18-12-23 PHOTOS: West Side Nostalgia

Every year the NYC Transit Authority runs a train of their vintage IND subway cars on Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas as special holiday promotion. Starting at Second Ave on the lower east side they would traditionally run to Queens Plaza as a modified (M) service train. After a couple of years of this taking first low def video, then high def video, then GoPro video, I had run out of reasons to make this pilgrimage, especially since what had once been a pretty much railfan exclusive event was now beset with hispters and children. however just when I thought I was free, the Nostalgia train pulled me back in with a series of new routings. In 2017 it went up the (T) to celebrate the opening of the new Second Ave Subway (phase 1) and then in 2018 it was sent up the Central Park West line to 125th St including a northbound express run as the local track was being worked on in that direction. In this part I have the still photos (mirror) from that day's journey and in next week's part 2 I will show the video.

We begin the day at Hamilton, NJ's NJT station with an Amtrak Acela Express trainset running south on the local track with power cars #2025 and #2023.

This was followed by Amtrak ACS-86 #657 Train 89, the southbound Palmetto which was impersonating Train 91, the Silver Starve, with two deadhead Viewliner sleepers(?) en route to...somewhere. 

A while later Amtrak ACS-86 #632 was in charge of a southbound Keystone train on the express track.

A northbound Regional with Amtrak ACS-86 #629 sped through just become my NJT express train arrived with split level cab car #7001 on the head end.

In the intervening year the venerable West 4th St tower had closed, but the windows were not yet boarded up and the GRS Model 5 pistol grip interlocking machine was still in place. This would be an excellent choice for a preservation project. 

Nostalgia R9 car #1802 at 125th St. See the videos in Part 2 for how it got there.

R32 #3440 on a C routing also at 125th St.

The Enemy, also on a C routing.

NYCTA R1 #381 at 2nd Ave after returning from the Upper West Side.

#1802 also at 2nd Ave showing the crush of children up against the railfan window. 

On my return trip I caught NJT Arrow III MU #1337. This is perhaps the only 1337 locomotive running for North American Class 1's and major transit operators.

On my way home I stopped by CP-JOHN on the NS Morrisville Line and caught SD40-2 #3337 switching doublestack container cars at the Morrisville Intermodal terminal.

Finally I caught a Conrail SSA local freight CA-51 under the NJ Turnpike Bridge as NS GP38-2 #6279 and a friend switch cars on the spur to International paper in Barrington, NJ.

That's it for the still photos. Tune in next week for the videos.