Boomin’-and-zoomin’ on the old Pennsy Middle Division

The excursion, led by the Levin Es, pulls into Altoona station. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Yet another trip to Altoona (“al-TUNA-uh;” as in the name “Al”), PA, to chase trains.
Except this time we will be actually riding a train, instead of just chasing.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2 (I’m 67).
The train-trip is a railfan excursion, and it started at Harrisburg, PA, at 7 a.m. on Saturday, October 1, 2011.
The train traveled the old Pennsy Middle Division westward, and stopped at Altoona about 9:30 a.m. to pick us up.
We left Altoona at 9:48, scheduled to leave at 10 a.m.
“Everyone’s on the train,” an official said. “All tickets were punched.”
“Um, not ours, sir. Hello!”
We hope no one was left behind; our car was not packed.
(I guess we were trying to avoid Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, which would need the same track to load.)
After leaving we went up The Hill into the Allegheny mountains to Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), where we looped around on the old helper loop, to come back down The Hill headed north (railroad east) through Altoona.
The Hill is 12 miles of average 1.75 percent grade; that’s 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward — fairly steep but not steep enough to slow viable railroad operation. Steep enough to often require helper locomotives.
The Hill includes the Mighty Curve (Horseshoe Curve), by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to, probably approaching 100 times.
After Altoona we took the old Pennsy main east up to Tyrone (“tie-RONE;” as in “own”), where we switched onto the old Pennsy Bald Eagle branch, now the Nittany & Bald Eagle (NBER) shortline, which took us up to Lock Haven, PA.
At Lock Haven we switched onto Norfolk Southern’s Buffalo line, the old Pennsy line to Buffalo and Erie, PA.
We took Norfolk Southern’s Buffalo line south from Lock Haven toward Harrisburg.
But not actually to Harrisburg.
Just to the massive ex-Pennsy stone Rockville bridge across the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HAN-uh”) river north of Harrisburg.
That bridge is so massive it would need a direct hit from a thermonuclear warhead to remove it.
Harrisburg passengers detrained there, and were bused back to Harrisburg.
At Rockville, our train switched back onto the old Pennsy main, its Middle Division, to go back to Altoona.
Our train was powered by the Electromotive E-units restored by Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”) Terminal and the Levin brothers.

A Conrail Executive E powers its Business-Train.

They are the old Conrail Executive E-units, but painted in Pennsy Tuscan (“TUSS-kin;” not “Tucson, Ariz.”) red passenger colors.
I think one unit is actually ex Erie-Lackawanna.
We were supposed to be back to Altoona by 6:30 p.m.
NOT!
I have ridden enough of these railfan excursions to expect delays.
Most have been fairly uneventful, although I remember trying to keep warm in a frigid shed for hours atop Sherman Hill (the Continental Divide) in Wyoming. Rain howling in the doorway.
Worst was an excursion that got back at 3 a.m.
It was a steam-powered excursion, and the locomotive (1218) ran out of coal.
The crew also ran over their 12-hour working limit, and had to be replaced.
We had to be rescued by diesels from Buffalo, and they were over two hours away.
It was dreadful.
Two giant locomotive tenders had to be filled by one piddling village fire-hydrant — it took over two hours, in a hot coach with failed air-conditioning and sealed windows.
It was a Norfolk Southern excursion, yet we had to use adjacent Conrail trackage to turn.
You don’t just lift a giant steam-locomotive off the track to turn it.
—Like a model railroad.
A giant hand doesn’t descend from the sky.
Conrail did its best to delay our train — and we had to use a lot of Conrail.
And it was raining, so the rail was slippery wet.
Our steam-engine wanted to spin its driving-wheels.
Turning was a ponderously slow process.
I’ve always wanted to ride the old Pennsy Middle Division, the heart of Pennsy.
But only one passenger-train remains on it, Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian, and that’s state-subsidized.
Pennsy used to run a lot of passenger-service on the line.
And Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian is inconvenient.
I would be riding it Philadelphia to Pittsburgh (or reverse).
That’s two individual trains per day, one east, one west, two sets of equipment.
They aren’t connected, and each starts at a difficult time.
I’d have to stay overnight at the opposite end to return where I started.
Pittsburgh I had no clue, and driving to Pittsburgh to ride to Philadelphia and back seemed near impossible.
Another option was to start at Harrisburg, but Harrisburg was unknown too.
So a circle excursion that covered the Middle Division sounded interesting.
Plus it would do Nittany & Bald Eagle; rare mileage.

SO BEGAN OUR EXCURSION.

Photo by Linda Hughes. (Linda Hughes is my wife.)

We round the Mighty Curve.

