In the fall of 2020 I was jazzed to go on a second trip to the Front Royal, VA area for a brewery tour and to get more N&W signal photos on the NS H-Line. Unfortunately when I took the trip I didn't encounter many trains and those I did encounter I wasn't in a position to photograph well. Therefore I am going to pivot to the B Plot where I briefly stopped by SEPTA's Highland Ave station south of Chester on the R2 Wilmington. Also animals. Photos can be found here ( mirror ).
Highland Ave is one of the least used stations on SEPTA's Regional Rail system and currently consists of wooden one car low level platforms on either side of Amtrak's 4-track NEC. It is under constant threat of being shut down as happened to the Lamokin Street Station about a mile to the north in 2003.
Amtrak was still running a COVID schedule so I only managed to catch a single Regional in each direction. The southbound was led by ACS-86 #650.
Highland Ave used to be adjacent to the milepost 15.6 automatic signal location that broke up the longer than normal signal block between the old LAMOKIN interlocking to the north and the still existing HOOK interlocking to the south. At some point after 1992 this signal was deemed unnecessary as it is possible to clearly see HOOKs southbound signal in the distance and it became a cab signal change point for HOOK.
Popping back over to South Jersey I managed to catch sibling NJT GP40PH-2's #4105 and #4106 on MoW duty at the Cherry Hill Atlantic City Line station. These engines were part of a batch of 13 built for the Central Railroad of New Jersey in 1968 to augment its aging fleet of GP7 based passenger diesels.
The CNJ GP40P's were built with a steam heat boiler, that were ultimately replaced by head end power generators that remain to this day. Despite new locomotive orders replacing units newer than them, the GP40PH-2s managed to score rebuilds at just the right time and have transitioned to MoW use with the occasional appearance on passenger trains.
I managed to catch the arrival of a northbound Atlantic City Line train with GP40PH-2B #4216 which was nice enough to pose along side of #4105. GP40PH-2B's were rebuilt from Penn Central GP40's in the 1993-4 time frame.
#4216 and its train including Comet V cab car #6005 then departed Cherry Hill, take the Medium Clear signal and converge back onto the single track at NORTH RACE interlocking. Note the sounds of the idling ex-CNJ GP40PH-2's
Down in Virginia I got photos of the N&W position lights ACORN HILL interlocking.
And also just missed a pair of NS freight trains.
Finally I encountered a Cooper's Hawk in a tree by my house seemingly right after it had finished a meal.
Well that's it for this somewhat haphazard set of photos. Next week I'll be back with another trip to Colorado.
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