I’m a Pennsy man

CSX on the Water-Level. (Photo by BobbaLew.)


On the Rochester Bypass in Fairport. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The other day (Sunday, September 18, 2011) was gorgeous.
Not a cloud in the sky all day, and coolish, about 65 degrees.
“A perfect day to chase trains,” I said to my wife.
—Although probably not that great, since it was Sunday.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-two (I’m 67).
“Despite it being nearby, I’ve never done justice to the old New York Central Water-Level,” I said.
“And it has just as many highway overpasses and great photo locations as Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Division down near Altoona (‘al-TUNE-uh;’ as in the name ‘Al’), PA, where I’ve been almost 100 times.
The Water-Level is the old New York Central (NYC) Railroad’s mainline across New York, called that because it pretty much followed rivers, so had easy gradients.
The Water-Level is now CSX Transportation (railroad).
The fact it had river gradients made it easier to operate than the old Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), now Norfolk Southern.
Pennsy had to cross the Allegheny Front, which prior to the railroad had been a barrier to west-east commerce.
Yet Pennsy was more successful than New York Central. It moved gobs of freight, so much it had to expand to handle it.
A lot of Pennsy was four tracks, “the Broad Way.”
A lot of New York Central was four tracks too.
NYC’s ultimate destination was New York City — with Pennsy New York City was an afterthought. Pennsy’s original goal was to make Philadelphia comparable to New York City, which became what it was because of the Erie Canal.
And New York Central had a dogleg, east from Buffalo to Albany, then south down the Hudson river to New York City.
Pennsy didn’t have that dogleg, but was detouring through Pennsylvania and north Jersey to get to New York City.
It’s not as-the-bird-flies, but Central wasn’t either.
As-the-bird-flies would have had NYC into the Catskills, and hilly western New York.
New York Central is far enough north to avoid that hilliness.
It more-or-less parallels the Erie Canal, which that lack of hilliness made possible.
Pennsy was blocked by the Hudson river from New York City proper. New York Central wasn’t.
Quite a few railroads from the west terminated at the Hudson river, and ferried into New York.
There was talk of a union railroad bridge over the Hudson, but it was never built.
Pennsy eventually tunneled passenger-service under the Hudson, but never freight.
Freight was ferried into New York; now it’s trucks.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was once the largest and most powerful railroad on the planet — the so-called “Standard Railroad of the World.”
Pennsy moved a lot of Pennsylvania coal, a commodity railroads profit from.
New York state wasn’t a coal-producer, so New York Central didn’t have that coal-base.
Nevertheless, Pennsy’s main competition was New York Central, particularly in the midwest (Ohio and Indiana), where the two railroads had feeders to their main stems.
PRR eventually had to merge with New York Central in 1968; a marriage out of desperation. There was no one else to merge with, and Pennsy was faltering.
A proposed merger with Norfolk & Western was not approved.
That merger (Penn-Central) went bankrupt, and the government took part in forming Conrail, a merger of all bankrupt northeast railroads — there were quite a few.
(Norfolk Southern is a long-ago merger of Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway.)
Conrail succeeded and eventually privatized. It was sold in 1999 to CSX and Norfolk Southern. CSX got mostly the New York Central lines, and Norfolk Southern the Pennsy lines.
I’ve been to Norfolk Southern’s Pittsburgh Division almost 100 times, primarily Horseshoe Curve, the best railfan spot I’ve ever been to.
I first went there in 1968, or perhaps ’69, Horseshoe Curve (the Mighty Curve), which at that time was Penn-Central, and four tracks.
The Curve was reduced to three tracks by Conrail.


At the Mighty Curve Labor-Day, 1970. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

