24-01-19 PHOTOS: Mattapan Snow

The Mattapan PCC's are perhaps the crown jewel in Boston's railfanning scene featuring un-reconstructed streetcars that have been in continuous service since the 1940's. Operating as an extension of the Red Line subway, the 2.6 mile Mattapan branch connects the Mattapan Square transit hub with the Red Line terminus at Ashmont. Therefore it is rather surprising that the last time I had ridden the line was all the way back in 2008 despite visiting the Boston area at least once or twice per year. A part of this gap may have been due to the extra fare it costs to transfer to the Mattapan Line, although more recently Boston has had a bunch of more pressing retirements such as the trolleybus network and the Orange Line's 1980 stock. Anyway, in 2024 I made a point to rectify this oversight and reserved a morning of my winter Boston trip to ride the Mattapan Line. This post will contain the still photos ( mirror )while video content will be in a follow-up post.

While I had originally been booked on a mid-morning Acela, the season's first cold snap disabled many of the increasingly worn out trainsets so I was forced onto the second run of the day, departing Washington Union Station before dawn. The rear power car was #2028 and it was stabled adjacent to ACS-86 #620 on track #20.

Passing ACS-86 #612 underneath Penn Station New York.

Passing MBTA 1800-series cab car #1838 in the Southwest Corridor trench.

My trainset's lead power car was #2007.

The next morning I set out early from downtown transferring at JFK-UMASS from a Braintree to an Ashmont train after having taken the opportunity to rice a train of classic Red Line stock led by c.1970 Pullman Standard 01600 series car #01644. I can never get over how British these look.

On the same platform I happened to catch the lead car of the 01800 series. This order of cars from Bombardier replaced the remaining 01400 series cars from 1963.

Finally arriving in Ashmont, my train gets a lineup into the yard. The Ashmont branch used to be a New Haven RR commuter rail line up through the 1920's and until the PCC loop was rebuilt in the 2000's, featured a period interlocking tower from when the line was first converted to rapid transit use.

Up through the mid-2000's the Ashmont PCC loop was at the same grade level as the Red Line faregates with an elevated flyover at the north end of the trainshed-like station. As part of the rebuild the PCC loop was moved to the south and completely elevated. One of my very first rail videos is of a Mattapan PCC squealing around this loop.

It didn't take long for PCC car #3268 to arrive and climb the ramp up to the loop.

On the outbound run my run passed PCC car #3087 at Milton on a crew training run and #3265 at Central Ave providing 10 minute peak period service. While I was out one of the two PCC's pulled into the shoppe increasing headways to a lackluster 20 minutes.

23-07-03 PHOTOS: Main Line 562

In 2018, as the former PRR Main Line between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh was in the midst of a major re-signaling project, I was blocked in my efforts to get westbound facing photos from the rear of eastbound Amtrak Pennsylvanian Train 42 by a private car. In 2023, 5 years after the re-signaling project was completed, I was in the position to try again even if the route was now devoid of interesting signaling. Although cloudy weather and wildfire haze impacted the photos, I accomplished my mission of documenting the now diminished PRR Main Line between Pittsburgh and Tyrone, where the rain made additional coverage impractical. You can view the full gallery here.

Amtrak lets passengers board pretty early for the 8am departure of Train 42 from Pittsburgh Penn Station stub track #3. Power for the day was P42DC #94.

Departing the station, Train 42 passed by the old Conrail era helper base at he Pittsburgh station. Trains needing helpers over the entire west slope would have them attached here. In the mid-2000's the base was closed with the crews moved to either Cresson or Johnstown and helpers cutting off at various points along the Pittsburgh Line depending on operational expediency.

After moving to the rear of the train the first point of interest was a KCS AC4400 in the number 2 position leading a westbound train of empty oil tank cars near Manor, PA.

NS C44-9W #9700 along with a C40-10W leading a westbound intermodal near Radebaugh.

Greensburg, PA is the only station on the route with active platforms serving all main line tracks. With only a single round trip to worry about, current practice is to run both Pennsylvanians on the nominally "westbound" #2 track. Stations like Latrobe that has the capacity for a second platform, has allowed it to decay as it removes the need to correctly pre-position passengers on the correct track.

Overtaking NS ES44AC #8012 at CP-PACK.

The sun briefly peeking out as Train 42 crosses the old stone bridge at Johnstown. This structure survived the great Johnstown Flood in 1889 and continues in service to this day.

