For my 2025 visit to New York Capital Region I turned my attention south of the city to Amtrak's Post Road Branch and the former Conrail Boston Line to revisit some infrastructure I had not kept up on for over 15 years. Unfortunately actual encounters with train movements was rather slim so I have included additional photos from SS72 DEVON junction on the New Haven Line plus some MARC Camden Line activity so I hope you all find this worth your while.
Albany can be considered the Harrisburg of the New York Central. A major hub located in an eastern state capitol that has to coordinate multiple flows of freight and passenger rail traffic. Located at the junction of the old New York and Hudson River, Mohawk and Hudson, Boston and Albany and West Shore Railroads this created quite a bottleneck in the downtown Albany area where all of these rail lines met. Operations were further complicated by a pair of swing span drawbridges and "stiff" (for the New York Central) grades on both sides of the Hudson Valley. All of these problems were solved by the 1924 Castleton Cutoff that provided a low grade freight route that completely bypassed Albany and Schenectady. The signature work of engineering was the high level Alfred H. Newman Smith bridge over the Hudson River Valley. The entire mile long bridge recently underwent a renovation that cleared the right of way, repaired the steel supports and re-pointed the concrete footings.
You can see some of the specific work that was carried out with replacement beams and gusset plates painted a lighter shade of brown and the new concrete also readily apparent. The new steel also used high strength bolts instead of hot rivets.
The Smith Bridge features two steel truss spans over the Hudson River navigation channels, one of 404 feet and the other 610 feet.
Despite the renovation work, CSX did not use the opportunity to demolish the old base of SM tower which stood at the eastern end of the bridge where the connecting track to the Hudson Line branched off. Today this branch typically sees a daily overnight freight round trip to and from New York City.
It was here I caught the sole freight train of the trip, the cars making a bit of noise as they pounded the frog on the #3 switch at CP-SM.
In December 2024 I seemed to have a lot going on in the way of local travel with trips to both Washington, DC and Philly via the NEC and holiday related excursions to the MARC stations at Savage and Brunswick for the purposes of drinking. I have assembled all this miscellany into a single set of photos ( mirror ).
My day trip to DC kicked off before sunrise at the Halethorpe MARC station, later passing through Washington Union Station en-route to the DC Metro.
Returning home I actually got a better deal on an Amtrak train, which was departing Washington Union Station adjacent to the Acela platform where a Classic set was standing with power cars #2017 and #2036.
Arriving at BWI I was in time to catch a southbound MARC train with MP36PH-3C #29
My car was still at Hapethorpe I had a friend shuttle me over. Between the two stations I shot a few quick videos which include:
Northbound Acela Express with power cars #2028 and #2007.
Southbound bi-level MARC Penn Line train with cab car #7853 and MP36PH-3C #29.
Amtrak Veterans ACS-86 #642 heading northbound with a Regional at Halethorpe.
Southbound MARC bi-level Penn Line train passing express through the Halethorpe station.
A few days later I was making a day trip up to Philly and back at BWI I caught Amtrak ACS-86's #634 heading south while class unit #600 was heading my northbound.
The trainset was flipped so I had access to the rear window, but the position of the sun combined with dirty windows made the view highly marginal. I only got this video as the train runs across the Susquehanna River between the Aberdeen, Maryland station and PRINCE interlockings near Perryville. The Susquehanna River bridge, constructed in 1906, is unfortunately slated for replacement in the upcoming years. In the video my train passes southbounds including Crescent Train 19 just past GRACE interlocking and another Regional at PRINCE.
In 2021, although I had already been to Denver once, my friend had some expiring airline benefits and we decided to go again before the end of the year. This time we looked at a map and figured we could visit the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park, which, during the winter months, is not directly accessible from the eastern side that we had previously visited in 2020. Although both sides of the park are kinda blah in winter, a trip to the western side would take my party past the Moffat Tunnel route Amtrak stations of Granby and Fraser-Winter Park. In addition to those railfanning opportunities, I also had the occasion to ride the Denver RTD Light Rail "W" line that is often recommended for its great scenery. You can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).
Starting out in Granby it was some time before either California Zephyr Trains 5 or 6 would pass, so I figured I would just grab some photos of the station and platform.
