Train-chase number eight

20T descends Track Two at Ledges. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

“It’s beginning to make more sense,” I thought to myself.
“Train 13G, I’ll send ya down Two,” said my scanner, snagging instructions by the operator in Alto (“al-toe;” as in the name “Al”) Tower, in Altoona, PA, (“al-TUNE-uh;” also as in the name “Al”), I think. (It coulda been the Pittsburgh dispatcher.)
The guy I chase trains with in Altoona, Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”), had called while I was driving to Altoona.
My cellphone is in my back pocket, and I don’t answer while driving.
A missed call.
I called back after we arrived at Tunnel Inn, the bed-and-breakfast we usually stay at in the Altoona area.
Phil’s wife, who has multiple sclerosis, was having a problem.
She had just had her usual catheter installed, and it was leaking.
If you need explanation of Phil, click this link, and read the first section. It explains Phil.
Phil used to lead all-day train-chases.
He called them “Adventure Tours;” and that was what they were: railfan overload.
I did at least six adventure-tours with Phil driving.
He gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a really nice car he was afraid of messing up.
But he can’t resist: a true railfan.
He agreed to lead me around if I did the driving.
We used to do it for money; me paying him $125 for an all-day train-chase. —The first time, a slow day, we got 20 trains. Another time we got 30 trains over one nine-hour day.
Now we do it as railfans, and I take him out to dinner afterwards.
I still say he just loves doing it, and of course so do I.
I’ve also snagged quite a few fabulous pictures, and Phil showed me some excellent locations.
Some photos were so good I had Kodak make me a photo-calendar.
And now Tunnel Inn, which caters to railfans, asked me to print a slew through Kodak Tunnel Inn could sell.
My first train-chase with me driving instead of Faudi was last February.
We did fairly well, but the snow was almost non-existent. It was warm.
And the light for photography in February is fleeting.
I woulda tried again in May or June, but my wife has cancer.
It’s supposedly not fatal.
It’s treatable.
Actually, she has two cancers: -a) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and -b) metastatic breast-cancer.
The Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma appeared about three years ago as a hard tumor in her abdomen.
That was poofed with chemotherapy.
The metastatic breast-cancer did not have a primary site; it never appeared in her breasts.
It was first noticed in her bones, where breast-cancer metastasizes.
We knocked that back with Femara®, the trade-name for Letrozole.
Femara is an estrogen inhibitor. Her breast-cancer was estrogen-positive.
Her breast-cancer just about disappeared.
Things deteriorated seriously in May, and had been getting worse up until then.
My wife was near death, and was admitted to a hospital.
Finally the doctors woke up — all-of-a-sudden action; they were afraid of losing a patient.
Things being what they were, train-chases in May or June, or even July, were clearly impossible.
They saved her; now my wife is fine — like nothing happened.
Chemo was administered that sent her cancer packing.
So far, so good; but who knows the future?
So we agreed on August, with my wife accompanying.
But now the tables were turned; it was Faudi with the problem.
“Don’t feel obligated,” I told him. “This is your wife!
This is a mini-vacation for us,” I said; “and this line is busy enough to do fairly well, even if we don’t get 30 trains with you, plus my scanner is more under control.”
A month ago, without Faudi, and with my siblings, my scanner got nothing.
He can’t resist!
Nurses tended his wife, so he felt confident he could lead us around all day.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“So what’s 13G?” I asked him. “And if I knew where it was, I could probably snag it.”
I had met Phil to get an up-to-date train-schedule. The one at Horseshoe Curve was outta date, he told me. (July 2011 versus October 2010.)
But he had a difficult time printing it.
Computer hairballs. —I know ‘em all to well.
I had this MAC along, and I had two options to get the Internet: Bluetooth from my Smartphone, or Tunnel Inn’s wireless.
Plus the computer throws up Internet from cache, until you refresh.
You hafta know it’s doing that.
Back-and-forth I went: “This is Tunnel Inn’s wireless, MacBook Pro not connected via Bluetooth.”
You have to use guile-and-cunning to make sense of what’s going on.
Off to the Mighty Curve we went, about five o’clock.
We both climbed the 194 steps to the viewing-area without drama. I keep getting older (I’m not in the best of shape). About two months ago my wife fainted after climbing only a one-story staircase in the hospital — wheelchair after that.
Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian would pass about twenty after five.
“07T, westbound on Three, 241.7, CLEAR.”
Hurray; I’m actually getting it — Amtrak’s train-engineer calling out the signals.
It blasted past, and I snagged my first photograph.


