Like the last Saturday in October, the Harrisburg NRHS Chapter's annual train show now motivates me to make the drive up I-83 as it is perhaps the one reliable date when the old PRR Power Dispatch office is open to the public and I have a lot of tech oriented friends that are eager to view the whole setup. Since the PDO is reaching a steady state I assigned myself a side quest of checking on the former Reading Railroad CAPITOL tower that stands just a short distance from the Pennsylvania Railroad complex. You can find those photos in addition to Amtrak and NS freight action here. In the parking area adjacent to HARRIS tower a large group of railfans
had accumulated at the viewing wall. It turned out that the occasion was Amtrak 50th Anniversary P42DC #108 leading the eastbound Pennsylvanian.
Since parking is limited at the Harrisburg Amtrak station where the power office is located, I park by HARRIS tower and walk over. This has the benefit of providing views of whatever Keystone service equipment is hanging out at the station. On this trip Metroliner Cab Car #9641 was hanging out next to the plastic wrapped GG1 #4859 while ACS-86 #613 was standing on an adjacent track.
On the NS side of things a westbound manifest freight rolled past with C40-10W #7676 and AC44C6M #4122 leading. This was followed by westbound train of largely empty autoracks hauled by a single SD70ACC #1804.
As I said the 1939 Harrisburg Power Office has reached a steady state of
restoration with both the Westinghouse and GE SCADA panels attached to their back end relay logic that used to interface with the field substations via the code line. PRR electrification project farmed out work to both Westinghouse and GE as a condition of its government backed loans to help industry recover from the Great Depression. Although inefficient from a strictly business sense, the end result was preserving examples of each technology such that their differences can be compared. For example Westinghouse stored digit information in relays, while GE used stepper switches.
The Reading's CAPITOL tower is the largely forgotten member of the troika of Harrisburg Station area towers. Built in the late 1920's when the Reading was replacing wooden towers with mechanical interlocking machines, CAPITOL managed traffic into the Reading's small Harrisburg station complex as well as transfer movements from the PRR. CAPITOL shared a design common to many towers built across the Reading system before the shift to CTC with similar examples still standing at Wayne Jct and Newtown Jct and demolished examples having existed at Birdsboro, Norristown, Belle Meade and Perkiomen Jct (amoung others). The extended ground floor housed an air compressor plant to work the pneumatic point machines controlled by a US&S Model 14 interlocking machine similar to those at the nearby HARRIS and STATE. CAPITOL closed in the 1950's with control passed to the CTC panel at R TOWER in Rutherford Yard, however the structure was used as a relay room and radio base up into the early NS era.
The visit to CAPITOL put me in a position to catch the arrival of westbound Pennsylvanian Train #43 at the eastern end of the revised STATE interlocking. Power was P42DC #103.
That's all for now. See you next time as I head up to New Englande to get some photos on the old Guilford Rail System Downeaster Route before it was sanitized by CSX.
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.
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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.
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.
