23-11-04 PHOTOS: Grand Central Madison

In 2023 the opening of East Side Access, partly rebranded as the name of its new terminus Grand Central Madison, was all the rage. While the excitement would soon turn to disappointment as the LIRR completely botched the resulting service changes, the new GCM remained a must see, so myself and a friend arranged a day trip to NYC with plans to visit PORT interlocking and tower in Freeport, Long Island, traveling into GCM and getting some clean up photos at the M Cabin drawbridge in Long Island City. On the day of the trip I even achieved an unanticipated bonus goal of getting an extended amount of rear facing NEC photos from the back of my NJT train into Penn Station. You can see the full set of photos here ( mirror ).

First up we have an NJT NEC line train comprised of single level stock and a leading Comet V cab car, stopped at MENLO interlocking to wait for my train to pass by and platform at Metropark while a southbound Amtrak Regional train led by ACS-86 #637 pulls away on track #4..

Westbound signals at UNION interlocking with an NJT ALP-46 just visible at the Rahway platform on Track #B.

The DOCK drawbridges, tower and PATH ramps.

Amtrak MoW MP15D at Manhattan Transfer.

PORTAL bridge with the new bridge construction to the right.

NJT ALP-45 #4516 at ALLIED interlocking.

Video from the rear window of the entire North River tunnel from BERGEN interlocking to Penn Station.



Arriving New York Penn Station.

Heritage painted Amtrak P32AC-DM #713 waiting to depart with an Empire corridor train.

LIRR M7's #7692 and #7448 adjacent to Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad milepost zero.

LIRR Babylon Branch M7 #7565 passing the 2E position light mast signal at PORT interlocking. PORT was re-signaled around 2005, just before the LIRR stopped installing new position light type signals.

An inbound Babylon Branch train bracketed by M7's #7739 and #7188 arrives at Freeport.

23-02-11 PHOTOS: Albany Jct

As the years pass it has been getting harder and harder to find new signaling in the New York Capitol Region to cover. This has been both due to be success in covering said signaling and the ongoing march of replacements. Efforts to tackle Amtrak Hudson Line surveys via day trips from the NY Metro had only gotten me up to Milepost 110, with some gaps. Day trips working south from Albany had similarly only gotten me to Milepost 125. However after mode shifting my Albany trips in the Covid era from train to car I was able to fill in most of the remaining locations leaving my 2023 up in the air. Now in hindsight I should have hit up some locations on the old B&M Main Line, but instead I looked west to CPF-499 on the former D&H route. This is where SMS lines Albany Division interchanges with NS and is notable for its fairly recent vintage searchlight signaling. I also found one additional location at Hudson Line Milepost 118 and went back to check on what was up with CP-SK and related signals near Selkirk, NY. Lastly to fill things out will be a selection of DC and Baltimore area photos taken on an adjacent weekend. The full set of photos can be found here ( mirror ).

Kicking things off we find the Hudson Line Milepost 118 intermediate signal located adjacent to a park at the mouth of the Stockport Creek. The NY Central searchlight signaling north of Hudson, NY was largely replaced during the Conrail era, but with that now 25 years in the past and need for photographic preservation has only increased. Here Amtrak P32AC-DM #709 passes the location with an Empire Service train.

Amtrak's current baseline Empire Service offers 60-120 minute frequencies between New York and Albany. That creates frequent opportunities to catch multiple trains in a single stop. Here a southbound run with P32AC-DM #715 splits the MP 118 signals with Approach still showing on the track 1 signal for the previous train. While fairly homogenous from a signaling perspective, the 110mph section only begins at Milepost 125, where freight trains exit the line via the Schodack Branch.

The Stockport Creek truss bridge showed the New York Central's foresight to make the bridge pylons capable of supporting a 4-track configuration. Unfortunately due to declines in traffic the northernmost 4-track segment ended at Milepost 93 in Barrytown.

To reach this and other northern Hudson Line locations the Rip Van Winkle Bridge allows one to transfer from the Thruway to the east side of the Hudson River.

CPF-499 on the former Delaware and Hudson Main Line in Dealenson, NY sits at the junction with the former Albany Branch (right) that would continue on past the Colonie Shoppes before terminating at the B&M interchange at Mechanicville. Today the route. Today the branch is operated as far as Voorheesville by SMS Lines with the remainder of the branch being abandoned. The Main Line, on the other hand, is now the purview of Norfolk Southern, who bought the route from Canadian Pacific. It is part of a logical Main Line set up by the Guilford Rail system running between central Main (Mp 0) and Sunbury, PA (MP 715) back when the Guilford controlled the D&H.

CPF-499 is also located at the north end of a 4-mile controlled siding and is configured as a "Conrail Crossover" that functions with 2 switches instead of 4 at the cost of capacity.

Canadian Pacific was one of the last users of traditional electro-mechanical searchlight signals and continued to install new examples on the D&H Main Line up into the 2000's. Both the southbound main track mast and northbound gantry are examples of these latter day searchlight installations. Here a Clear signal indicates the approach of a northbound train on the siding track. Low track speeds allow both main routes through the interlocking to rate a Clear signal.

