25-03-09 PHOTOS: CAPITOL

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.

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.

 

24-11-24 PHOTOS: LAUREL RUN

In recent years I have been using the Thanksgiving travel season to document more of the signaling on the Reading and Northern main line which now runs between Reading and Scranton on former Reading, CNJ and Lehigh Valley trackage. These trips provide me the chance to catch some action on the old PRR Main Line near Harrisburg as well as the RBMN's Scranton to Mach Chunk excursion service in the Poconos. 2024 was no different and I came away with ( mirror ) an informal train chase between CP-ROCKVILLE and CP-CANNON as well as RBMN photos at CP-LAUREL RUN.

My first goal was to catch Amtrak's westbound Pennsylvanian Train 43. Arriving at a highway overpass at the eastern end of CP-ROCKVILLE, I saw NS AC44C6M locomotives #4314 and #4256 moving slowly towards a Restricting signal indication ahead on track #2 of a manifest freight consist. A Clear signal on track #1 was presumably for the Pennsylvanian.

My assessment proved accurate when Train 43 arrived on the scene with P42DC #119 and pulled past the NS freight.



While I knew there was no way I could catch up with the Pennsylvanian, the NS freight was still moving at a crawl so I jumped in my car and hightailed it across the Susquehanna River to CP-BANKS.

Since it was still moving pretty slowly I figured I could get ahead of it again at the old Cove, PA signal location. Sure enough when I got there I saw an approaching headlight, but to my surprise instead of the pair of AC44C6M's and trash cubes, I saw NS SD70ACe #1149 and AC44C6M #4190 ahead of a different manifest freight on track #1. This train was likely running ahead of the one I had previously seen, which explained the Restricting signal indication, and then crossed over to Track #1 at CP-BANKS.

As it slowly moved passed, likely still on signals for Train 43 ahead of it, #4314 and #4256 appeared again, still on track #2 and making up ground on the train in track #1.

24-10-26 PHOTOS: Coatesville

The former Pennsylvania Railroad Station in Coatesville, PA occupies a strange in-between space. It's beyond the reach of SEPTA Regional Rail, which terminates about 4 miles to the east at Thorndale, but still handles a lot of Philadelphia commuter traffic. Once a significant steel town, Coatesville has slowly evolved into a bedroom community for people priced out of closer in suburbs. Ironically the station once boasted a limited SEPTA scheduled in a similar manner to MARC's Perryville service, but the cost of maintaining a 2-shift operator job at PARK tower in Parkesburg to turn the trains forced SEPTA to cut service back to Downingtown leaving passengers to rely on Amtrak's Keystone trains to get to Philly and beyond. Left to deteriorate for decades, Coatesville is finally getting its replacement station and, hopefully, restored SEPTA service. In this set of photos ( mirror ) I'll explore the old Coatesville station, pop by the old tower at LANDIS and then finish out the day at HARRIS tower in Harrisburg.

It might not look like it, but the Coatesville station building actually dates from 1868. Likely used up into the Amtrak SEPTA era, the building was ultimately closed and boarded up, suffering a fire in 2014 which gutted most of the second story. In 2020 the building was cosmetically restored to play the role of the Easttown police station in the award winning HBO drama, Mare of Easttown. This is why it bares the street address of 1223 Fake St, instead of its actual number of 259 Fleetwood St. The outline from the Railroad Express Agency diamond can still be seen on the front of the building.

In 1911 the Coatesville Station infrastructure was upgraded at the tail end of the PRR's eastern PA freight upgrades which included the Atglen and Susquehanna plus Philadelphia and Thorndale low grade lines and general 4-tracking of the Main Line between the two. Making use of the new wonder material, reinforced concrete, the new station featured two side platforms, an underpass using the bridge over third street and stairways up to both grade separated platforms.

For years the track-level infrastructure consisted of two truncated low level platforms, a short wooden shelter with bench, a bay window with station information and what appears to be an ADA ramp into the upper level of the station which may have contained an elevator.

24-08-17 PHOTOS: Fire Up Pittston

With the reactivation of Reading T-1 class 4-8-4 steam locomotive #2102, the Reading, Blue Mountain and Northern has been on a tear finding new places and ways to run main line steam excursions. In 2024, the RBMN used its August slot to take fans from its new "Regional Transportation Center" in Nesquehoning, PA to the Scranton-adjacent town of Pittston, PA in conjunction with its annual Tomato Festival. Seeing as how I had been looking to ride an excursion up the Lehigh Gorge to the Wyoming Valley, I booked tickets with a friend and set out from the Baltimore area at 5am for the RBMN's 9am departure. If you are interested in the video content, you can catch it here and if you want to browse the full set of photos you can find that here ( mirror ).

