18-10-05 PHOTOS: CONPIT and TROBE

October was a busy month with back-to-back trips to Western Pennsylvania. The first covered the PRR Main Line between Altoona and Conpit Junction and the second had me swinging by the well known railfan locations at Latrobe and Derry, PA. In my previous post I covered the West Slope portion of the trip between Gallitzin and South Fork, moving the Conpit Junction photos to this post with the Latrobe and Derry photos taken a week later as they present a more logical grouping. CP-CONPIT is the westernmost end of the three track segment of the PRR Main Line that starts at Tyrone, PA, about 10 miles east of Altoona. At CP-CONPIT the Pittsburgh and Conemaugh Lines and diverge and take different routes to Pittsburgh, with the Conemaugh Line being the longer yet lower grade option as it follows the Conemaugh River to the Allegheny River at Kiski. Meanwhile the Pittsburgh Line continues directly to Pittsburgh overland via the cities of Latrobe and Greensburg. CP-CONPIT takes the form of a full 3-track crossover, but sees more than a typical crossover's share of shuffling as different types of trains take different routes.

CP-TROBE is located at the site of the old KR tower that controlled a crossover and the side platform Latrobe passenger station. A history of the tower can be found here, but the interlocking was initially completely removed by Conrail in favor of DR interlocking at Derry, before being restored as part of the late 70's CTC project. Latrobe itself is the home of Arnold Palmer, Mister Rodgers and Rolling Rock Beer. Derry, PA is a well known Railfan location due to a small railroad museum and a position light signal bridge that used to be the westbound home signal for DR interlocking.

You can find the set of Conpit photos of the bottom of this gallery (mirror) and the Latrobe/Derry photos here (mirror).

We kick off with the same two GE engines I had caught earlier in the afternoon at Summerhill, a brand new NS ET44AC #3671 and a decrepit CSX C40-8W #7826. They are powering a westbound manifest train over the long crossover from Pittsburgh Line #3 track to Pittsburgh Line #2 track as that train is being routed directly to Pittsburgh.

The Conemaugh Line between CP-CONPIT ahd CP-KISKI was the site of the PRR's experiment of a cab signal system without wayside signals and as a result it features Rule 280a "Clear to Next Interlocking" lamps on all westward signals to accomidate cab signal failures. Here we see the original PRR vintage 8W signal displaying a Clear indication for a westbound train. 

The westbound train in question was a doublestack intermodal led by NS C44-9W #9242 and C40-8W #8366.

This was soon followed by an eastbound with a 5-engine lashup on the front that consisted of NS C44-9W #9227, Flordia East Coast SD70M-2 #106, NS C44-10W #7526, NS GP38-2 #5662 amd NS SD40-2 #3462.