one photo of an inbound Metro-North  train to GCT before boarding the New Canaan shuttle.

While the line isn't fast or super exciting, it was interesting to reverse my typical perspective of the  Merritt Parkway as well as suburban back yards abutting the single track like it was some sort of suburban trolley.

The line has no passing facilities and typically sees hourly service with the shuttle laying over at Stamford. Today the shuttle was a 6 car train of M8 MU's with a car and a half hanging off the platform at New Canaan.

The balance of the layover is carried out at Stamford so my first act was to briskly walk down to the Grove St crossing to catch the departure. Endcap units were #9445 on the west and #9108 on the east.

25-01-31 PHOTOS: Post Road Branch

 For my 2025 visit to New York Capital Region I turned my attention south of the city to Amtrak's Post Road Branch and the former Conrail Boston Line to revisit some infrastructure I had not kept up on for over 15 years. Unfortunately actual encounters with train movements was rather slim so I have included additional photos from SS72 DEVON junction on the New Haven Line plus some MARC Camden Line activity so I hope you all find this worth your while. 

Albany can be considered the Harrisburg of the New York Central. A major hub located in an eastern state capitol that has to coordinate multiple flows of freight and passenger rail traffic. Located at the junction of the old New York and Hudson River, Mohawk and Hudson, Boston and Albany and West Shore Railroads this created quite a bottleneck in the downtown Albany area where all of these rail lines met. Operations were further complicated by a pair of swing span drawbridges and "stiff" (for the New York Central) grades on both sides of the Hudson Valley. All of these problems were solved by the 1924 Castleton Cutoff that provided a low grade freight route that completely bypassed Albany and Schenectady. The signature work of engineering was the high level Alfred H. Newman Smith bridge over the Hudson River Valley. The entire mile long bridge recently underwent a renovation that cleared the right of way, repaired the steel supports and re-pointed the concrete footings.

You can see some of the specific work that was carried out with replacement beams and gusset plates painted a lighter shade of brown and the new concrete also readily apparent. The new steel also used high strength bolts instead of hot rivets. 

The Smith Bridge features two steel truss spans over the Hudson River navigation channels, one of 404 feet and the other 610 feet.

Despite the renovation work, CSX did not use the opportunity to demolish the old base of SM tower which stood at the eastern end of the bridge where the connecting track to the Hudson Line branched off. Today this branch typically sees a daily overnight freight round trip to and from New York City.

It was here I caught the sole freight train of the trip, the cars making a bit of noise as they pounded the frog on the #3 switch at CP-SM.

 

25-01-17 PHOTOS: Classic Acelas and Boston Red Line Stock

My annual winter Boston trip has always involved the challenge of convincing my more normal friends to take a round trip along the full length of the NEC. In the 2010's going overnight on Train 66 was a no-go due to their troubles sleeping on board. For a while a compromise was reached where they would fly up and I would use a companion pass for a return Acela trip.  More recently, thanks to Amtrak's new pricing strategy and my tier status perks, we have found ways to make the trip in Acela first class, which my friend finds preferable to flying. Although Boston has a bit of a "been there, done that" feel for me, 2025 would turn out to be the last winter trip to Boston before the Next Gen Acelas entered service. With this I paired a trip to Braintree due to the impending retirement of the early 01500, 01600 and 01700 Red Line stock. You can see both categories of photo here.

Although I live close to the BWI Airport Rail Station, the poor selection of Acela trains often makes it necessary to travel first to DC to then proceed north. While waiting for my southbound MARC train, Amtrak Regional Train 170 pulled into BWI on track #1 with ACS-86 #640.

Arriving Washington Union Station I caught VRE and MARC MP36PH-3C's #V63, #29 and #29 in their respective storage facilities. 

The Original Generation Acela sets were getting long in the tooth with train cancellations a frequent occurrence, especially in winter. On my upbound trip I lucked out with my 930am departure departing DC Union Station on time. The Track 19/20 "Acela platform" had two waiting trainsets with power cars #2039 and #2011, with #2039 being the "ultimate" unit of the 40 Acela Express power cars constructed. My party had managed to get window seats at the Row 14/15 4-table, adjacent to the Joe Biden 14A/15A seat pair favored by then Vice President Joe Biden when he was a weekly Acela commuter. While Acela first is a fantastic service, there was still the whiff of Amtrak inconsistency as cut lemons and limes were not stocked for this trip. Fortunately I had remembered to bring my own.

The first arch span of the new PORTAL bridge was in place. The new design is trying hard to make up for replacing an iconic bit of early 20th century engineering, but remains just as soulless just at a higher price point. 

At Penn Station we pulled across the platform from NJT ALP-46 #4650.

On the Metro North New Haven Line I managed to snag a photo of New York Central heritage painted P32AC-DM #211.

Passing New Haven, Amtrak Phase III heritage P42DC #145 was still working out of Springfield with ACS-86 #609 on hand for the Regional/Vermonter power changes.

At Boston South Station power car #2035 was on the opposite end of my train and the outdoor train concourse under the new South Station Tower was largely complete.

Delays with the CRRC 01900 series cars have extended the life of the older Boston rolling stock with the bulk of service now being provided by the 01700 and 01800 classes. 

The Urban Transportation Development Corporation 01700 series cars, #01754 shown below, are a somewhat updated 1986 copy of the c.1970 01500/01600 series cars built by Pullman Standard. UTDC and its plant in Thunder Bay, Ontario would be taken over by Bombardier Inc who would go on to produce the all-new 01800-series in 1994.

Ages ago when I was going to Boston on a more frequent basis I remember being scared to travel to Braintree because nobody could give me an answer on if the trains would discharge outside of fare control, resulting in paying an exit token followed by two more tokens to get back in. Thanks to the internet I now know the Quincy extension uses island platforms and can be visited without additional cost. Here we see 01754 and 01727 waiting at the Braintree island platform. 

A fun feature of the whole 01500/01600/01700 series are the manually operated rollsigns. 

Returning back downtown I made an effort to take forward facing video as the new CRRC cars effectively lack a forward view. The Quincy extension was built for 70mph speeds, but is currently operating at 55mph, which is actually an improvement from 40mph due to a track maintenance panic.

Of course my good luck couldn't last forever. Due to about 4 inches of snow falling overnight Sunday my 11am Acela was canceled on Monday and I was pushed back onto the 1pm departure. Arriving at South Station three Acela sets with power cars #2036, #2014 and #2035, were waiting at the buffers, implying that the reason for the cancellation was crew availability as opposed to equipment failure. The roll of the dice directed me onto the #2025/#2039 trainset, aka the exact one I had traveled to Boston on several days earlier. What are the chances?! 藍

Amtrak has been promoting the revamped menu in Acela First and while they have been doing a good job, I was presented with the same menu on both round trips which included an Italian version of the plant based meatballs. While quite tasty Amtrak has been leaning heavily on this ingredient as a vegan dining option and the novelty can quickly wear off. Needless to say I went for the crab enchiladas. 

On the New Haven Line I got videos overtaking two separate Metro North trains.

Due to the later departure I was losing light approaching New York, however I managed to get some photos of the sun setting behind Manhattan as we crossed the Hell Gate Bridge.

Ultimate Acela Express power car at New York Penn Station track 12,

That's all for this run up and down the NEC.  Join me next time as I head back to the Capitol Region to check out some former New York Central infrastructure.