Suddenly from out of the blue, an eastbound Union Pacific manifest train appeared with AC4400 #6303, AC4400 #7225 and SD70ACe #3059 in the front and AC's4400 #7047 and #7206 pushing on the rear.
A new Granby station building had been recently built, but was not yet open for passengers.
Although the Winter Park ski resort has its own station for Ski Train use, regular Amtrak Trains 5 and 6 use the stop at Fraser, CO, about 4 miles to the south.
Although the detached station building is a bit hum drum, it has the coolest door art of any Amtrak station.
As train #6 approached, a pair of kids appeared with a cart selling $1 drinks and snacks. Apparently the concession is passed down from one family to another as the children age out.
The engineer on Amtrak P42DC #22 gave the kids some horn as Train 6 pulled into the station.
P42DC #22 was paired up with P42DC #152.
Fraser-Winter Park, like Grand Junction and Glenwood Springs is an extended "smoking" stop due to the amount of time it takes to cross western Colorado.
With a clear signal at EE FRASER Amtrak Train 6 departed, sounding the horn for Eisenhower Ave. At over 8500 feet, these engines are working hard on the ascending grade to the Moffat Tunnel summit located at over 9000 feet.
Jumping back to Denver, I caught a train of RTD SD100/160 LRVs on the towntown loop at the 16th and California station with #214 and United wrapped #218.
Union Station was seeing quite a bit more action with Silverliner V trains on the A, B, G and N routings now terminating there. When I walked through early on a Sunday morning, a single married pair with #4037 was sitting on track 8 I think waiting for a B Line departure to Westminster.
My plan was to catch an 'E' Line train to Auraria Station and then change to a 'W' Line train there. I arrived at the light rail part of Union Station just in time for an 'E' route train to leave as I stepped up.
Here is the 'E' line LRV that I eventually caught. #285 was leading two others.
RTD LRV's #333, #288, #310 and #219 at Auraria.
Some of the 'W' Line scenery crossing US Route 6 west of downtown.
RTD LRV #319 and #232 at the terminus of the 'W' Line at the Golden-Jefferson County station before departing back towards downtown Denver.
In addition to all of the rail vehicles there were lots and lots of Mule Deer.
Back at the airport I got another head end video from the Denver International Airport peoplemover.
And that wraps it up for my 2021 holiday season trip to Denver. I hope you all enjoyed the photos. Next week I'll be back with some content of R32 subbing in for the usual holiday train.
In June of 2017 I embarked on another of my PRR Middle Division signal documentation sweeps and visited about as many signal locations as I could cram into daylight hours. However both on that trip and some others I later realized that I had missed some locations that were easily accessible or I had screwed up important photos due to an errant camera setting. Whatever the cause when a friend expressed interest in attending a New Year's gathering in Clarion, PA I jumped at the chance of being able to pick up some of these missed photo opportunities on the way out.
All in all I would be able to pick up previously ruined photos at CP-HAWSTONE, document automatic signals at MP 167, MP 174 and MP 225 and lastly get a few shots of CP-GRAY in the snow.
Also included in this set are photos taken of the old Lakeshore and Michigan Southern Northwestern Pennsylvania Branch, which was started in the 1920's, but never lived up to expectations despite a massive outlay in infrastructure. You can see both sets of photos here and here.
We begin with Amtrak P42DC #125 leading Train 44, the eastbound Pennsylvanian, past the Milepost 167 automatic signals located between CP-LONG and CP-LEWIS.
Because of the early departure from Pittsburgh and the high speed of the PRR Main Line, the Pennsylvanian is a surprisingly early train reaching Harrisburg before noon, so I am frequently surprise when out on the main line to have it just sort of show up xD
The 3-trackMilepost 225 automatic signal bridge located at Tipton, PA is a very popular railfan location due to the sweeping curve and easy access from a major highway. There are almost always railfans on hand and today was no exception.
Here we see a westbound NS intermodal train with lead unit C44-9W #9374 that appears to have had some front end work done.
The trailing unit was C44-10W #7649 with an EMD SD70AC in in the middle.
A short while later NS C44-9W #9643 leads UP ES44AC #5281 under the signals with another westbound intermodal train.
Just as the end of the stack train passed, an eastbound coal train appeared on the controlled siding with classic cab SD70 #2576 in front, rolling towards a stop at CP-GRAY.