Westbound Pennsylvanian at the Mighty Curve. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Then we went to Cresson Springs Family Restaurant, for their trademark Philly cheese-steak sandwich.
Not bad, but I’ve found better.
Too many onions and peppers, and not enough steak and cheese.
Better is Mac’s Philly cheese-steak in nearby Canandaigua, and they import the right rolls.
Cresson Springs doesn’t. You have to eat it with a knife-and-fork.

—Day Two (Friday, August 19, 2011); day of the train-chase
Phil had rousted me about 7:30 at Tunnel Inn while I was eating breakfast on their back deck outside.
Norfolk Southern’s Executive-Business-Train, stored in Altoona when not in use, was coming up The Hill.
I snagged it in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “girl”) but in poor morning light.


Tuxedos top the summit in Gallitzin with the Executive-Business-Train. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

(They’re called “tuxedos” because of their paint.)
It was a unique locomotive arrangement: A-B-A-B.
Phil surmised the train would be split farther west.
The Executive-Business-Train always starts out too early in the morning.
We zagged over to Cresson (“KRESS-in”), so Phil wouldn’t have to meet us at Tunnel Inn — 9 a.m.
Get hopping, as usual, up to Five Tracks, where PA Route 53 crosses the five tracks approaching Allegheny summit at Gallitzin east of Cresson.
Only four tracks are in active use; one (Main Eight) is for storage.
Two tracks at a lower level approach the old Pennsy tunnels at Gallitzin.
The others, at a slightly higher level, approach the old New Portage Railroad tunnel, eventually acquired by Pennsy.
We couldn’t stand where I stood a few years ago, because everything was grown in.
We had to stand on the bridge.
This gets wires and the bridge-girder if you don’t telephoto; so I telephotoed.


A loaded coal-extra (510) approaches the Route 53 overpass. A second coal-extra is stopped. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

We snagged a few, and then Amtrak was in the picture, the eastbound Pennsylvanian, state subsidized, the only passenger-train remaining on the old Pennsy main across PA. —Actually there are two: eastbound and westbound.
The old Pennsy main once had many passenger-trains.
Amtrak was on time.


Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian passes the stopped coal-extra. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Norfolk Southern seems to bend over backwards to keep Amtrak on time.
Most of the scheduled freight-trains run late, some quite a bit, but Amtrak is on time.
Next we went to — I forget!


Coal-extra 520 eastbound at Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Doublestack eastbound (20T) on Two at Lilly. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 520 approaches Ledges. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 520 passes and departs Ledges. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Train 37A (mixed freight with helpers) approaches Brickyard crossing in Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Doublestack train 20R eastbound on Track Two east of Portage. (There was an old SD40-2 in the consist.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Train 538, a coal-extra, passes under the signal-bridge at Summerhill. —The two eastbound signal-targets are raised to be visible over a nearby highway bridge. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Coal-extra 538 approaches the summit on Five-Tracks. (The train in the distance is probably stopped for a brake-test before descending The Hill.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Train 10G, helpers added, passes the Trash-Train at Five-Tracks. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


PRAMP-PRAMP-PRAMP! Units pass Tunnel Inn on Track Two after a brake-test before descending The Hill. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


Too much telephoto (300mm) at Control-Point W (CPW) east of South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

