24-02-11 PHOTOS: Schenectady River Line

Over the past 20 years Schenectady, NY has changed from a blighted city suffering the effects of post-industrial decline, to a vibrant community benefiting from the resurgence in urban living. Public policy has played a huge role, starting with a program to sell vacant houses to refugees and immigrants for $500, to a complete reconstruction of the city's main drag. One of the more visible projects was the replacement of Schenectady's literal Amshack with a brand new station that called back to the New York Central era Union Station that previously existed on the same site. During my 2023 Trip to Albany (tm) I had the opportunity to check out the new Schenectady Union Station and grab some photos at the adjacent CP-159. On the return trip I also managed to divert the vehicle to grab some photos of Conrail era signaling on the former River Line freight route. Photos from all of this can be seen here ( mirror ).

The 1908 beaux arts New York Central Schenectady Union Station was closed in 1969 by the Penn Central due to high costs and low ridership before being sold to the city in 1971 to facilitate the construction of a paring lot. The Penn Central's idea for a replacement was a suburban station within the border of Colonie, NY consisting of a small building with parking. Needless to say, the resulting Colonie-Schenectady Station had even lower ridership than the failing 1908 structure and in 1978 Amtrak moved back downtown with immediate plans to construct what would become known as an Amshack style station similar to others on the old Water Level Route at Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo-Depew, Cleveland, South Bend and Hammond. By the 2010's the Amshack itself had become a rundown shambles that was out of place in a newly revitalized urban downtown and funding became available to completely replace the station and platform facilities with one that called back to the 1908 structure. Here we can see the station facade along with the new waiting room.

The platform remained low level, but was completely renovated. CP-160 was altered to only cover track 2 for movements onto the former D&H with the conversion from double to single track moved to a new CP-161 a half mile to the west.

Despite its implosion as an industrial conglomerate, the GE power systems plant is still a fixture of the Schenectady skyline.

Due to the limited sight lines at the station itself, I took up a position a bit to the east adjacent to CP-159. The first Amtrak train to appear was Empire Service Train 281 en-route to Niagara Falls with P42DC #120 leading.

This was followed by westbound Lake Shore Limited Train 48 with P's42DC #94 and #147.

24-01-19 VIDEOS: Mattapan Snow

The MBTA's Mattapan-Ashmont "high speed" line is a part streetcar museum, part light rail transit operating at the southern end of the Red Line subway's Ashmont branch. As previously covered in my last post of still photos the line is run entirely with 1940's PCC streetcars left over from the MBTA's extensive PCC fleet that powered the Green Line system up through the late 1980's. This anachronism has persisted due to some weight and clearance issues on the 2.5 mile line, however there are long term plans to rebuild the bridges and replace the PCCs with Boston's Type 9 LRV's currently in Green Line service. In January 2024 I returned to ride the Mattapan-Ashmont Line for the first time since 2008 and in addition to photos I made due to get some video of the operations there.

First up is this clip of PCC #3087 departing a snow covered Mattapan terminal at the end of the morning peak, with #3265, which had been been performing equipment test runs, in the background. The 8 minute run to Ashmont typically sees two cars in service for the peak periods with one car off peak. The video was taken from a new pedestrian/cycle overpass at the north end of the terminal area which is a great vantage point for photos and also a testament to the improvement of the local neighborhood, which had previously been known for its poverty and crime and, ironically, the likely reason the PCC operation was not modernized earlier.



Here we see MBTA PCC #3268 depart the inbound platform and head around the Mattapan Loop to board passengers for the return journey to Ashmont near the end of the Friday morning peak. Despite the snow and age of the cars, the PCCs were holding up well with no apparent faults. The Mattapan terminal has been extensively modernized as when I was last here in the early 2000's it was still mostly comprised of wood.



Here we have a view from the rear window of PCC #3268 covering the entire route from Mattapan to Ashmont. As you can see there there were two PCC cars on the live providing 10 minute headways. Unlike SEPTA's PCC II's, which were gutted and rebuilt by Brookville, the MBTA PCC fleet still have their original propulsion and air system. Video covers the departure from the Mattapan station and the vehicles subsequent departure from Ashmont around the loop and back down the ramp towards Mattapan. Note that the now retired "High-Speed Line" moniker refers to the streetcars running on their own right of way and not in street traffic, even if the top speeds on the route are still 25-40mph. This historic nomenclature was also popular in Philadelphia with the Route 100 and Patco continuing to have the label applied.



In this video a 6-car MBTA Red Line train pulls into the departure track at the Ashmont terminal from the 3-track relay yard just south of the station. Stock is composed of two 01700 series pairs (01718+01717 and 01757+01758) on the ends with 01600 series pair 01637+01638 in the middle. The classic Boston Red Line 01599 and 01600 series stock was developed by Pullman Standard around 1970. The subsequent 01700 series were delivered around 1987 by the the Urban Transportation Development Corporation of Canada, which had purchased the IP from Pullman out of Bankruptcy. UTDC would later get merged into Bombardier and ultimately Alstom.



