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.

25-02-08 PHOTOS: New Cannan

One of those services that is easy to overlook is the Metro-North New Canaan Branch which runs between Stamford and the small town of New Canaan. Included in the New Haven's suburban electrification scheme it managed to hold onto its electrification unlike the nearby Danbury Branch. Today the 8-ish mile line is mostly served by shuttle trains making main line connections at Stamford and to use up some Amtrak expiring companion coupons a friend and I made plans to day trip the line from Baltimore taking Amtrak to/from Stamford and connecting to the Metro-North shuttle from there. The following is a summary of how that worked out.

In order to get all the way up to Stamford at a reasonable time we had to catch one of the first northbound Regionals from the BWI airport rail station. Power for that day's trip was ACS-86 #607.

On the trip up I encountered Acela NG power car #2104 at Philly, SEPTA ACS-86 #909 and Amtrak ACS-86 #650 with a southbound Regional near Co-Op city.

Due to the close connection at Stamford I only had had time for this one photo of an inbound Metro-North  train to GCT before boarding the New Canaan shuttle.

While the line isn't fast or super exciting, it was interesting to reverse my typical perspective of the  Merritt Parkway as well as suburban back yards abutting the single track like it was some sort of suburban trolley.

The line has no passing facilities and typically sees hourly service with the shuttle laying over at Stamford. Today the shuttle was a 6 car train of M8 MU's with a car and a half hanging off the platform at New Canaan.

The balance of the layover is carried out at Stamford so my first act was to briskly walk down to the Grove St crossing to catch the departure. Endcap units were #9445 on the west and #9108 on the east.

24-12-30 PHOTOS: SEPTA Mid-Winter Trip XXIV

Due to the way Christmas fell, 2024 SEPTA Mid-Winter Trip was one of the latest we've had taking place on December 30th. The flagship feature of the trip was and end-to-end ride of the newly re-opened Route 15 Trolley from 63rd St to the Westmorland loop. This was followed by a mix of Market Frankford and Broad Street Lines, some NEC fanning at North Philadelphia and then a Regional Rail loop through Chestnut Hill. The trip suffered from late running on the Routes 15 and 75, resulting in some last second re-routes. You can view the entire set of photos here ( mirror ).

After my ride downtown via PATCO the trip participants assembled at the east end of the Market East Station and proceeded to the 13th St Subway-Surface trolley terminal. We began to wonder if the trip was a Friends of Philadelphia Streetcars event when heritage car #9000 pulled in displaying LRV's Forever. Even though we were waiting for a Route 10, we naturally got on #9000 with a planned transfer at 30th St.

Our outbound Route 10 K-car to Girard Jct was #9101. The Route 15 was still only partially running PCC III's so while waiting for our westbound, #2324 passed by eastbound along with #9014 on the Route 10.

When our PCC finally arrived it was delayed slightly by the operator first having to manually line the switch for the Route 15 and then by Route 10 K-Car #9088.

At 63rd St we took the first of several group photos. Since the following run was bustituted we continued our trek to Richmond on #2337.

If you have an hour you can watch this rear-facing video of the entire trip. If you think that's painfully slow for a trip across the city consider that I cut out about 20 minutes of long stops to handle ADA riders.

24-08-31 PHOTOS: Free NJT

After spending something like $40 to get from Trenton to Long Branch and back earlier in the summer, when I heard that NJT was doing one of those free fare promotions around the Labour Day holiday I decided to pounce and take a trip up the NEC to get some photos at the Edison and Metutchen Stations. Both offer great NEC views along with position light signals and, in the case of Metutchen, the old LINCOLN interlocking tower. Also included in the photo set ( mirror ) are some pitches in and around the Trenton station.

To make NJT truly free I parked at the Bordentown RiverLINE station to avoid having to pay to park in the garage at Hamilton. Weekend scheduled have the LRV's passing just south of the station so I managed to catch #5313 heading south and #5306 heading north.

Because NJT hates creating reliable connections I had to book it from the RiverLINE to the Northeast Corridor platform to catch the NEC local. I typically relax and catch the express, but my plan was to move that layover to the Edison Station platform. As soon as I got off at Edison I spotted the Amtrak Acela Express trainset with power cars #2012 and #2013 approaching southbound and I got video of it passing my northbound NJT Northeast Corridor Line local with cab car #7048 and ALP-46 #4633. After departure, the local knocks down the 1N signal at EDISON interlocking to a Restricting indication.




EDISON interlocking provides access to the west end of the Edison Yard from NEC tracks #1 and #2. Back in the region's industrial heyday the yard was a hub for local shippers including a large Ford assembly plant. Most of these have since closed, but there is enough traffic to keep the infrastructure around. Unlike most interlockings, EDISON's limits extend nearly a mile between what would normally be automatic block signaling locations. Here we see a fox crossing over tracks 1 and 2 in EDISON interlocking.

Just before the NJT weekend express train arrived, I was able to witness a pretty epic race between southbound Keystone Train #663 on track #3 and Regional Train 153 on track #4. Train 663, hauled by ACS-86 #670, made up a 30 second deficit with Train 153, hauled by ACS-86 #663, eventually passing it just before the New Brunswick Station!

The weekend express was hauled by #4612 with cab car #7060 on the rear seen here at Edison and Metutchen respectively.

The Metutchen Station features PRR era station buildings with Penn Central era canopies.

A westbound NEC local was quick to arrive with cab car #7001 and ALP45 #4548, but I was going to take the hour long headway to explore the station area.

Crossing over to the westbound platform I caught an eastbound Keystone with Metroliner Cab Car #9638 and ACS-86 #632.

This was followed by eastbound Amtrak Acela Express with power car #2023 and #2025. I got a video passing through LINCOLN interlocking and the Metutchen NJ Transit station.

LINCOLN tower was built by the PRR around WW2 as part of a general trend to replace older wooden towers with mechanically worked switched. It was closed in the early 1990's, but still stands as an MoW office.

Here I caught a southbound Amtrak Regional with ACS-86 #621.

The Metutchen station platforms extend on bridges over Main St.

The arrival of another eastbound weekend express with ALP-46 #4652 and cab car #7002, indicates its almost time for my own train back to Trenton.

That train came in the form of a single level set with Comet V cab car #6039.

Fast forward to Trenton and my train, with ALP-46 #4659, pulled into Track #5 adjacent to a laid up SEPTA Push-Pull set with ACS-86 #912. For some reason I saw multiple ALP-46 number boards with stenciled digits.

I had a few minutes before the RiverLINE departure and while I was waiting an inbound SEPTA R7 pulled in from the storage tracks east of the station. The leading pair of Silverliners IV, #101 and #102, were the first of 44 pairs delivered to the Reading in early 1976.

While the SEPTA R7 pulled in, and eastbound Amtrak Keystone arrived across the platform with Metroliner Cab Car #9635.

While walking back to the concourse, southbound Amtrak Crescent Train 19 arrived behin ACS-86 #619.

Comet V #6039 again at Trenton track #5 and ALP-46 #4628 pulling in from Morrisville Yard.

My final travel leg of the day was RiverLINE the back to Bordentown using the same LRV that had taken me out to Trenton, #530.

That's all for my trip to Metutchen, if you'd like to learn about the super rare left handed PRR dwarf signal at LINCOLN you can read about it on my other blog.