I’m sure Phil is frustrated by my driving, that I can’t push.
I tell him it’s the fact I drove bus, which made me extremely careful, but we thought later more is at play.
It’s the fact I had a stroke, so don’t have the limits of others.
I have to concentrate extremely hard to not make mistakes, which makes me pokier than the average driver.
I’d been told I’d never drive again.
Nevertheless I do it better than my wife, who is automotively challenged.
As a result of my poky driving, we miss trains we might have gotten if I could push harder.
But I don’t care. —If I miss a train, it’s no great shakes.
I’m not trying to maximize train-count. I can’t push.
During the day we missed eight trains, a record for Phil.
But we sighted 23 trains, some two or more times.
We also managed to beat the UPS train to a location, although it was slowed some by restrictive signals.
That train is priority. It booms-and-zooms.
We saw it pass through Tipton at about 60 mph during a strong thunderstorm downpour, and then we zoomed west.
This involved a long trek over rural roads up The Hill.
As I say, the train was being slowed by restrictive signals. But we were making fairly good time.
It would have beat us without that slowing.
If it had beat us we’d consider it no great loss.
For me to lose it on a curve and smash up my car in the trees is a great loss.
“I’m failing my customers,” Phil said.
“We’re not customers,” I told him. “We’re only doing this for pleasure. 20+ sightings is way more than I got by myself last month with my sister.”
Finally I suggested it wasn’t fair for me to drive Phil around, that I have to drive within my limits, which are apparently stroke-impaired.
Phil is a master of that scanner, so we snag many more trains than if it was just me.
He’s also showed me some fabulous locations, and we tried a new one during this trip.


Train 21J westbound at CPW, where the storage-track (at right) from the South Fork Secondary rejoins the main. (There used to be a flyover here.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

But I can’t push. It’s the stroke, I guess. I hafta drive within my compromised limits. I get passed all-the-time.
I’m sure it also frustrates my brother-in-Boston, but it seems he never got the idea I was brain-injured, that I had a stroke.
This seems true of all my siblings.
To them I appear entirely normal, fully recovered. My disagreeing is just the maunderings of a Democrat (gasp!) — they know better as tub-thumping REPUBLICANS, making me of-the-Devil as an anti-Conservative (not merrily goosestepping to Rush Limbaugh).
Stroke-effects are usually physical; e.g. paralysis of a limb, etc.
People don’t seem to see that a brain-injury can also have mental effects.
I have no physical detriments, so therefore I’m completely recovered.
But I’m not.
All the gray-matter that was there before is not now.
(“Running on seven cylinders,” I say.)
Something that wasn’t previously doing the driving is now doing the driving.
Just like my speech is slightly compromised.
My original speech-center was vaporized by my stroke, but I get by using other grey-matter.
I can pass for normal, and my driving also appears normal.
But it’s not. I have to concentrate extremely hard to not make mistakes.
It makes me pokier than most.
Since I’d forgot to gas up the night before, we slowly ran out of gas as the day progressed.
Nothing dramatic, but after doing the shot above north (railroad east) of South Fork, I noticed we needed gas.
So into South Fork we went, but not without first trying to see the signals west out at South Fork Interlocking.
They weren’t visible — too far away, and washed out by the sun.
South Fork is an old coal-town built haphazardly on the hillocks.
Narrow side-streets — a grid — thread buildings with no frontage; right at the street. It’s like driving an alley.
The streets are only a single lane wide. This seems to be the way all towns are west of Altoona, hilly and cramped.
The main drag through South Fork is also quite narrow, and skirts two outside edges of the grid.
That means it does a sharp 90 degree turn east.
South Fork is also where the South Fork Secondary came off the old Pennsy main.
The main turns west, and the Secondary turns east.
Coal tipples are out along the Secondary, and they load coal trains for shipment east.
We pulled into a gas-station at the 90 degree turn, but Phil noticed another had a five-cent cheaper price per gallon.
So we drove to that.
A gas-station from the ancient past, with only two pumps, and they were barely accessible.
The space I had to use, between the pumps and the building, was quite narrow.
The pumps were also not “pay-at-the-pump” with me filling.
A crotchety old unshaven geezer in a motorized wheelchair, missing teeth except a gold incisor, in a sweat-stained greasy tee-shirt, asked “fill ‘er up?”
When was the last time you heard that? A gas-station from the ‘50s.
My gas purchase also would be cash, no credit-card.
$37; 10.4 gallons.
Glad I hit the ATM before making the trip.....
Phil wanted to use a restroom before we left.
“Right along the back wall,” geezer said.
“I suppose I should too,” I said, but first a senior-citizen had lined up to fill her Buick.
So I moved our car along side a giant flatbed tow-truck parking next to the building.
But only giant relative to the town. He was blocking the service-bays of the building. —But you couldn’t do otherwise.
After Phil came out of the restroom, I tentatively crossed the oil-slicked service-area, and went into the restroom.
It was incredibly filthy, but first I had to find the light-switch.
It wasn’t inside, and the restroom had no windows. Shut the door and it was pitch dark.
I surmised it might be outside, and there it was in a greasy junction-box beside the door.
“Cheapest gas if you can stand the accommodations,” I said to Phil.
“My wife wouldn’t even set foot in that restroom,” Phil said.
“If I’d had to sit, I woulda gone behind the building,” I said. “At least the toilet didn’t gush water all over the floor when flushed.”
I noticed a giant red-metal PRR keystone sign at least three feet high amidst the oil-stained girly calendars.
That PRR sign was slathered with grease.
“Ho-hum; another coal-train,” a father said the previous day at the Mighty Curve.
But not for coal and the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), South Fork wouldn’t exist.
In fact it’s almost dead already, but those coal-tipples keep it alive.
Our final stop was dinner for Phil and his wife, if she could do it.
Phil used my cellphone to call his wife; she’d done okay, and could do dinner.
We’d drive to Phil’s house, and then he would drive all of us to our dinner selection, the infamous spaghetti-joint, Lena’s Cafe in downtown Altoona.
Lena’s is not precisely an Italian restaurant, but it’s pretty close.
My meal-choice is always spaghetti with homemade marinara sauce and a single meatball — no salad, it’s too much.
My mother survived the Depression. I am required to clean my plate. —It determines how much I can order.
Phil’s wife Rita wasn’t too bad, but I worry about what Phil has to face.
I had a hard enough time dressing my wife when she was sick — I kept feeling like I was getting angry.
Phil’s wife has a difficult time walking.
She also talks about incredible fatigue, a thing I remember muscular dystrophy patients complaining about at my post-stroke outpatient rehabilitation.
Muscular dystrophy, like a stroke, is a traumatic brain-injury (TBI). Except a stroke is sudden, whereas muscular dystrophy is slow deterioration.
Both can effect both mental and physical functions, although in my case it’s mental function. Physical function recovered as what remained of my brain took over.
Rita’s deterioration seems more physical.
“Are ya sure ya wanna do this?” I asked.
Lena’s would require a cane; a walker was too wide.
Lena’s also has a step up into the building.
“Yep,” she said. She’s very determined; “ornery,” I used to say, referring to my own recovery.
Usual spaghetti with meatball and marinara at Lena’s.
After Lena’s we went back to Phil’s house and shot the breeze a while.
He had the same Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar I have.
He gave me their 2010 calendar, which I didn’t get.
Two of the pictures therein are at Cassandra Railfan Overlook (“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in the name “Anne”), one of our photo locations, which we didn’t visit.
Cassandra is probably the best, but mainly because it has shade.
The overlook is an old footbridge over the tracks the railroad is threatening to remove, because concrete crumbled off the bottom and damaged a locomotive.