Here is my attempt to take a front facing video from an MBTA Red Line train running between the Fields Corner and Savin Hill stations on the Ashmont Branch. Although All Red Line rolling stock has the capability for this view, placement of cab signal equipment and later emergency stretchers frequently block the view.

24-01-19 PHOTOS: Mattapan Snow

The Mattapan PCC's are perhaps the crown jewel in Boston's railfanning scene featuring un-reconstructed streetcars that have been in continuous service since the 1940's. Operating as an extension of the Red Line subway, the 2.6 mile Mattapan branch connects the Mattapan Square transit hub with the Red Line terminus at Ashmont. Therefore it is rather surprising that the last time I had ridden the line was all the way back in 2008 despite visiting the Boston area at least once or twice per year. A part of this gap may have been due to the extra fare it costs to transfer to the Mattapan Line, although more recently Boston has had a bunch of more pressing retirements such as the trolleybus network and the Orange Line's 1980 stock. Anyway, in 2024 I made a point to rectify this oversight and reserved a morning of my winter Boston trip to ride the Mattapan Line. This post will contain the still photos ( mirror )while video content will be in a follow-up post.

While I had originally been booked on a mid-morning Acela, the season's first cold snap disabled many of the increasingly worn out trainsets so I was forced onto the second run of the day, departing Washington Union Station before dawn. The rear power car was #2028 and it was stabled adjacent to ACS-86 #620 on track #20.

Passing ACS-86 #612 underneath Penn Station New York.

Passing MBTA 1800-series cab car #1838 in the Southwest Corridor trench.

My trainset's lead power car was #2007.

The next morning I set out early from downtown transferring at JFK-UMASS from a Braintree to an Ashmont train after having taken the opportunity to rice a train of classic Red Line stock led by c.1970 Pullman Standard 01600 series car #01644. I can never get over how British these look.

On the same platform I happened to catch the lead car of the 01800 series. This order of cars from Bombardier replaced the remaining 01400 series cars from 1963.

Finally arriving in Ashmont, my train gets a lineup into the yard. The Ashmont branch used to be a New Haven RR commuter rail line up through the 1920's and until the PCC loop was rebuilt in the 2000's, featured a period interlocking tower from when the line was first converted to rapid transit use.

Up through the mid-2000's the Ashmont PCC loop was at the same grade level as the Red Line faregates with an elevated flyover at the north end of the trainshed-like station. As part of the rebuild the PCC loop was moved to the south and completely elevated. One of my very first rail videos is of a Mattapan PCC squealing around this loop.

It didn't take long for PCC car #3268 to arrive and climb the ramp up to the loop.

On the outbound run my run passed PCC car #3087 at Milton on a crew training run and #3265 at Central Ave providing 10 minute peak period service. While I was out one of the two PCC's pulled into the shoppe increasing headways to a lackluster 20 minutes.

24-01-14 PHOTOS: N&W CPL Hunt

Over MLK Day weekend of 2024 I went out with a friend for a day long driving tour of Northern Virginia to confirm and photograph interlocking locations on the NS H-Line that were still equipped with Norfolk and Western style position light signals. Over the years I have been able to document many such locations on the northern end of the H-Line above Waynesboro, but as isolated re-signaling efforts continue to take place I wanted to make a push to document whichever ones were left. Unfortunately Virginia is surprisingly long in the diagonal direction and I was forced to call the day a bit early, but overall, the trip was still successful ( mirror ).

The first stop was was in the town of Stanley, VA which had lost its N&W position light signals since my last visit in May of 2021. Just as I pulled up I heard the whistle of an approaching train which turned out to be a southbound manifest freight led by AC44C6M #4424 and C44-9W #9780 with AC44C6M #4292 doing the DPU thing on the rear.

The next stop was the town of Shenandoah, VA where NS has a sizable yard for local freight with operations run out of the historic N&W station building.

Although largely hidden behind some hopper cars I managed to spot AC44C6M #4364 getting its fuel tank topped up.

In a rare bit of good news SHENANDOAH interlocking at the south end of the yard had yet to have its signals replaced. The H-Line had its signaling logic modernized in the late 1990's, keeping the older signals as was the prevailing practice for most of the 20th century. Therefore there was been less pressure to replace the signals themselves.

The next stop was LEWIS RUN, which is the last position lit interlocking north of Waynesboro (adjacent to the south end of Shenandoah National Park and the C&O Blue Ridge Tunnel) as LYNWOOD interlocking at the south end of the siding had already been re-signaled.

Seeing as driving to the next position light interlocking south of Waynesboro would have taken the better part of an hour one way, my friend and I decided to abort and head back north, stopping off for a pint at Elkton Brewing. Upon our departure we noticed an Approach Diverging signal indication displayed at ELKTON interlocking.

Who should appear but the same southbound manifest freight we had caught earlier that morning in Stanley with #4424, #9780 and #4292. It seems that the train took a few hours to set out cars at Shenandoah yard allowing us to run into it a second time that day. Although the Approach Diverging signal indicated a meet was being set up at the Stonewall siding, I was on the block to meet up with a third party for dinner and had to continue northward.