11-09-01 PHOTOS: Boston Blue Line

Ever since the new Siemens Blue Line cars arrived a few years ago I have been trying to get out and ride them for more than a stop or two downtown. Well this year on a trip up to New Hampshire I had some extra time making my connection between North and South stations and so I decided to head out on a trip to Reveah Beach (as I wasn't sure if Wonderland still dumped outbound riders outside of fare control. Anyway, after that I caught an MBTA train up to Haverhill to visit my friend up at Portsmouth, NH and later returned to Boston via a Downeaster which gave me an additional opportunity to take some photos at North Station.

This trip took place only a few days after Hurricane Irene flooded out the NEC at Trenton so I have some photos of what that looked like only hours after service was restored. Like always you can find the full set of photos located here.

For all of you who remember, SEPTA made the mistake of leaving some equipment at the Trenton Station where it proceeded to get flooded out by several feet of water. Managers at SEPTA claimed not to be able to have predicted that the flooding would have taken place, but as you can see by the spray painted markings on the retaining wall they had two previous instances of flooding to learn from, one in 1975 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Fortunately FAIR interlocking is still equipped with pneumatic point machines which can be quickly brought back to service following a flood.

Here we see the stranded SEPTA Bomber set with AEM-7 #2005 after their good soaking. The good news was that the loss of this equipment prolonged the life of many Silverliner II and III sets.

C&S workers were inside FAIR interlocking mucking it out.

Moving on to New Haven we find Amtrak P40 #843 now in Shore Line East service.

In a bit of irony the old Penn Central branding is slowly returning to the New Haven Wheel Mill as the paint used to blank out the PC bits is fading faster than the PC paint it was meant to cover up.

Getting off the Regional train at South Station we find HHP-8 #664 standing along side MBB cab car #1507.

I found it rather hard to take pictures outbound on the Blue Line due to a stretcher blocking the view out the front second level railfan windows, however once at Reveah Beach there were no such restrictions. Here we see 0737 arriving with an inbound train.

#0768 was bringing up the rear of the same train.

11-08-12 PHOTOS: San Francisco Mornings

San Francisco basically consists of two thing...Caltrain and MUNI light rail and since last week our theme was Caltrain it's time we move onto the the MUNI section of this trip. This year I was a bit too busy to go out on an official MUNI field trip on one of their more far flung lines, however I was able to get some pretty good coverage of both the Cable Car system and the Heritage F Market Trolley line.

So for those of you who like such things this set of photos is going to be packed with them instead of the normal droves of railroad signals. So I urge you to all check out the entire collection of photos here because the selection below is not going to feature all pictures of such.

We start on Powell St showing cable car #21 heading southbound through a "pop out park" installed where street parking used to be. Ironically the company that made this destruction of car habitat possible was Audi.

Trio of cable cars including #14 at the Powell St terminal.

A packed Peter Witt Milan car #1859 attempts to add on more passenger on a bright sunny August day at the Ferry Terminal station.

Melbourne car #496 passing by the Ferry Terminal station.

California Ave cable car #58 hanging out at the Market Street terminal.

Cable car #6 approaching Union Square on Powell St.

Here I caught one of the single ended cars having trouble with it grip resulting it a replacement having to be installed outside the cable carhouse. The car had previously failed out on the road and had to be towed to the carhouse for a running repair. Still, sure beats an AC traction motor and a bank of IGBT's.

Despite the city's wet weather I encountered an original Austin Mini that hadn't turned into a large pile of rust. Of course it didn't look any way near as cool as another British import I came across.

A few of the cable cars had been given a new green paint job like #13 here shown crossing the California Ave diamonds.

11-08-09: PHOTOS: Caltran Caltrain IV

I get out to the Bay Area once a year or so on work related trips and each time I always make sure to include a ride on the Caltran Caltrain that runs between San Jose and San Francisco. Like I have said before it is easily the best commuter operation west of the Mississippi that was rebuilt in 2005 with new track, signals and a peak period express service that cuts 30 minutes off the normal trip time and completed the 50 mile journey with only 3 or 4 intermediate stops. Furthermore, the use of gallery cars provides a superb railfan view, although it is now quite frequently marred by bug splat.