Johnstown Station's island platform only serves Track 2 and 3, although Track 3 is rarely utilized by The Pennsylvanian due to it running on a different alignment between Johnstown and CP-CONPIT that adds about 15 minutes to the trip.

Clear westbound signal on track #3 at CP-C(onemaugh). This location has far less going on than it did just 20 years ago with an complete absence of local freight/coal and helper pairs. Coal trains were some of the most in need of temporary assistance and the collapse of coal power combined with increased use of distributed power has virtually eliminated much of the hustle and bustle around helper districts.

19-11-23 PHOTOS: Reading Belt Line

The Reading Belt Line was built in 1900 to allow trains of black gold from the Anthracite regions of Eastern Pennsylvania to bypass the increasingly congested Reading yard. It was emblematic of a time when advances in industrial technology would allow the rickety 19th century rail network to get upgraded for the age of steel for those wealthy railroads that could afford it. Running from Klapperthal Jct south of the city to Belt Line Jct in the north, today it hosts the vast majority of NS through traffic on the Reading and Harrisburg Lines as they run between eastern markets and Harrisburg.

What caught my interest was the presence of surviving Conrail era signals on the line which have managed to survive several major NS re-signaling projects in recent years. Always wary of "future developments", I booked a weekend with Reading area rail enthusiast Kevin Painter to visit the Conrail signal locations as well as some other Reading area landmarks. Unfortunately the gods were not kind to me and I caught zero NS freights over the entire course of the day. You can still see all the photos I did get here (mirror).

The first stop was CP-TULP where the Reading Line crosses the Tulpehocken Creek via a single track bridge. The entire bridge is within interlocking limits and the interlocking marks the division point where westbound Reading Line trains can head east to Philly or continue west to Harrisburg. First re-signaled by the Reading in the early 1950's as part of a general Reading area CTC project that concentrated control at two new towers, VALLEY JCT and OLEY, much of this territory would be end of life by the dawn of the 21st century and CP-TULP was again re-signaled by Conrail in 1998 or 99, immediately prior to the NS/CSX split. Therefore, as the interlocking hardware is essentially "new enough" it has so far avoided re-replacement. Here we see the eastbound Reading Line signal for eastbound Harrisburg Line traffic adjacent to the Conrail blue station sign.

Although Conrail was known for using "pinch points" instead of a normal double track crossover to save money, the Reading era single track bridge over the Tulpehocken Creek was the motivating factor for CP-TULP's design, not Conrail's frugality. The westbound signals feature 3 heads due to CP-TULP being back-to-back with CP-VALLEY JCT and CP-DUNKLE, necessitating the need for R/Y/G Medium Approach Medium. Although clearly an equilateral turnout, Conrail did not like the concept and designated track 2 as the diverging route.

The milepost 6 intermediate mast signals replaced a pair of Reading era bracket masts visible from the adjacent PA Route 12. The portion of the Reading Line between CP-BLANDON and CP-WYOMISSING JCT uses its own zero based mileage reflecting the history of this route as a bypass.

If there is congestion on the Belt Line or if carloads need to be handled at Reading Yard, trains may be routed via the slow road through downtown Reading. CENTER interlocking, established during the 1950's CTC project, represents the western apex of the old Reading Outer Station wye where traffic bound for Harrisburg would emerge from the Reading terminal complex. Left largely intact from the Reading days, CP-CENTER was recently re-signaled with the western switch and interlocking limits relocated to the west to save on grade crossing logic and allow for a higher speed turnout.

The eastbound signals were also made more descriptive providing for medium and full speed indications to the Pottsville Branch even though speeds on both legs of the old Outer Station wye are only 10mph.

The south leg of the Outer Station Wye is represented by CP-WALNUT. Replaced by Conrail in the late 1990's, new NS signals replaced the Conrail masts in 2018 or 2019. A major hub of activity during the days of the Reading railroad, Outer Station closed in 1969 and was destroyed by fire in 1978. In the early 2000's the city public works opened a large facility on the site and today much of the surrounding brownfield has returned to a natural state.

Looking east towards the old Franklin St station while a parade passes by on Penn St.

19-06-15 PHOTOS: PATCO Shoppe Tour

In June 2019 I finally got in on a PATCO shoppe tour.  Typically organized by my local West Jersey NRHS chapter, these tours have been happening with some degree of regularity for years, but despite having been a PATCO rider since age 3, I had never had an opportunity to get in on one until this point.  In fact, I had actually gotten in on a Baltimore transit shop tour before  managed to get in on a PATCO one.  You can find all of the PATCO Shoppe tour photos here (mirror) and I encourage you to look at them as I am only going to be posting a small sample here. 