The Clear signal turned out to be for an approaching NS intermodal train led by SD60E #6954, AC44C6M #4462 and C44-10W #7569.

The lfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge was constructed by the New York Central in 1924 as part of its Selkirk Yard project to bypass the congested Albany terminal area. It allows for both Boston Line and Hudson Line freight to rise up and cross the Hudson on a non-movable high level bridge. In the last few years CSX undertook a structural revitalization project that replaced many of the steel crossmembers and gusset plates on the viaduct portions of the bridge. This is the southernmost crossing of the Hudson River since the 1974 fire took the Poughkeepsie Bridge out of service.

Today the western end of the bridge marks the transition between Conrail style and Seaboard style signaling. This demarcation was previously located west of CP-SK, but that interlocking's recent re-signaling forced the change.

At CP-SK I caught a southbound intermodal train departing Selkirk yard with CSX ET44 #3331 leading and AC4400 #538 on DPU duty.

 Cutting back to the Maryland area, here we find MARC Kab Kar #7853 at BWI early in the morning.

WMATA 3k car #3122 at Union Station.

Signs of water intrusion at Howard University Station with 7k car #7265 arriving.

Overhead view of #7265 at Gallery Place.

MARC Kab Kar #7852 boarding at Union Station track #11

MARC SC44 #84 at the head of the train.

Well that about wraps it up. Come back next time as I return to Winslow Jct to see what's been going on there.

22-10-14 PHOTOS: City Position Lights - Part 2

In part one of my fall 2022 LIRR Main Line position light trip I traveled to New York City and visited three PRR style amber position lit signal locations between Q Gardens and Woodside on the LIRR Main Line. In part two I will continue on to the Hunterspoint Ave area to check out M CABIN on the "temporarily" out of service Main Line Cutoff over Dutch Kills in addition to late afternoon action at the Hunterspoint LIRR station. I'll then wrap things up by catching an outbound peak period <6> Express train to Parkchester. You can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).

After getting back on the Queens Blvd line at Grand Ave, I transferred to R188 #7261 on the (7) at 74th St and took it to Hunterspoint Ave.

<6>

Back on surface streets I caught sight of an R188 train on the (7) ramp adjacent to the LIRR yard full of brand new M9's including #9093.

I also caught Amtrak ACS-86 #618 with a southbound Regional entering Line 2 en-route to Penn Station.

The LIRR Main Line freight cutoff served the old Sunnyside freight yards, allowing trains to reach the non-electrified Montauk Branch in an eastbound direction and avoid trying up the high density Main Line. With the decline in NYC industrial customers and the replacement of the Sunnyside freight yard with passenger yard and shoppe facilities, the Cutoff has been functionally abandoned. Previously accessed by ramps from F interlocking (part of the former PRR Sunnyside Yard complex), today the single remaining track has been largely reclaimed by nature as seen here under the Large Island Expressway.

Nevertheless, the line's movable bridge over the Dutch Kills, is still an active, although out of service, interlocking station. The westbound distant signal stands at the top of the F interlocking ramp and, despite the colorful artwork, is still lit and was displaying a PRR manual block Caution indication.

This section of the cutoff had also been commandeered by a local urban farm.

22-05-26 PHOTOS: Brockway

In the early 1990's there was a minor monorail resurgence in the United States with 4 similar systems being sold to the cities of Brockway, Ogdenville, North Haverbrook and Springfield. While the systems in Ogdenville and Springfield were later shut down, I had had no information regarding fate of the Brockway Monorail and therefore I decided to visit over Memorial Day weekend in 2022 to see what I could find. Brockway is located a few miles off I-80 north of Du Bois, PA and, in addition to the monorail, it features the Buffalo and Pittsburgh main line running through town. The full set of photos, which include additional content from Hancock, MD and Clarion, PA, can be found here ( mirror ).

The trip out to Brockway from the east coast involves I-70 to the PA Turnpike to I-99. I try to time travel using this route so that I will pass by Hancock, WV just in time to catch Amtrak Train 30, the eastbound Capitol Limited. This day I was a few minutes early and managed to snag a surprising amount of CSX action. First up was a westbound manifest freight led by NINE(!) locomotives. The first three were ES44AC's #986, #860 and #3020

These were followed by SD70MACe #4558, one of 7 CSX SD70MAC's that have been so far rebuilt with new AC electronics and a power bump from 4000hp to 4500hp.

Behind them were three "YN" painted C40-9W's, #9012, #9016 and #9019, in tow as part of their reactivation process due to increased traffic levels. The 9000-series C40-9W's are interesting as the 50-strong order was GE's first of the Dash-9 era and had some early installment weirdness including Dash-8 trucks.

Two additional locomotives were behind the C40-9W's, C40-10W #5328 and GP40-3 #6561.

The manifest freight proceeded to pass by a local job waiting to head east with GP40-2 #6483 leading.

Instead of getting a signal, a different local freight with 3 locomotives and 4 cars proceeded west under HANCOCK interlocking's eastbound signal bridge. the units included GP40-2 #6445, GP38-2 #2742 and GP38-3 #2059.

The main attraction soon arrived with Amtrak P42DC #71 pulling a 6 car Train 30 all by itself.