Anyway this would be by 4th "survey" style photo set of the Caltrain system starting out from the Milbrae Station, which connects with the San Francisco International Airport, heading to San Jose then taking the train all the way back to San Francisco. Since I had already completed my standard def video compilation of the line I opted for only a few short clips on the return trip which is generally too backlit for standard photography at 4:30 in the afternoon.

New this year was an extended wait at the Millbrae station because BART eliminated the direct SFO to Millbrae connection during the day instead forcing people to connect with a Red Line train at San Bruno that in turn caused me to miss the hourly headway southbound Caltrain by 2 or 3 minutes. Yup, it seems like even out west public transit agencies can't seem to co-ordinate their schedules.

Anyway, you can view the entire set of photos here. What differentiates this set from those that came before is that I FINALLY got sunny weather for the initial southbound trip.

We begin at San Francisco International Airport where I get to sit around while a poorly scheduled BART service is screwing me out of my Caltrain connection. Here we see a 'C' car #430 sitting at the outbound end of the stub terminal.

After getting off BART, which is practically useless to railfan we see the still newish Millbrae intermodal transportation center, which was constructed in conjunction with the Caltrain rebuild and BART extension to the airport. 

The granite benches were pretty cool with various images of rail transportation etched into them.

While burning through my small-large lateness penalty I managed to photograph Rohr 'A' car #1263, which are rather uncommon outside of peak periods. The streamlined nosecone of the 'A' cars are a BART trademark which have been increasingly marginalized since the delivery of the flat cabbed 'C' cars, that are preferred due to their ability to be used in the middle of a consist. This car was originally numbered 263, but had a 1 added when it was rebuilt with AC traction in the 1990s.

Being extremely bored I wandered over to the old Southern Pacific train station which is now a local transportation museum. 

On display was some old signaling equipment and some locomotive controls...you know...for kids.

After about 40 minutes a "Baby Bullet" trainset finally showed up with Bombardier split-level #115 leading and MP36PH-3C #923 providing power on the rear.



Here is a photo of #923.

Finally after nearly an hour a southsound set of Gallery cars arrived with F40PH-2CAT #904 providing power.

Once on the road my train encountered #919 pushing another local northbound south of San Carlos.

Finally got a nice sunny picture of the truss bridge at Palo Alto.

Here we see some VTA LRV's at the Mountain View Station.

Another Baby Bullet trainset with #924 at Sunnyvale.

11-07-03 PHOTOS: West Philly B&O

On the July 4th Weekend in 2010 I embarked in an 11 mile walk around Philadelphia, railfanning and engaging in various July 4th related activities. Since that was so successful I decided last year to give it another go, this time with a railfan friend from Fox Chase as Chuchubob wasn't available. Unfortunately the weather was a bit gray, but since it wasn't raining I pressed on with the expedition, taking a Route 11 trolley to 58th Street and then walking down past the 58TH ST interlocking on the CSX Philly Sub, Amtrak. PHIL interlocking on the NEC and then the CSX Schuylkill River Bridge just past Bartram's Garden, finally returning via a Route 36 trolley to Center City.

After lunch the plan was to meet up with Subchatters Alex and Amanda and them go camp out at North Philadelphia station for a while until we got tired of the heat and humidity.

Anyway, you can see all of these photos by clicking this link (especially if you like B&O CPLs).

We begin our walk at the corner of 58th and Woodland with SEPTA K-Car #9089 on a Route 11.

While 58th St doesn't have any trolley tracks south of Woodland it does serve as a right of way for 600V DC feeder cables down to the trolley line along Elmwood.

Arriving at the 58th St grade crossing on the CSX Philly Sub my friend and I were lucky enough to be almost immediately treated to an eastbound CSX freight train headed up by AC4400 #49. Here we have a zoom view of #49 as it passes the eastbound CPL signals past the westbound PSR signs.

Closer view of #49 as it reaches the grade crossing.

The second train in the consist was another AC4400 #5119. Technically the train was leaving the Philly Sub at this point as a number of years ago what used to be track #1 was diverted as a straight route connection over to the Conrail Harrisburg Line at ARSENAL, so through trains on the Philly Sub must use #2 track.

