23-10-16 PHOTOS: Exton

SEPTA's Exton Station on the R5 Thorndale portion of the old PRR Main Line is arguably the most important station west of Paoli. The station is served by both SEPTA and Amtrak, and was recently upgraded with high level platforms and a new station building. With service steadily expanding in the 21st century and a vintage PRR signal location adjacent to the parking lot I made the effort to stop by in the fall of 2023 where I generated this set of photos ( mirror ), which also includes a bunch of Baltimore area MARC and light rail photos.

New rebuilt Exton station features two high level platforms and a station building with a waiting area and rest rooms. The new amenities opened in 2018 replacing low level platforms with a mini-high for ADA access. For years crews on the line used the concept of time consuming ADA process at Exton to cover up for small delays that may have been their own fault. The magnitude of ADA-linked delays may have actually accelerated the high level platform project.

The parking lot serving the westbound platform is sandwiched between the PRR Main Line proper and the Low Grade Extension of the Trenton Cutoff that was built around 1906 to extend the alternate freight route from the original junction at Glendale to Thorndale. This extension was abandoned around 1980 as Conrail discontinued electric operation and through freight left The Main Line, however its impressive right of way is still intact.

To the west one can see the famous Whitford Flyover where the Low Grade Extension crosses the Main Line. The SEPTA Whitford Station is located under the flyover and due to its close proximity to Exton and much less parking it sees substantially less ridership. The 1981 construction of Exton was also instrumental in the demise of R3 service to West Chester. With 635 parking spaces, the city of West Chester fell within the new station's driving catchment and offered travel time to Philly that was 30-60 minutes faster than old curvy R3 with its many stops and 40mph top speed. To this day the presence of Exton is the largest barrier to SEPTA West Chester service restoration.

In the western direction one finds the Milepost 27 intermediate signal location looking towards Paoli. At Exton, the center track #2 is only used by the daily regional freight to Coatsville and a few SEPTA deadheads running in to the rear of the SEPTA yard and Frazer.

A westbound R5 Thorndale arrives at Exton. The station has seen a roller coaster of service patterns over the last 30 years. In 1990 most SEPTA service ended at Paoli with some continuing to Parkesburg, supplementing Amtrak Keystone service that also served all the stations west of Paoli. In 1996 SEPTA cut back service to Downingtown, but also moved its yard to Frazer, making Malvern the final stop of regular "Paoli" trains. At this point Amtrak dropped service to Whitford and Malvern. In 1999 the R5 was extended to its current terminus at Thorndale.

There wasn't much train traffic while I was getting my signal photos, but I did spot this Red Tailed Hawk scanning for prey.

Jumping back down to Baltimore, hI caught CSX ET44AC #3252 and #3262 along with AC4400 #237 between them stopped short of the Hollins Ferry Road crossing. A special "Crossing Indicator" signal informs the crew that a route is lined through Zepps Bridge to avoid blocking the crossing.

 

23-08-20 VIDEOS: Baltimore Metro Subway

Here we have the videos that go with my main Baltimore Metro Subway post. Due to the impending replacement of the Budd built Universal Transit Vehicle's, I made time to take a round trip from Owings Mills to Johns Hopkins Hospital and back.  Taking video through the forward facing windows, each trip was divided into two parts with the break taking place at West Cold Springs.

The line features manual operation with cab signal based automatic train control using speeds of 0, 12, 20, 40, 50, 60 and 70mph. The above ground section sees main line speeds of 50, 60 and 70mph with the 70mph taking place in the interstate 795 median between Owings Mills and Old Court. The Metro Subway yard complex is located between Reisterstown and Rodgers Ave.

 The tunnel section sees speeds of mostly 40 and 50mph.

While at Johns Hopkins I got a pair of videos of UTV trains departing and arriving. The UTV stock makes use of DC chopper type propulsion systems.






The return trip was largely uneventful, but provided a different perspective.






That's all for my Baltimore Metro Subway experience. I'll be back shortly with photos from ZOO interlocking's 36th St Jct.