—Day Three (Saturday, August 20, 2011)
“Back to reality,” I said to Mike Kraynyak (“CRANE-eee-yak”), as I turned in our room-keys.
Kraynyak is the proprietor of Tunnel Inn, the guy who bought the building and converted it to a bed-and-breakfast.
Tunnel Inn is the old Gallitzin town offices and library, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1905.
It’s brick and pretty substantial.
Kraynyak also added an outdoor deck out back, and roofed it.
He also put floodlights in the tunnel-cut.
Gallitzin built new town offices and sold the building.
Kraynyak bought it and converted it to a bed-and-breakfast.
It caters to railfans — it’s right next to Tracks Two and Three.
The drive is about five hours, 260+ miles, about all I can stand.
Other people drive 10 hours or more, over 500 miles.
I tried that once, and was utterly wiped out.
And that was despite shared driving.
I can do the entire drive to Altoona, but it’s all I can take.
A while ago I had to take a nap following the drive, but that seems to no longer be the case.
It’s probably working out at the YMCA.
And I used to puke out about 4 p.m. chasing trains with Faudi.
My wife still does, but not me.
There’s no incentive in chasing trains for her, but I’m a railfan.
Plus there’s the fact I work out at the YMCA.
As usual, the hardest thing about these mini-vacations is boarding our dog.
She’s very attached, and taking the dog along is almost impossible.
Horseshoe Curve doesn’t allow dogs, nor do Altoona motels.
Including Tunnel Inn, which doesn’t allow pets.