The Slide

One of the last of my 2007 calendars has appeared; my 2007 Norfolk Southern calendar.
This leaves only one calendar to go: my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy calendar, which I’ve gotten since 1968.
As mentioned earlier; it’s not an obsession with date-keeping. I have seven calendars. What it is, is the content therein.
I could get by with just the Audio-Visual (did for a while), but if I did, I’d lose the hot-rods, the sports-cars, and the warbirds.
My Norfolk Southern calendar has a strange picture for June 2007. It’s a photograph by Charlie Juda of Gang Mills, N.Y., a longtime trainmaster, who’s had entries in the calendar before (it’s all NS employees).

Stacker on The Slide.

It’s taken at the famous Tunnelhill overlook near Gallitzin, where Pennsy completed its final ascent of Allegheny Summit.
I took pictures long ago at that overlook, but now it’s so overgrown it’s not worth going to. Plus it’s town land: “No Trespassing.”
Pennsy originally tunneled under the ridge with Allegheny Tunnel, which emptied out in Gallitzin. Allegheny was originally two tracks, but soon converted to only one.
A second parallel tunnel, Gallitzin, was added in 1912. It was only one track.
The two tracks at left go through Allegheny tunnel. Allegheny tunnel had to be expanded eleven years ago to clear double-stacks; it also was widened to two tracks with gigantic clearances so Gallitzin could be abandoned.
A third tunnel was under Tunnelhill: New Portage; for the Pennsylvania Public Works, the state-sponsored combination canal-system and railroad in the early 1800s. It was originally two tracks, but now is only one.
New Portage was higher up the mountain, so when Pennsy acquired the moribund Public Works, which they had put out of business, they decided to not abandon New Portage, but make it a part of their Allegheny Crossing.
But since New Portage is higher up the mountain than their line to Allegheny tunnel, they had to ramp up to it.
Eastbound (the western slope) is not too bad — the ramp begins far before the tunnel.
But westbound (the eastern slope) is awful, “The Slide,” 2.36%. (By comparison Pennsy’s Allegheny-crossing is only 1.75%.) Only eastbounds work The Slide; going down is easier than climbing it westbound.
The train pictured appears to be eastbound descending “The Slide.” The engines are the helper-set on the rear; twin SD40-2s.
What’s strange is the train pictured is a stacker, and I thought New Portage wouldn’t clear double-stacks.
Maybe it too has been expanded. Sending all stackers up Track #2 (through Allegheny) bottlenecks the mountain.
But what I’ve seen — over years of witness — is all stackers through Allegheny, east or west, and everything lower eastbound through New Portage and down The Slide on Track #1.
My options are 1) ask NS if New Portage was expanded to clear double-stacks; 2) ask Trains Magazine the same thing — they have a question-and-answer feature; or, 3) put my question on an online rail-forum.