22-10-01 PHOTOS: Boston First Class

Autumn is a great time to visit New Englande and although the last few years saw some disruptions to my annual Labor Day-ish trip to New Hampshire, I managed to make other arrangements. 2022 would be no different as I managed to wrangle a group of friends to take Acela from Washington to Boston to visit another group of friends. Unfortunately, apart from the NEC trip up and back, I had a fairly limited ability to do rail activities during the trip itself. Therefore I am mixing in some additional Baltimore area content from immediately before the Boston run ( mirror ).

Since I more frequently take Amtrak between BWI and Philly I'll start off with some typical Amtrak and MARC action at BWI with ACS-86 #637, cab car #8049, MP36PH-3C #17 and Acela Express power cars #2027 and #2033.

Next up was a trip to downtown Baltimore to take in an O's game. This would be my first time riding one of the rehabilitated Baltimore Light Rail LRV's in the form of #5012 seen here at North Linthicum station. The interior looked pretty much the same, but I think they installed new seats.

Here we see LRV #5009 at Camden Yards.

#5032 at Hamburg. The new Maryland teamed paint job is certainly nice.

Ravens wrapped LRV #5001 at the Convention Center station.

Down in Silver Spring, the Purple Line beam is giving the old JFK AirTrain a run for its money. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

48 hours in advance of my scheduled Boston trip I was able to secure Acela first class upgrades for myself and traveling companions. Since our desired Acela departure did not stop at BWI, we first traveled to Washington Union Station via MARC to create an end-to-end NEC ride. Here is MARC MP36PH-3C #30 and MARC cab cars #7857 and #7758 at Union Station.

Here is Acela Express cab car #2011 on Track 21 although my train was on the adjacent track #20 with power car #2037 which my friend group and baggage situation did not allow me the time to photograph until I got to New York Penn Station where it posed next to P32AC-DM #717.

The first class menu wasn't the best I had, but it did have a tasty vegetarian dish. However after most of the ritzy business travelers got off in NYC, my party got to talking with the attendants and they showered us with drinks into Boston.

19-08-31 PHOTOS: Mt Airy

In the summer of 2019 I realized that I wasn't generating sufficient rail content so I used a free weekend to head out to Mt Airy, MD to take some photos along the B&O's Old Main Line. Unfortunately nothing was running to I added a bunch of other Baltimore and Philly area transit photos to the set and here we are. You can see the full set of photos here (mirror).

We kick things off in South Jersey with a northbound New Jersey Transit Atlantic City Line train passing under Mt. Vernon Ave in Haddonfield, GP40PH-2B #4205 leading and Comet V cab car #5073 on the rear.

This was accompanied by a westbound new style PATCO train with #1090 on the rear.

Jumping down to Maryland I found myself at the BWI Business Park light rail station when rebuilt/repainted MTA Maryland LRV #5012 rolled in with someone I was there to pick up.

My first stop on the Old Main Line was the west end of the HOOD siding on the CSX Old Main Line subdivision about 33 miles from the old Mt Claire terminal.

About 10 miles to the west, the east end of the PLANE siding also serves as the western junction with the old Mt Airy Loop track, which was the original B&O alignment through the town of Mt Airy. Mt. Airy sits at the drainage divide between the Patapsco River and Monocacy Creek and the original alignment involved a variety of stiff grades and sharp curves. Today the old loop track serves an industrial park and MoW uses.

In 1901 the Mt Airy loop was bypassed by a half mile long tunnel, the longest on the OML. Here is the east end, hidden behind a mall parking lot.

The Liberty Dam and Reservoir near Marriottsville is an important part of the Baltimore City public water system. The 160 foot tall concrete dam impounds a 3100 acre reservoir.

Jumping to the far side of the Baltimore metro area, here is Amtrak ACS-86 #618 leading a northbound Regional through RIVER interlocking at one of thee points where the NEC passes under the east side of I-695.

And here is a southbound Regional being hauled by ACS-86 #668.

