New signal-bridge

(Screenshot by the mighty MAC.)

It looks like Norfolk Southern Railway finally rotated their new signal-bridge over the tracks at the mighty Curve (see picture above).
When we visited a month ago the new signal-bridge was erected, but not over the tracks.
The new signal-bridge replaces the old Pennsy position-light signal-bridge visible behind it.
This removes the final vestige of Pennsy at the mighty Curve.
...That is, if you disregard that the mighty Curve is Pennsy, as is the entire railroad alignment over the Allegheny mountains.
It was opened in 1854, as was Horseshoe Curve, and is still in use.
Horseshoe Curve was a trick by Pennsy to surmount the Alleghenies without steep grades. —With mid 19th-century grading technology.
The railroad is now operated by Norfolk Southern Railway.
Early in our nation’s history, the Alleghenies were a barrier to west-east trade. They could only be surmounted by pack-horse, and then horse-and-wagon.
The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal stopped at Cumberland, MD; foot of the Alleghenies.
New York didn’t have an Allegheny barrier, so built their Erie Canal.
The only barriers they had were -1) the Niagara Escarpment and -2) getting up out of the Hudson River valley. Not too bad.
They surmounted the Escarpment with a slew of locks at Lockport.
The Erie was so successful the people of Pennsylvania built their own canal system, the vaunted Public Works System.
But they had the Allegheny barrier to deal with.
They surmounted it with a portage railroad.
But it wasn’t a normal railroad.
Grading being in its infancy, hills were climbed with inclined planes.
A stationary steam-engine at the top of the plane would tie up to the cars at the foot of the plane, and pull them up.
The entire Public Works System was cumbersome and slow.
The canal packets got transferred onto railroad flatcars for the Portage Railroad.
It became obvious what was needed was a continuous railroad.
Railroads also weren’t shut down by the waterway freezing.
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, founded in 1827, was a similar endeavor; an effort by Baltimoreans to counter the phenomenal success of the Erie Canal.
Capitalists in Philadelphia chartered the Pennsylvania Railroad, first from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.
It was an attempt to offset the unwieldiness of the Public Works System.
Pennsy became incredibly successful.
It acquired feeder-lines into Pittsburgh, funneling products of the midwest to the east.
It became the largest railroad in the world, but began falling apart in the ‘50s with the Interstate Highway System — government subsidization of truck commerce.
Pennsy was also carrying an expensive commuter service into New York City and Philadelphia.
And had heavy taxation.
Pennsy had to merge with its eastern arch-rival, New York Central System, in 1968, and even that (Penn-Central) eventually tanked.
Successor Conrail was set up by the government to take in all the bankrupt eastern railroads — there were others beside Penn-Central — and that was successful; so successful it privatized.
The regulatory environment had been changed to allow railroads to be more competitive versus trucking; plus commuter-service was transferred to public authorities — no longer a private railroad function.
Eventually Conrail was broken up and sold; partly to CSX Transportation and partly to Norfolk Southern.
Behind all this was continuous use of Pennsy’s assault on the Alleghenies, including Horseshoe Curve.
Pennsy had instituted position-light signaling; often over so many tracks a signal-bridge was required.
All up and down The Hill are old Pennsy signal-bridges — there was one at the mighty Curve.
But they can’t last forever; the structure rusts, and the signaling is so old it can fail.


The signal-bridge at Summerhill, on the eastbound climb toward Allegheny summit. (The signals for eastbound trains are raised to be observable over that highway overpass.) (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100 camera.)

There also is minimal clearance for double-stacks.
I looked again this morning (Tuesday, September 1, 2009) at the Curve web-cam, and the old position-light signal-bridge is gone.

• RE: “Mighty MAC......” —All my siblings use Windows PCs, but I use an Apple MacIntosh (“MAC”), so I am therefore stupid and of-the-Devil.
• The “mighty Curve” (“Horseshoe Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.) —Horseshoe Curve has a web-cam, but it’s awful.
• “The Hill” is common parlance for the Pennsylvania Railroad’s surmounting of the Allegheny mountains. Westbound is a continuous uphill grade of 1.8 % (up 1.8 feet for every 100 feet forward); not that steep but steep enough to often require helpers; additional locomotives. 4% would have been just about impossible.
• RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.
• “Double-stack” is two trailer containers stacked two high without wheels in so-called “wellcars.” —It’s much more efficient than single containers (or trailers) on flatcars, since it’s two containers per car. It’s the same shipping containers shipped overseas; where they may be stacked three or four high, or even higher if a support deck is under a stack. But “double-stacks” require very high clearance; over 20 feet. Bridges had to be raised, and tunnels made larger.