The first picture I ever had published nationwide, November 1971, was at Horseshoe Curve, and it was in Trains Magazine, page 25.
“I suppose there’s one reason I keep going back to the Pittsburgh Division,” I told my wife.
“It’s the old Pennsy, and I’m a Pennsy man.”
The Pittsburgh Division is the heart of the old Pennsy, an engineering triumph when it was built about 1854.
The Allegheny Crossing was Pennsy’s greatest challenge, and it was done with guile and cunning.
Horseshoe Curve is the trick that stands out.
The railroad was looped around a valley to make the grade manageable.
That took a lot of cutting and filling for 1850; including rock.
The east slope still averages 1.75 percent (that’s 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward), a grade that often needs helper locomotives. But it’s not 4 percent, which would have been near impossible.
Plus there are no switchbacks — advance into one switchback, back up to the next switchback, then go forward again.
Switchbacks are a way to gain altitude, but ponderously slow to operate.
Pennsy’s Allegheny Crossing is a through railroad, one that could be operated without shenanigans, with manageable gradient.
And most of the original alignment is still in use.
Only one shortcut was put in on the west slope, from Portage north (railroad east). It took out a lot of torturous curvature near the top.
The east slope is still as built; the original alignment.
As I say, I’ve been to Altoona almost 100 times.
Years ago a coworker at the Messenger newspaper where I worked, noted I was going on vacation, so asked where I was going.
“Why Horseshoe Curve, of course,” I answered.
“What is it about that place?” he responded; “that’s the third time this summer!”
“Trains, man,” I said. “You’re smack in the apex of the Curve, and they’re right in your face. It’s the BEST railfan spot I’ve ever been to.”
I’ve branched out beyond Horseshoe Curve the past few years.
First the tunnels at the top of The Hill in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “girl”), then Cassandra (“kuh-SANNE-druh;” as in the name “Anne”) Railfan Overlook in Cassandra, PA on the west slope west toward Gallitzin.
Cassandra Railfan Overlook is an old footbridge set atop abutments for old state Route 53 into Cassandra.
(State Route 53 no longer goes through Cassandra.)
The bridge bridged a deep rock cut that was part of the 1898 line relocation north (railroad east) of Portage.
The railroad used to go through Cassandra, but now it doesn’t.
The footbridge was for Cassandra residents that worked east of the railroad.
Railfans started congregating on that footbridge to watch Pennsy slug it out up the west slope toward Allegheny summit.
A Cassandra resident noticed, so started mowing lawn and put in old diner tables plus benches.
It’s a great place to watch trains. Trains are wide-open hammering up the west slope. But primarily it’s the shade.
Nearby Cresson (“KRESS-in”) has a railfan observation deck, but it’s right out in the sun.
At Cassandra you can sit and not bake.
Plus Cassandra Railfan Overlook is between two defect-detectors, 253.1 at Carney’s Crossing south (railroad west) of Lilly, and 258.9 in Portage.
Defect-detectors broadcast train-condition on the radio operating channel. The train-crew will hear ‘em.
Monitoring with a scanner I can hear when a train is coming.
Once at Cassandra we got up to leave and “Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track Three, no defects.”
We were stuck for at least two hours. Every time we got up to leave, here comes another.
They were fleetin’ ‘em, both directions.
Your wait might be 5-10 minutes, but in the shade you can stand it.
Since 2008 we’ve been chasing trains with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
Phil is the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona who supplied all-day train-chases for $125.
—He called them “Adventure-Tours,” and that’s just what they were, railfan overload.
Faudi would bring along his radio rail-scanner, tuned to 160.8, the Norfolk Southern operating channel, and he knew the whereabouts of every train, as the engineers called out the signals, and various lineside defect-detectors fired off.
He knew each train by symbol, and knew all the back-roads, and how long it took to get to various photo locations — and also what made a successful photo — lighting, drama, etc.
I’d let Phil do the monitoring. I have a scanner myself, but I left it behind.
Phil knew every train on the scanner, where it was, and how long it took to beat it to a prime photo location.
My first time was a slow day, yet we got 20 trains. Next Tour we got 30 trains in one nine-hour day.
Phil gave it up; fear of liability suits, and a really nice car he’s afraid he’d mess up.
Phil also no longer does the driving; he’s 67, same age as me, and afraid he’d wreck his car.
But he can’t give it up; he still leads me around as long as I do the driving — which is slow, since I had a stroke. We miss trains he would get.
Over our many Tours Phil took me to many places along the line around Altoona just as good as Cassandra, often better.
So now our sojourns are no longer to just Horseshoe Curve.
Now it’s the Pittsburgh Division; more precisely the Allegheny Crossing.
That’s both the east and west slopes.
My younger brother-from-Boston, now a railfan, regals me with calls from the nation’s interior. He’s stopped at some phenomenal railfan location out west, probably Union-Pacific or Burlington Northern Santa Fe (“fay;” BNSF).
Trains are flying by willy-nilly, more often than the Pittsburgh Division.
He holds up his cellphone so I can hear the horn-blowing cacophony — what I usually hear is racket.
Well, yes; but it’s not Allegheny Crossing, the old Pennsy.
Which explains why —A) another foray to Altoona is planned for the end of this month, and —B) the Water-Level remains in the doldrums.
I also don’t have a Phil Faudi along the Water-Level.

• “The Rochester Bypass” is the old West Shore line south of the city — it bypasses Rochester; doesn’t go through. The “West Shore” was a line financed by the Pennsylvania Railroad to compete directly with the New York Central Railroad in New York state in the late 1800s. It was merged with NYC at the behest of J.P. Morgan, who got all the warring parties together on his yacht in Long Island Sound. The NYC got the West Shore for no longer financing the proposed South Pennsylvania Railroad [which was graded but never built, including tunnels, which were later incorporated into the Pennsylvania Turnpike]. It was called the “West Shore” because it went up the west shore of the Hudson River. It’s been largely abandoned west of the Hudson, although the segment around Rochester became a bypass around Rochester; plus the line along the “West Shore” of the Hudson River was also never abandoned.
• The “Messenger newspaper” is the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger, from where I retired over five years ago. Best job I ever had — I worked there almost 10 years. (“Canandaigua” [“cannan-DAY-gwuh”] is a small city nearby where we live in Western NY. The city is also within a rural town called “Canandaigua.” The name is Indian, and means “Chosen Spot.” —It’s about 14 miles away.)
• I had a stroke October 26, 1993, from which I pretty much recovered.