Up The Hill, around Horseshoe Curve, then back down, and onto Nittany & Bald Eagle at Tyrone.
Perhaps the best thing about this whole excursion was nearly all the time we were moving at a good clip, 30-70 mph. Mostly at 50 or above; no bog-slow 10 mph running.
Even Nittany & Bald Eagle, which is built sufficient to handle Norfolk Southern unit coal-trains with trackage-rights. Welded rail.
About the only times we slowed were city running through Tyrone and Lock Haven. —That included street-running in Tyrone.
I’m told the Levin Es are pretty good, and operate reliably. It was like recent Amtrak operation.
Our only intentional stops were for -a) a crew-change at Rose, northern Altoona, and -b) Lock Haven, to get on Norfolk Southern’s Buffalo line.
Our train comprised nine cars, plus the two Levin Es.
Three of those cars were first-class, owned by Juniata Terminal.
They own four, but one was out-of-service.
The other cars were all leased Amtrak coaches.
The first car, which was reserved for crew, looked like a head-end car with engineer controls — where the locomotive pushes the rear of the train.
“I’m not a first-class kind of guy,” I said to my wife.
I could have spent another $100 for first-class, but why bother?
“What you see is all the same no matter what class you ride,” my wife said. “It’s just a train-ride. Coach cost enough as it was.”
So first-class seats us individually in a dusty tobacco-smoke filled lounge painted turgid beige, and offers us dinner in a dining-car.
You’re still as likely to spill your food, or slop your coffee.
Of course, like any train-ride, you see everything bad about America.
Shredded house-trailers and recreational vehicles, heaping junkyards full of crumpled automobiles, burned-out over-the-road Peterbilts, and piles of discarded detritus, old TV sets, refrigerators, and smashed toilets.
Plus gravel-covered piles of rotting lumber, and garbage tossed out back.
“Take it down to the railroad, Dorothy. Heave it over the embankment.”
It’s not “America the Beautiful.”
Much of the old Pennsy main up The Hill is lined with rock-bound battlements.
Nittany & Bald Eagle is backyard detritus, filthy rain-filled fiberglass moss-covered speedboats on rusty trailers with flat tires.
With greasy, partially dissembled outboard motors without their casings.
Nittany & Bald Eagle was essentially dead on my scanner.
It’s just a shortline; hardly anything runs on it.
All I got was the train’s engineer calling out the signals.
I counted only three defect-detectors over about 54 miles. It ain’t the Pittsburgh Division.
And apparently Norfolk Southern’s Buffalo line is not all the same radio-frequency as the Pittsburgh Division, 160.8.
(Apparently the railroad uses a different frequency around Harrisburg.)
I wasn’t getting anything.
I turned my scanner off.
When we got west of Duncannon (“done-CANN-in”) I turned it on again; a deluge of scanner chatter.
We had a long stop on the Buffalo line south of Northumberland, well over an hour.
A freight-train ahead of us had broke a coupler-knuckle.
We were also riding next to someone much like my all-knowing blowhard younger brother-from-Boston.
The one who noisily badmouths everything I do or say.
Airline flight, farm-equipment, computers; this guy knew everything.
“I’ve operated jet-engines for years,” he bragged. “If your quill-seal goes, your lubricating oil burns up with your jet-fuel.”
“Sounds just like my brother,” I observed.
“We’ve been married too long,” my wife said. “I was about to say the same thing.”
The broken coupler train was put in a siding, so we could proceed.
“Toot;” off we went, back to boomin’-and-zoomin’.
Once on the Middle Division we were up to over 70 mph.
But it got dark; we could no longer see anything.
We couldn’t even see what track we were on. At first the engineer was reporting Track One, and that we could see.
Then he was reporting Track Two, but it was too dark to see what track we were on.
Somewhere we crossed over from One to Two, but it was a high-speed crossover. —We never noticed.
Apparently nothing much was ahead of us; restricting signals were rare.
We passed a so-called “parade” of eastbounds, but it was too dark to see.
There’s only one speed-restriction left on the Middle Division, 40 mph through reverse curves known as the Figure Eights.
The only way to discern when that happened was our train slowing.
It was too dark to see anything.
I noticed we slowed at a point where the Figure Eights would be.
Then back to 70-plus.
I don’t know what speed the railroad is rated for, but we were boomin’-and-zoomin’.
And the old Levin Es were hauling; gobbling up the miles.
We probably slowed for towns along the way: Lewistown, Mt. Union, Huntingdon.
There’s also a tunnel at Spruce Creek east of Tyrone, but it was too dark to know if we were inside it.
The footbridge in Bellwood was visible when we zoomed under it. I’ve shot photos off that footbridge.
Back to Altoona station approaching 9 p.m. — not too bad, not 3 a.m.
But I was worn out.
I’m not young.
Somewhere during our excursion I heard a guy complaining his wife would never do such a thing.
I glanced at my wife: “Well, here we are. Probably at least our tenth.”
Another excursion would be held the next day toward Pittsburgh, but it would leave Altoona at 7 a.m.
(We weren’t doing it; it wasn’t the Middle Division.)
I had planned to try photographing it on the west slope, west of Gallitzin, but was too burned out.
We watched it pass Tunnel Inn from our room.
(“Tunnel Inn,” in Gallitzin, is the bed-and-breakfast we stay at in the Altoona area.
It used to be the old Gallitzin town offices and library.
It was built by Pennsy in 1905, and is brick and rather substantial.
It was converted to a bed-and-breakfast when Gallitzin built new town offices.
Its advantage for railfans like me — also its marketing ploy — is that it’s right beside Tracks Two and Three.
It’s right next to the old Pennsy tunnels through the summit of the Alleghenies.
Trains are blowing past all the time.
Three is westbound, and Two can be either way. —Track One is not visible; it’s on the other side of town, using New Portage Tunnel. Tunnel Inn also has a covered viewing deck behind its building, plus floodlights to illuminate trains approaching or leaving the tunnels in the dark.)

