13-03-22 GUEST PHOTOS: Train 170

About 2 years ago a friend of mine was able to take advantage of a rear vestibule ride on early morning Amtrak Regional Train 170 and provided me with a set of photos to process and upload. Well it took me a while, but I finally got them. The set covers the NEC from Philly to Boston and dates from March of 2013 so it's a bit of a step back in time. Unfortunately, the early morning time slot resulted in a lot of the pictures being dark or blurry.

Still, with an 6 hour running time the morning darkness had lifted as the train pulled out of New York so the second half of the run has better coverage. You can find the whole set right here

We begin with a rather dark and grainy photo of an inbound SEPTA R7 train as it approaches the North Philadelphia station on an early weekday morning.

Passing an outbound train if SL-V at Cornwells Heights.

SEPTA AEM-7 #2304 departing Trenton.

Two NJT Arrow III trainsets passing at New Brunswick.

More NJT action just east of Metropark with an eastbound Arrow III local passing a westbound push-pull express.

Outbound Arrow III trainset about to take the diverging signal at ELMORA.

Passing outbound NJT ALP-46 #4647 at SWIFT while an inbound Mid-town direct waits on the ramp.

Rounding the curve into the North River tunnels T170 passed outbound AX power car #2037.

Passing through HAROLD interlocking we see an inbound DM30 train and a Restricting indication on one of the PRR PLs.

Eastbound Amtrak AX power car #2019 on the curve at GATE.

Early morning Hell Gate Bridge.

13-03-10 PHOTOS: Baltimore Light Rail and Martin Airport

Have a double feature today due to two rather short photo sets taken in the Baltimore area. The first contains a number of Light Rail photos taken around the Mt Royal Station and Camden Station areas. The second features the increasingly popular Martin State Airport station which allows one to get rather up close and personal with high speed Amtrak trains north of the city as well as various aircraft operated by the Maryland Air Guard.

We begin with the Penn Station shuttle pulling in to the Mt Royal station en-route to Penn Station with LRV #5048.

Hunt Valley train with LRV #5047 heads north through the flat junction north of the station after punching in the route following the Penn Station train which headed right.

Southbound Cromwell train arriving at Mt Royal.

Two car Light Rail train flying over Bailey's Wye.

LRV #5029 also flying over the north leg of the wye.

Penn Station shuttle laying over on the center track at Camden Yards while it is passed by a BWI train heading southbound.

Hunt valley train also being throw into the mix for a three-way-meet.

13-01-13 PHOTOS: Princeton Junction Nighttime

Back in January I drove up to Princeton with a friend to catch an ECAC Hockey game between the Princeton Tigers and the Engineers of RPI. I'm not going to talk much about the game because the action at Princeton Junction station proved to be much more exciting. I was able to stop off briefly in the afternoon and then again for a longer stretch at night after the game. In my short two there I caught three NJT light equipment movements on the NEC, one in daylight and two at night, which I later found out are due to the wheel mill at Morrisville yard being the only one left in operation after Hurricane Sandy so NJT was being forced to run any equipment needing wheel work light down the NEC.

The daylight move was headed westbound and consisted of GP40PH-2A 4147 running long hood forward with ALP-45 #4504 behind it and PL42 #4006 in the rear. The second move went by in the eastbound direction at 8:13 PM and consisted of 3 or 4 single level cars with a C5 in cab car in the lead and at least 1 or 2 more in the consist. Providing power were 2 or 3(!) Geeps. I can't be sure of the exact number as I mistook it for a Regional and opted to get a 4 second timed exposure instead of video. The final train was also headed east at 8:29 and consisted of a C5 cab, 2 C2M;s, a C4, 2 more C2M's, 1 more C4, one more C2M, an ALP-46, 2 Split levels, a PL42 and finally a Metro North F40PH in the new livery. Due to the darkness I was unable to get any numbers in the video of that last train.

Anyway, aside from the cool equipment moves was the usual parade of NJT commuter trains and Amtrak Regionals/Keystones/Acelas. I also made sure to stop by the Princeton dinky station and take some pictures before the town relocates the station and turns the building into a student centre (although this won't be the first time the line has been cut back). If you are interested in the whole set of photos you can find them all right here.

I am going to start things off with the first equipment move consisting of GP40PH-2A #4147, ALP-45 #4504 and PL42 #4006 in the rear. After they passed I kept rolling and caught a eastbound train of NJT Arrow III MU cars with 1380 on point departing Princeton Jct.


At Princeton a pair of consecutive Arrow III singles were laying over at the short station platform. Here is #1315.

And #1314. 

With NJT starting to install single arm pantographs I got a few chose-up shots of the current twin-arm pans manufactured by the United Knitting Machine company.

Closeup of the pantograph grounding handle and grounding hook.

Video of 1314 and 1315 departing Princeton.