Before I left the northbound Amtrak Silver Starve Train 92 showed up with ACS-86 #662 and two Viewliner sleepers.

19-07-21 PHOTOS: Hot Times

A Washington, DC area summer is hot and in late July even a late night celebration of the 50th Apollo 11 moon landing anniversary turned into an absolutely sweltering affair.  Still, I didn't pass up the chance to get some DC Metro photos and ride the new H Street streetcar line. Also included are some Baltimore Light Rail pics during the service disruption caused by a giant sinkhole on Russel St adjacent to the Convention Centre. You can see the full set of photos here (mirror).


Starting off at Perryville, MD, I was out to check out the new Rule 562 enabled signals as well as a new trailing point ladder for northbound freight trains coming off the Port Road.  This allows both Perryville siding tracks to be used to hold freight trains instead of just track #4. 

To reach DC I chose Greenbelt as my suburban park and ride option which would require a transfer to the Red Line to reach Union Station. Here is WMATA 7k car #7618 and a video of some additional 7k Green Line action on the lower level at Ft Totten.

Luckily I managed to get a train of classic style 6k cars on the Red Line segment of the trip with #6167 in the lead.

Here is a video taken from the rear window of my Red Line all the way from Ft Totten to Union Station.




6k car #6053 was the last car in the set, seen here at Union Station.

H-Street Streetcar #202 arriving at the Union Station stop with new construction as far as the eye can see.

#202 again as it is seen departing the 15th St stop on Benning Road. 

The Apollo 11 event on the Mall was really fun, despite the sweltering heat.  Projecting a full scale Saturn V on the Washington Monument was a stroke of genius, however the 500+ foot tall monument had the unintended effect of making the ~380 feet tall rocket look small :-\

After the show ended there was a mad dash to the L'Enfant plaza station, but I managed to score space on the first available Green Line train to Greenbelt.  Here we see a southbound Yellow Line train on the upper level of the station followed by my outbound train of classic style cars.

At Greenbelt I  managed to catch a pair of classic trainsets platformed across from eachother with 3k cars #3222 and #3108 on the ends.

18-08-25 PHOTOS: OAK

Amtrak OAK Interlocking is located behind a mobile home park directly off US 40 between Aberdeen and Havre de Grace, MD. Due to an earlier re-signaling effort that took place between Amtrak GRACE and BACON interlockings north of OAK, I thought it might be a good idea to document things a bit so I wouldn't be forced to later. In addition to the Amtrak action I caught at OAK, I have also included a bunch of Baltimore area transit that I used commuting to a conference downtown. You can view the photo gallery here or on Google photos.

OAK is located at Milepost 63 on the Philadelphia to Washington line. It is directly south of GRACE interlocking and works in conjunction with PERRY interlocking. For this the layout consists of a single trailing point crossover from track 3 to track 4. There is also a connection off track 2 for the Havre de Grace industrial track. OAK used to mark the southern end of a 4-track segment between there and GRACE where freights and whatnot could wait to cross the 2-track Susquehanna River bridge and, more often than not. proceed up the Port Road to Enola yard. Today the NEC is three tracks through OAK, but the presence of a labeled 1S signal, a dead 2S signal on the southbound gantry and 19 switch hint at the former layout.

The single #43 turnout remains operated by US&S A-5 pneumatic point machines. The 19 switch to the industrial track was converted to electric in the early 2000's. Here we see the southward air compressor plant and a pneumatic valve for the 43A points.

Here we see northbound Acela Express power car #2024 passing by the old OAK relay house. OAK was originally controlled from a CTC style machine in PERRY tower along with other area interlockings like GRACE, PRINCE and a number on the Port Road. The Penn Central vintage interlocking sign is one of just a handful left in service.

Passing the northbound Acela (just visible in the background) was a southbound Regional led by ACS-86 #606. Sometimes southbound Regionals are pulled into the center track #3 between GRACE and OAK to allow Acela Express trains to overtake them on track #4. 

This strange building turned out to be an MoW tool house. Upon closer inspection, Penn Central paint could still be identified.