The group met in the parking lot.  It was a pretty good turnout, which is not surprising given the type of event.

First stop on the tour was the axle press that separates or joins various axle components including wheels, bearings and gearboxes.

Next stop was the machine shoppe area with the typical slate of drill presses, lathes and band saws.

 PATCO's wheel truing machine is an older style that requires the trucks to removed and placed onto the machine with a crane.  Newer wheel machines can work on trucks that are still under the vehicle. The machine grinds down worn wheels to restore the profile and remove flat spots.

Speaking of trucks, PATCO is one of two remaining users of the Pioneer III truck, the other being Amtrak with the Amfleet series.  The P-III was designed by the Budd company as a lightweight  truck that would derail less on bad track.  It was available in both powered and unpowered variants and was previously installed on the SEPTA Silverliner II and MTA M1s.

The truck frames some in two halves and as you can see they are very simple affairs. 

 

 These gearboxes are connected to the truck and transmit power from the motors to the axles.

Here we see spare axle and gearbox assemblies ready to be connected to a truck.

PATCO uses GE 1255 A3 motors rated for 140 HP at 650/325 volts DC and 4600 RPM.

 Two motors are mounted on each truck for a total of 560hp/car.

Finally the truck is mated to the car via this bolster, which I think uses an air bag suspension system and creates the soft bouncy ride.

17-08-26 PHOTOS: Baltimore Metrorail Shoppe Tour

So here we continue with Part 2 of my Baltimore transit shoppe tours sponsored by the Baltimore Chapter NRHS. In Part 1 we visited the Light Rail's North Avenue Shoppes, which were constructed ~1992 as part of what would be a pioneering light rail system, setting many of the patterns later replicated across the country. However Baltimore's other rail transit system, the Metro Subway, is a much more traditional heavy rail subway system constructed in the old style of transit that quickly went out of fashion as construction costs ballooned in the later half of the 20th century. The Metro Subway yard and shoppe complex, located in the Reisterstown section of Baltimore feels distinctly different from the Light Rail shoppe across town. At Light Rail there is a feeling of agility and dynamicism. At the Metro Subway one can feel the work rules hanging in the air. It's a great example of why heavy rail systems faded from the scene, Anyway, you can find the full set of photos here. The Light Rail pictures are at the top followed by the Metro Subway photos.

To get to the Metro Subway Shoppes, we took mass transit. However the Metro and Light Rail lines do not have a direct connection. The best that is offered are two block long walking connections at Cultural Center / State Center and Lexington Market. Here we see Maryland LINK painted LRV #5019 dropping off tour participants at the Cultural Center station.

The Reisterstown Plaza station offers a sweeping curve west of the platform where one can get entire trainsets in the frame. A similar vantage is offered for eastbound trains at Millford Mill. The Metro runs with 4 or 6 car consists.

Here we see a diagram of the yard on the Yardmaster's console. The yard is a typical storage facility and shoppe combination, however there is a stub tail track at each end with access being provided via a number of main line connections on the north side. Long story short, you aren't getting out of the yard without at least one backup move.

We begin with the replacement truck storage area, which is currently sitting empty because truck rebuilding has been outsourced and most of the spare trucks were currently off property. The area is also equipped with a pair of lifts so that workers can get more easily to under-frame elements.

Spare motors, however, were on hand. They are of the DC variety in the 120hp range. Like the trucks, overhaul of the motors has also been outsourced to the same outfit that rebuild's WMATA's motors.

One thing the Metro Subway shoppe still rebuilds in house are the thyristor chopper motor controllers. By chopping a DC current, the apparent voltage is reduced and fine grain speed control is achievable with a solid state device. Much more efficient than cam controlled resistance drives, however still note the large heat sinks.

Heavy machinery abounds like this turret lathe.

Ground level spare DC motors (info) with the inspection plates removed to show the commutators. What's not to like about a motor system that is easily repairable with domestically sourced components!

The Metro Subway has 100 Budd model Universal Transit Vehicles on the property. These were purchased in 1983 in conjunction with the Miana Metrorail. The cars are 75 feet long and are capable of 70mph operation, which is achieved for a few miles on the far western end of the line. Here we see #138 standing up on jacks for maintenance.