Switching day for night we find an NJT push-pull set with split level cab car #7033 in the rear position on a westbound train.

12-12-27 PHOTOS: SEPTA Mid-Winter Trip XII

Wow, its only March and I am already posting photos of the M-W-T. It seems that my year long effort to reign in my photo backlog is finally starting to pay off :-) Anyway unlike the previous two M-WT's which were marred by first snow then rain, this one was a non-qualified success with around 18 participants showing up despite the rather cloudy weather. I want to start by thanking everyone who attended because if you didn't show up I'd have no real reasons to put these trips on.

This years event was to make up for the focus on Silverliner II's and III's over the last couple of M-W-T's so and consisted of an M-W-T first ever trip to the airport and back, followed by an MFL run out to 69th St, then a Rt 101 trip to Media, R3 back to 30th St then Rt 10 to the Rt 15 junction at Girard, then Rt 15 to the new casino loop, then MFL again back to 8th, BRS to Fern Rock and finally a BSS express run to Walnut-Locust. Here is a google Map of this year's route/

Now I don't tend to take a lot of photos on these trips as I am actually busy trying to make sure that everyone is where they need to be and not dawdling in some restaurant, but you can see all the photos I did end up taking right here.

While the trip officially starts in Center City I make it a happy to kick things off early with those who decide to take PATCO into the city. For years I have been trying to get head end video of an express run being thwarted first by self-important operators and then by PATCO's elimination of such service during the post-Christmas week. Well for the past two years the service has returned and using the "newspaper" method to shield my videography from the operator I got this video of an express ride from Lindenwold all the way to 8th and Market. The video comes with a bonus commentary by Phil Nasadowski discussing how hard it is to get film for his 16mm motion picture camera. The footage was hindered slightly by a light rain, but features an operator not afraid to use his horn through the express stations.


Like I said this year marked our first ever trip to the Philadelphia International Airport. The reason this has been neglected was due to the Zone 5 cost of such trips and that in the past the old SEPTA Day Pay was good for only one RRD ride and going to the airport was never seen as worth the cost. However now what we have the Independence pass with unlimited trips on everything there's no reason NOT to go to the Airport so off we went. Here we see SL-IV car #384 sitting at the Terminal E/F Terminal.

Some Subchatters mill about near the end of track at the Terminal F station.

Some residual raindrops were making front window photography difficult so I went back to video for the run from Eastwick through to University City.


30th St Station and the Circa Center, which is showing off its adaptive camouflage.

MFL trainset rounding the loop at 69th St...

While the next outbound train platforms.

SEPTA Suburban K-Car #124 being used to train operators on the Rt 102.

Center Rt 100 platform under reconstruction.

K-Car #108 about to depart 69th St on a Rt 102 run.

K-Car #118 depositing us in the middle of downtown Media.

After lunch it was time to walk down the hill to the R3 media station where SL-IV #131 would take us back to 30th St station.

At 30th St Station there was time for a photo op from the car park there that overlooks the Race St engine house. Here we see Amtrak MoW GP38-2 #722 with P42DC #22.

12-12-15 PHOTOS: More Streetcar Santa

You might remember how in 2011 I stopped by the Baltimore Streetcar Museum during the month of December when it was running its special holiday service with Santa, you know, for the kids. Well all those free cookies and hot chocolate could not be resisted and I gathered some friends together and made the trip again this past holiday season. Not much more to say except you can see the whole set of photos here.

I got there early enough to catch the volunteers shuffling cars around in order to get ready for that day's service. Here car #6119 is making a backup move with the motorman at the special rear control stand.

The Santa car was supposed to be ex-SEPTA car #2168, but it was having problems so former BTCo cat #7407 was trotted out as a substitute.

Also out on display that day was the snow sweeper C-145, here standing in front of #6119.

#417 has a strong claim to being the world's oldest electric streetcar and here it is still under restoration, but now moving under its own power.

Wow, the restoration makes 417 look factory fresh.

#264 was waiting out on the loop for that day's non-Santa service.

After getting some quick repairs #2168 was taken out for a test run on the main line.

While 7407 waited on the loop with Philly's own Bill Monaghan ready to take the controls of whichever PCC will be assigned to the service.

12-11-30 PHOTOS: Flushing Line HD

A week after Thanksgiving I was back in the Windy Apple to see a Broadway Play and seeing as how I would have some time to kill on a weekday I decided it was a good time to check out some hurricane Sandy damage and also grad some HD footage of an express run on the Flushing Line before said line was ruined through the removal of railfan windows. A few years ago I had gotten some standard def video of the same run, but with a new camera in hand I just couldn't resist trying to preserve the experience of riding at the front of a 7 express train before it was lost forever.

