Tioga Central

TIOGA CENTRAL

The Keed.

Yesterday (Saturday, June 30, 2007), we went along on a dinner-train excursion sponsored by the Rochester Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society on far-away Tioga Central Railroad near Wellsboro, Pa.
We did this because: -1) We never do anything much, and -2) I’ve always wanted to ride that railroad, although I thought it was in New York state.
The Tioga Central is what remains of New York Central Railroad’s Williamsport Division, from Corning, N.Y. to Williamsport, Pa., although it had a long and storied history even before NYC leased it in 1899.
Quite a bit remains; in fact, only the Wellsboro-Williamsport segment was abandoned.
The remaining railroad was purchased by local governments (through a development-agency) to continue rail-service when Conrail abandoned the line.
Tioga Central began passenger rail-excursions in 1994.
So here we are bombing south (at least it seemed south; since Wellsboro is south of Corning) down Interstate-390 and Route 15, about a “hunderd” flaccid geezers and flirtatious grannies (Linda observed we don’t fit; despite being seniors), in two giant Prevost luxury motor-buses......
.....When suddenly: “PRAAAAAMP!”
“Who’s phone is that?” some geezer asks. “Is that your phone, Dave?”
“I don’t know, but if everybody answers their cellphone, someone will have a call.”
(The riders were all railfans, and they had downloaded the diesel-locomotive air-horn ringtone from the GE locomotive site. They had installed it into their cellphones.)
Later an aging geezer, who was sitting in the middle of the bus, refused to get up and walk 15 feet forward to talk the tour-director, who was sitting in front.
Instead, he called him on his cellphone.
“Make sure the driver knows to get off at the Sonyea (Sohn-YAY) exit, Route 36.”
Great! Backseat driving via cellphone — somehow I don’t think the developers of cellphone technology were thinking it would come to this.
And riding the Prevost was an adventure. Wham-bitta-BAM. Boink-a-bounce.
I had to hit the bathroom; as I was carrying a large serving of coffee.
I accessed the on-bus bathroom, a tiny fiberglass installation about two feet deep by 1.5 feet wide — and was immediately slammed into the wall.
A sign said don’t try peeing into the toilet; sit.
Was it any wonder? If you’d tried standing up you would have peed all over the floor.
I then had to pull up my pants — almost impossible when you’re getting slammed all over.
I could just imagine some poor Granny trying to use that restroom.

The Keed.

The rust-bucket RS1. (The RS1 was introduced in 1941. This one was built in 1950, and is ex-Washington Terminal.)

On the train, we walked to the front car, the only open car; which was placed right behind an old Alco RS1 rust-bucket (pictured). The RS1 had a fabulous air-horn.
I unholstered my cellphone to call Jack, but no signal. We were out in the country, where no cellphone-service was available.
Finally a cell-tower came into view on a far-away ridge-top, so now I had cellphone service, but I can’t say calling Jack was fruitful.
-1) There was so much clatter and flange-screech I could hardly hear anything; and -2) what I could hear was the usual tiresomely-boring blustering about physical supremacy.
Time was passing, and I had no idea if we’d ever encounter a grade-crossing, but then we did; and the RS1 let loose.
“I hear that!” Jack said.
There was a club-car in the consist: “Canyon-Club” (TIOC #500); unlike the coaches it had club-seating with seats-and-tables along one side, and the aisle on the other side.
We prefered the open-car, since the air in the closed cars was fetid.
Later was dinner-in-the-diner, probably the messiest entrè they could have possibly served: barbecued chicken and ribs.
Dessert was strawberry shortcake, and then they passed out pre-moistened towlettes — not part of the standard railroad-diner drill, but sorely needed.
I guess we were dinner-serving one. The remaining half were dinner-serving two.
After dinner we returned to the open car; and the train stopped over the New York border, but not as far north as Gang Mills, where Norfolk Southern has a small yard for sorting trains on their old Erie-mainline. “We’re not authorized to go to Gang Mills,” a trainman said. Probably the freight-trains do, but not the passenger-trains.
The RS1 uncoupled so the open-car would be unobstructed on return; and we had an ancient RS3 (also pictured) on the other end. (That RS3 had been on the back-end going north [I guess; but what can I possibly know, being a reprehensible liberial].)
The railroad passes a man-made lake, part of a massive water-retention project that was installed after Hurricane Agnes. The teenaged son of the RS1 engineer related how the railroad (and adjacent highway) originally followed the bottom of the valley, and had to be relocated when that lake flooded everything.

The Keed.

RS3 and our train.

Which explains why the relocated part was welded rail, and the original parts (most of the railroad) were stick-rail.
“Clickety-clack;” up-and-down; flange-screech on every turn. Not as bad as the Arcade-and-Attica, but fairly rough.
Northbound was about 20-25 mph; return was 30-40 mph.
Strangely enough, the slow-order was the welded-rail segment: 10 mph.
Returning, we rode past the boarding-site and up the hill into Wellsboro; a 2.1% grade. There was talk of needing the RS1 to help push, but that didn’t happen.
We stopped at the old NYC depot in Wellsboro and reboarded the two Prevosts to travel back home — including through a short deluge.
Rather boring, but only because it was like so many other train-excursions on antique equipment — weeds and backyards along the right-of-way, and discarded trash. Including a decaying speedboat full of auto-trannies.
It got dark as we rode the Prevosts north; but all-of-a-sudden a screaming white light was glaring in the seat ahead.
The lady in front had turned on her cellphone.

“Hunderd” is how my brother Jack insists “hundred” is spelled. He also noisily insists “liberal” is spelled “liberial.”

“Linda” is my wife.

“Jack” is my macho, blowhard brother-in-Boston; who bad-mouths everything I do or say. Like me he is a railfan; although not as much.

RE: compass-directions: my brother (in-Boston) and I have been having a torrid argument over whether I can sense direction as well as he. It started when I mentioned that a certain road in northern-Delaware went mainly west-east. He claims it’s north-south. Actually it’s mainly northwest-southeast. But next to the suburban development we lived in it mainly went west-east. (So that walking eastward along it, you were walking into the dawning sun.)

“Welded-rail” is rail welded into lengths of a quarter-mile or more. “Stick-rail,” otherwise known as jointed-rail, is what was in use before “welded-rail:” rail in 33-foot lengths jointed together to be a continuous rail. The “clickety-clack” was the sound of railcar wheels running over rail-joints.

“The Arcade-and-Attica” is another excursion-line, but so rough it’s only good for about 10 mph; it was laid in a creekbed.

A “2.1% grade” is fairly steep; you can’t get much steeper and still hold the rail — and a train climbing a 2.1% grade will probably need helper-engines, unless it’s light enough. (Our train apparently was.)