DAY TWO; fizzle.


“That’s a four-letter word I don’t wanna hear;” (so said the Pittsburgh dispatcher). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

When we got up Sunday morning (October 2, 2011) and looked out our window at Tunnel Inn, it was snowing.
Tunnel Inn owner Mike Kraynyak (“CRANE-eee-yak”) had gone outside and was brushing snow off cars, about an inch.
We had intended to chase trains with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”).
I have written up Phil so many times it would just bore constant-readers.
If you need clarification, click this link, and go down about halfway into the blog.
That explains Phil.
I called Phil and cancelled. It was raining and raw downhill where he lived in Altoona, and would be all day.
This is not the first time weather ruined things.
About 10 years ago we visited Horseshoe Curve in October, and it was awful.
We were the only ones there, beside the crew.
They took us up to the viewing-area in the funicular-car, and let us outside.
The funicular is an uphill railway, a sort of cable-car.
It works somewhat like an elevator.
Via the funicular intercom they asked if we wanted to stay, but I answered “Take us right back down!”
At least inside the funicular car you’re protected from the weather: wind-blown rain slanting in your face.
Our room was frigid at Tunnel Inn, plus driving this here laptop is a pain compared to at home with a real keyboard and mouse. —We’d be all-day prisoners of the weather in our room at Tunnel Inn.
Mike said he would only charge us for two nights if we left early. (We had reserved three.)
So we drove home.
Excursion, but no train-chase.
Faudi e-mailed me later it stayed awful all day.
Train-chasing is essentially an outdoor endeavor, even if it’s only five minutes with Phil.
If it’s just me at a specific location, it’s a half-hour or more.
What I wanted to do was CP-W (Control-Point W) just east of South Fork, a photo-location that could be really great.
But I wasn’t dressed for it, even with long underwear.
About a third of the way down the mountain the snow changed to rain.
It rained off-and-on all the way to the New York state line, and even somewhat into New York.
“I wonder if that’s our last excursion?” I said to my wife back home.
“I hope not, but I’m old and worn out.”
I have to recover from these drives, even though they’re easy, and only five hours.
My wife nearly died of cancer a few months ago.
Now she’s like nothing ever happened, and seems more energetic than me.
My wife has cancer, but supposedly it’s 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.
The near-death episode was because of argument among oncologists about which cancer she had.

REFLECTIONS:
—1) As seems to be the case every year....
This journey was our first use of long underwear for the season.
Even on the train, which seemed to be heated, and was relatively comfortable.
But it was frigid outside, usually in the 40s.
Go below 50 degrees, and I need long underwear.
—2) It was interesting how our train bogged down as it climbed The Hill.
Coming out of Altoona, we were soon up to track-speed, which I think is 30 mph.
Still track-speed as we rounded the Curve, and continued up The Hill.
But as we got near the top, our train started slowing, lugging — we were down to about 20 mph.
The final ascent is steepest, 1.86 percent.
It was bogging us down.
Nine cars are about all two E-units could handle on The Hill.
18 cars would stall two units.
At 18 ya might be able to get by with three.
And Conrail had re-engined those units; they were modern power and electronics in antique bodies.
Which made restoration a slam-dunk.
Plus E-units track well at speed.
But The Hill was a challenge.
I think a recent Amtrak P-42 would do the same.
The Pennsylvanian is one unit with five cars.
Do nine and ya might need two P-42s.