The passage of the train provided an opportunity to catch the approach lit westbound CPL dwarf signals displaying an aspect.

A few hundred yards to the east is the old B&O truss bridge over the NEC, but we'll see more of this later.

58TH ST interlocking is located at Milepost 3 on the Philly Sub and consists of full crossover between the two main tracks.

The signals consist of 3 CPL dwarf units with 12 and 6 o'clock orbitals and one CPL past with both those and an extra 10 o'clock orbital. I am unsure what a train making back to back diverging moves on track #1 would get as the signal lacks an 8 o'clock orbital for Medium Approach Medium.

11-07-02 PHOTOS: PRSL Artifacts

Well I am finally returning to me regularly scheduled programming with an informal railfan trip organized by the West Jersey Chapter NRHS that consisted of a driving tour around the former PRSL territory looking for interesting historical artifacts that have survived in the decades since their abandonment. Stops include Winslow Jct, Tuckahoe,Woodbine Jct. Vineland, Newfield and Glassboro. Of course I'm not usually one for taking pictures of overgrown rights of way or an odd tie poking out of the sand, but there were more than a few subjects of general interest available on the trip and my featured photos will focus on those.

You can locate the entire set of photos here at: http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/11-07-02_PRSL_ARTIFACTS/-Thumbnails.html.

We start off at the Southern Railroad of New Jersey yard at Winslow Junction. Old Red and White CNJ painted GP-7 #100 was once the mainstay of SJRR operations, but today is buried deep in the storage track as newer power has come in to supplement it.

After demise of the OnTrack commuter rail line in Syracuse, NY, former NYS&W RDC unit #7 was purchased my the SJRRto facilitate some sort of passenger operations, which were put on hold after the death of the previous SJRR owner.

Here is a rare beast indeed. Former Providence and Worcester U18B #1801 is one of only a small handful of 1960's era "Universal Series" engines still remaining. GE's first cut into full sized diesel locomotives, the Universal Series were not as robust or reliable as the dominant EMD equipment of the same vintage and most were traded in for Dash 7 or Dash 8 units in the 70's and 80's. 

Of course the real motive power that the SJRR is renown for are late model Alcos, some in fact are so late that they were produced well after Also itself went bust by the Montreal Locomotive Works. Here is one such unit, an MLW M420 #3578 painted in CNJ red, which was a lisence built Alco Century Series model C420 with a 2000hp 251C engine. 

The former SJRR owner was a huge fan of the New York, Ontario and Western railroad and were we see another MLW century unit painted up as NYO&W #800.

The pair of SJRR F Units, which used to hold down the local assignment on the Salem Branch, are now stored deep in the power line collecting rust.

Also hanging out is one of a pair of SJRR GE 44-tonners. 

If you head several miles south of Winslow Junction there is a hot mix plant that still gets its stone shipments via rail. Just south of this location on a heavily overgrown siding are a pair of locomotives, one EMD, one Alco, heavily stripped and decaying away. One is former Amtrak CF7 #538, which is still painted in in Amtrak MofW grey. CF7's were former F7 cab units converted into hood style road switchers by the AFST railroad back in the day.

Here is a view of the electrical cabinet inside the generally stripped cab.

Valve train on top of the cylinder bank on #538's EMD 567 prime mover. With all that oil the engine still seems t be in pretty good condition and there is no reason that old 538 might not run again some day.

Hanging out with 538 is ALGX C420 #7221. This is an authentic Alco unit, not some MLW knockoff, but like 538 it was the victim of parts and scrap theft back in 2007 with the head covers and inspection ports being stolen off the 251 engine. Taction motor cables were also removed from both units.

Closeup view of the stripped 251C engine.

Skipping head to Tuckahoe, home of the Came May Seashore Lines, we find everybody's favourite wooden interlocking tower with a pair of disc brake equipped passenger rail truck axles sitting around due to bad roller bearings.

Sitting on he CMSL power line we have former CNJ HEP equipped GP7 #1523, which was used in the CNJ's commuter operations before the GP40Ps were delivered.

Also in attendance are the pair of Lehigh Valley painted F Units along side PRR GP9 #7000.