When industry consolidation closed the Kovatch Mobile Equipment Corp. factory in Nesquehoning, PA, the Reading and Northern seized the opportunity to purchase its sizable manufacturing campus for conversion into an omnibus rail operations base with shoppe facilities and administrative offices. A side effect of this purchase was a new location to stage rail excursions that was both closer to Scranton and wouldn't interfere with the popular Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railroad, which was already parking limited in the busy tourist town of Mauch Chunk.

To this end, RBMN owner Andy Muller built and christened the Nesquehoning Regional Transportation Center on the property with the official ribbon cutting taking place before the day's Iron Horse Ramble.

Also on hand for the event was the RBMN's black bear mascot and Andy's personal M5 light tank.

While I had ridden on this part of the RBMN Main Line as part of the 2102+425 ramble in 2022, I turned onto new route milage at JIM THORPE JCT, crossing the Lehigh River on the state funded bridge that finally connected the two halves of the RBMN Main Line between Reading and Pittston. Except for a few small gaps, this Main Line is equipped with CTC signaling and interlockings.

Although the day was overcast, the former Lehigh Valley Railroad path through the Gorge offered ample photo opportunities.

One legacy issue with the line is the near complete lack of signaled passing sidings in the 60 odd miles between Tamaqua and Mountain top. This makes trains having to pull into hand operated sidings and spur tracks the only way to achieve a meet. Here #2102 meets RBMN GP38-2 #2023 and the southbound Pittston to Mauch Chunk tourist train at the TANNERY siding.

#2102 crossing back to the west side of the Lehigh River at White Haven.

With 16+ cars and a steep grade to the Pocono summit at Mountain Top, the 5000hp T-1 class consumed a lot of water and has to stop to top up at the old CNJ yard at Mountain Top, which also hosts the RBMN Penobscott Station.

The yard is home to RBMN's locomotive deadline with freight units like SD50's #5033 and #5022, but also a pair of former SRNJ F3's cab units that used to work the Salem Branch before being stored at Windows Jct for over a decade.

Since Andy Muller isn't made of brake shoes, a pair of "Fast Freight" painted SD50's (#5019 and #5018) are attached to the head end at Mountain Top so that the consist can enjoy the benefits of dynamic braking into the Wyoming Valley.

At Pittston the Ramble train was greeted by loads of railfans as well as local buses drafted into transporting the passengers to the town's Tomatoe Festival during the four hour layover. Even in his 70's, Andy Muller is a consummate businessman and we suspected that he had worked out some deal with the town to bring an extra 1500 or so odd captive tourists to their local event.

The festival was conceived in the 80's as a way to revive the local scene after the collapse of Anthracite coal mining. In addition to the typical carnival fare, the local "Old Forge" pizza style was also on offer.

The Pittston station, which sees regularly scheduled Lehigh Gorge tourist trains to Mauch Chunk, had also been styled as the Scranton/Wilkes Barre Regional Transportation Centre.

When we got back to the station #2102 was getting serviced, including an ash pan dump.

Pittston has been the base of RBMN's Scranton area operations for decades with the passenger service being the relative newcomer. GP30 rebuild #2533 and caboose #92817 were on hand for local operations.

Speaking of local operations, there was no way that Andy was going to let a steam passenger Ramble get in the way of normal freight operations. As a result GP30 rebuild #2534 and SD50M #5049 were out getting a single lumber car out for delivery.

#2102 returned from servicing triggering a pair of vintage grade crossing wigways. These electro-mechanical warning lights were once common, but have become pretty much extinct on the North American rail network in recent years.




#2102 proceeded out to Pittston yard to couple up to the Ramble consist before heading forward to platform the train.

Heading back up the grade, we eventually passed the returning Mauch Chunk weekend excursion train with GP38-2 #2015, waiting at CP--SOLOMONS GAP.

Passing Crestwood Road at Milepost 153 one can get a good feeling for the traveling circus of railfans that always accompany these mainline steam excursions.

Passing the intermediate White Haven station. The Poconos have lodging and attractions over a wide area so Andy Muller has added intermediate stops to attract ridership.

The Interstate 80 Lehigh River Bridge replacement project is under way.

People who pine for the days of steam and coal have probably never ridden a trip like this and don't realize how dirty coal is as a fuel.

#2102 after a hard day's work at Nesquehoning.

The parking situation still encourages one to hang out for a bit and get some additional photos. I'm not sure what role GP38-2 #2014 was going to play getting the Ramble train back to Port Clinton, but it looked nice sparkling in the twilight.

KME's main assembly building has been converted into a locomotive repair hall with new tracks being cut through the former parking lot.

Since I was continuing on to South Jersey, I wasn't in a position to get my steam excursion buddy home that day. Instead I put him on an NJT Atlantic City Line train at Cherry Hill, where he would connect to Amtrak via 30th St. The ACRL link was powered by GP40PH-2B #4204.

 



Well that's it for my big RBMN Main Line Steam excursion of 2024. Next time I'll be getting my steps in visiting some of the neat railfanning locations in Washington, DC.