Green comes to the Mighty Curve

The greenery at the Mighty Curve is leafing out.
The long-abandoned coke ovens along Glenwhite Road will disappear into the foliage.
Above is a screenshot from the Curve web-cam, which was great for a while, but has been eclipsed.
Below is a screenshot from another web-cam, the fabulous Roanoke RailCam, which is better than the Curve Web-cam.



The Mighty Curve (Horseshoe Curve) is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to.
I'm a railfan, and have been since age two — I'm 66.
The viewing area is smack in the Curve apex.
You're up-close-and-personal with every passing train, and there are a lot.
Horseshoe Curve was a long-ago trick by the Pennsylvania Railroad to conquer the Allegheny Mountains without steep grades.
The tracks are looped back around a valley; to avoid climbing the mountain steeply.
The grade is only 1.8 percent — 1.8 feet up for every 100 feet forward. Enough to require helpers, but not too bad.
Go over 2.5 percent and it becomes almost impossible.
Out in California the grades approach 2.5 percent, and often exceed that.
Most railroad construction is 19th century, before modern-day grading equipment.
Horseshoe Curve was built in 1854, and is still in use; although no longer Pennsylvania Railroad.
Building it was an immense challenge. A mountain face had to be blasted off, and two giant fills constructed.
It was done with pick-and-shovel, and dynamite by then.
Pennsy tanked, so now the Curve is Norfolk Southern, a merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.
Pennsy stumbled after WWII, and finally had to merge with arch-rival New York Central in 1968.
When I first visited the Curve in 1969 it was Penn-Central.
Penn-Central soon tanked, and became part of Conrail, at first a government-sponsored amalgamation of all the bankrupt eastern railroads.
There were many beside Penn-Central; e.g. Erie-Lackawanna, Lehigh Valley, and Jersey Central.
For years the Curve was Conrail.
Eventually Conrail was privatized, then broken up and sold. CSX Transportation (railroad) got most of the ex-New York Central lines, and competitor Norfolk Southern the ex-Pennsy lines.
Therefore CSX is across New York state, and Norfolk Southern across Pennsylvania.
Norfolk Southern also operates the old Norfolk & Western line through downtown Roanoke, VA.
The Roanoke RailCam views that.
At first it was from Hotel Roanoke, but now it appears to be from an enclosed walkway over the tracks and parallel streets.
Hotel Roanoke was affiliated with Norfolk & Western. Roanoke was also the location of the railroad's shops, which also built steam-locomotives of N&W design.
A railfan friend clued me in to the Roanoke RailCam, and it's much better than the Curve web-cam.
The Curve web-cam is okay, but rewrites about every half-second or so.
Roanoke RailCam is much faster, maybe 1/16th of a second.
Like a movie, or actual TV.
With the Curve web-cam a train can advance 10-15 feet or so between rewrites. If a train is doing 30 mph, the speedlimit, trains are blurred.
Roanoke RailCam is much better.
Cars drive down the street, and look just like a movie.
If a train passes, it's not blurred.
Just the same, the mountainsides at the Mighty Curve are no longer grayish-brown.
They're turning green.
Soon the Curve will open — it's a National Historic Site.
And I will visit again, as I have hundreds of times.