Of course I took some photos as well, but this is going to mostly be a video post as most of the photos ended up being from a walk across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We begin in Hamilton, NJ as a pair of ALP-46 hauled multi-level Push-Pull pass eachother in the station. Cab car 7047 is headed towards NYC while #4607 pushes the other set towards Trenton.

Now I choose not to get on that train because it was a local and even though most sane railroads would use push-pulls on expresses and MUs on locals I don't believed anyone has ever accused NJT of being sane.


While then waiting for the express to show to Amtrak AEM-7 #907 blasted through with a regional en-route to New York.


I eventually made it down to the recently flooded Boweling Green station and was impressed by the lack of any apparent damage or basement smell. I even got some good photos of the still functional, yet usually unattended US&S Style C panel type unit lever interlocking machine at the south end of the platform. Click here for detail on the model board.

I also got some video of the panel working in automatic mode as (5) train move in and out of the station.


While crossing the Brooklyn Bridge I cause a fuel barge heading north up the East River powered by the Jill Reinauer.

I walked to 4th Ave in Brooklyn where I managed to catch an eastbound R42 (C) train departing the station.


From there I caught an (A) to Times Square where I then transferred to a 7 Express, which had just started running, and I proceeded to video the entire 24 minute ride which you can see here. The video even kicks off with a crossover move at the TSQ terminal.


Heading back to Midtown like a schmuck on the (7)local. Here we exit the Flushing tunnel portal with another outbound R62 about to be swallowed up.

12-11-21 PHOTOS: Thanksgiving Everything

For my a traditional thanksgiving not only includes Turkey and family drama, but also a trip around the Philadelphia region in Chuchubob's Elder-mobile on the day before Thanksgiving to catch the mildly expanded Amtrak and SEPTA rail services. In 2011 we had set our sights on trying to track down some Silverliner II/III cars, but with those retired we were not free to go elsewhere because if there was one thing that we knew we would not run into it was Silverliner II's.

The trip began at Burlington South RiverLINE station and proceeded up and around Trenton to West Trenton where we would get lunch and catch the SEPTA / CSX action on the Trenton Line. Next we headed south to Morrisville, PA to take pictures of NJT, SEPTA and Amtrak trains crossing the Delaware River before finishing up with a trip to the Woodbourne SEPTA station again on the Trenton Line.

You can catch the entire set of photos here which includes some additional photos of signals and such I took while driving to and from New Jersey.

We begin on the day before the day before Thanksgiving I went off to see a bargain basement Sixers game and caught this little race between a PATCO train and a northbound NJT Atlantic City Line train.



The next day I started out at Burlington South Park Ride Station where we arrived in time to catch a northbound train. The interlocking just north of the station has been modified with an extra dwarf signal on the passing track resulting in the original home signal displaying Approach Medium for the dwarf's Medium Clear.

RiverLINE DMU #3501B soon arrived and departed the station.

Here is a video of the Medium Clear signal and #3501 taking the diverging route onto the single track street running through Burlington City.



Despite some rollers hanging out nearby in the Burlington Bristol Bridge parking lot Bob and I were surprisingly not harassed.

We tried to get ahead of the train to get a picture crossing the bridge at Bordentown, but alas arrived just a few seconds too late.

Finally reaching West Trenton a train of Silverliner V's soon arrived with #858 in the rear position.

Lots of CSX freight moves in the mid-day when SEPTA dispatchers will actually give them the railroad. As soon as 858 cleared the main the westbound signal at CP-TRENT was pulled up for a straight movement and soon enough CSX ES44AC #940 and AC4400 #442 rolled through with a train of aluminum ore hoppers.





Not long after that the signal came up again to Approach indicating a following CSX movement. Well boy where we surprised when we saw a 6 car train of Silverliner II cars behind a pair of CSX geeps on their way to the scrap yard in North Jersey. The one year we stopped looking for Silverliner II's they found a way to come to us despite the notable handicap of being retired.

I went to video due to the backlighting, but thanks to an inconsiderate friend I suffered a camera malfunction. Fortunately my B camera was there to record all the action.





After lunch I emerged from the restaurant just in time to catch another CSX freight train going by while SEPTA Silverliner IV car #332 waited in West Trenton yard for the trip back to Philly.

On the way to the Morrisville Amtrak stop we swung by the Morrisville freight yard where a lineup of NS freight power was hanging out by the driveway. This included SW1001 #2103.

GP38-2 #5285

And SD60 #6566.

From there we swung by the SMS yard in the Penn Warner Industrial park where Baldwin DS4-4-750 #102 was waiting her next call to duty. #102 was built around 1950 and is still going strong.

First over the bridge was an eastbound Amtrak Keystone train with #953 in the push position. No, #953 has not been retrofitted with a diesel engine because what looks like an exhaust plume is actually the heat spilling off the dynamic brake resistor grids as the train brakes aggressively for the stop at Trenton.