Well, here I am

Helpers push eastbound at CP-W near South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

First time ever to Tunnel-Inn in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), in the Altoona PA area, to chase trains with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”) since my beloved wife of 44 years died April 17.
I’m a railfan, and have been since age-2 (I’m 68).
No laundry to do, no meals to cook; for which I’m rather disorganized.
I left the house in slight disarray about 9:40 a.m. Wednesday, June 6, after boarding the dog.
Five hours and 261 miles later I was in the tiny Tunnel-Inn parking-lot.
“Tunnel-Inn” was the bed-and-breakfast we usually stayed at in the Altoona area. We stayed there many times.
Tunnel-Inn is right next to Tracks Two and Three of the old Pennsy mainline, now operated by Norfolk Southern.
It’s within sight of Pennsy’s tunnels through Allegheny Ridge, one abandoned, and the original Pennsy tunnel enlarged to clear two tracks and doublestacks.
Hence, “Tunnel-Inn.”
We always got the “Alco” suite, because the air-conditioning doesn’t blow on the bed, it’s a queen-size bed, and it’s along the back wall away from the tracks.
You still hear the trains. There are many, and they rumble by all night, wide-open climbing, often blowing their horn for the tunnel before descending.
“Alco” is American Locomotive Company of Schenectady, NY. For years, American Locomotive Company was a primary manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives. (It was originally a merger of many steam locomotive manufacturers.) —With the changeover by railroads to diesel-locomotives, American Locomotive Company brought out a line of diesel-electric railroad locomotives much like the railroads were changing to, and changed its name to “Alco.” Alco tanked a while ago; they never competed as well as EMD (General-Motors’ Electromotive Division).
Tunnel-Inn is the old Gallitzin town offices and library, a substantial brick building built by Pennsy in 1905.
It was converted into a bed-and-breakfast when Gallitzin built new town offices and a library across the tracks.
The old Pennsy, now Norfolk Southern, is a main freight-conduit east from the nation’s interior. A lot of trains also pass west, toward the nation’s interior.
There is a third track, not visible from Tunnel-Inn, on the other side of Gallitzin.
This is Track One, and it passes through New Portage Tunnel, higher up than the Pennsy tunnels. —Pennsy had to ramp up to it.
Pennsy came to own the state-sponsored Pennsylvania Public-Works System, which it put out of business, which included the “New Portage Railroad” (which included that tunnel), which replaced the original “Portage Railroad,” which had inclined-planes.
The Pennsylvania Public-Works, meant to compete with the Erie Canal, was a combination canal and railroad system.
No way could a canal breach the Alleghenies.
In fact, grading was so rudimentary when the Works were built inclined-planes had to be included in the railroad segment (a portage). Stationary steam-engines would winch the cars up the planes.
The system was so cumbersome and slow, Philadelphia capitalists proposed the Pennsylvania Railroad, Harrisburg to Pittsburgh.
They hired John Edgar Thomson of Georgia to lay out a manageable Allegheny Crossing, and he included a grading trick, world-famous Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona.
Altoona, at the base of the Alleghenies, became Pennsy’s shop-town.
It hired thousands to develop, maintain, and manufacture railroad equipment.
Horseshoe Curve, looping the railroad around a valley, made surmounting the Alleghenies manageable. It stretched out the grade so it could be only 1.75 percent on average, instead of four percent, which would have been near impossible. (Four percent is four feet up for every 100 feet forward — which a truck can do, but not easily a railroad.)

DAY TWO: the actual train-chase
Everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to go wrong; except my car didn’t fail, I kept it between the lines, and no accidents.
First my camera went south.
The day started fine, but after about 2-3 hours my camera went dark.
The viewfinder image was so dark it was barely visible.
Then I noticed recorded images were similarly dark.
The image would be so dark it was barely visible.
Then I had no images at all. —The camera wouldn’t shoot.
We considered recharging the battery, but the icon said it was still fully charged.
Either I inadvertently knocked a setting, or the camera went wonky.
The solution was a trip to the seller, about 285 miles away.
Faudi suggested I ask Mike Kraynyak (“crane-eee-YAK”), proprietor of Tunnel-Inn, if he had a camera I could borrow.
Kraynyak is a raillfan.
Kraynyak had to also be there; he had said he needed to go out.
Kraynyak was there.
My camera is a Nikon D100, over 10 years old, the first digital camera Nikon offered — I think.
Kraynyak’s is a Nikon D80, much like the D100, and to my mind the camera I should have got. It would have been fine for what I do. —My railfan nephew in northern DE has a D80, and does fine with it.
Kraynyak loaned me his camera with my memory-chip.
We reset his camera to fine-jpegs, what I was shooting with my D100.
“Do you wanna quit early, Bob?” Phil asked.
“Not as long as I have Mike’s camera,” I said.
Off we charged to continue our train-chase, my D100 in my room at the bed-and-breakfast, and me with Kraynyak’s D80.


Three GEs bring a stacker down The Hill on Track Two toward Slope Interlocking. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

(At Lilly.)

Doublestack west on Three. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Helpers hold back the above westbound. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

(Interlude at South Fork.)

Around the bend into South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Eastbound on Two. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Coal off the South Fork Secondary. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Helpers hold back a westbound downhill. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

(At CP-W east of South Fork.)

Mixed-freight eastbound on Two. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

(At Alto Tower.)

The slab-train boogaloos past Alto onto the drag tracks. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Alto Tower is at right. (“Alto” is the only remaining Pennsy tower, and will be closed shortly.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)


Back to the mines. (Westbound empty coal-gondolas through Altoona.) (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

First we went to Slope Interlocking on the west side of Altoona, west of the yard-entrance.
Crossovers are being replaced so Alto tower can be closed, and trains entering Altoona can be switched from Pittsburgh.
The picture at Slope is with Mike’s camera, as are Alto and the last picture.
Everything earlier (Lilly and South Fork) is with my camera before it went dark.
After Slope we went to Alto tower.
But we could see a shower coming.
I managed to snag a few pictures; three trains at Alto.
All while Phil protected my car in a private parking-lot.
After Alto we went to Altoona station, which has a covered walkway over a bridge across the tracks.
I could shoot from inside and not get rained on.
After that we went up to Rose in Juniata (“june-eee-AT-uh”), the crew-change location, but that’s outside. It started raining hard.
We drove back to Alto, where I could shoot from under an overpass, and not get rained on.
But then Kraynyak’s camera started acting up.
It was throwing a strange message at me, and wouldn’t shoot.
I tried a solution suggested earlier by Kraynyak, and it didn’t work.
Now both cameras were failing me, and Kraynyak’s camera was unknown to me.
Plus it was pouring.
We set up at Alto under the overpass, but I got nothing.
It also got dark.
Mike’s camera was still throwing its message at me, and wouldn’t shoot.
We gave up and went to Brickyard Crossing west of Altoona.
The crossing is not Brickyard Road. It’s actually “Porta” Road.
But the grade crossing had a brickyard nearby, since torn down.
So the crossing was called “Brickyard Crossing.”
At least there we could stay inside my car out of the deluge.
Two trains passed, both downhill, although one might have been just a helper-set.
It was raining, and my borrowed camera was failing me.
I studied the camera.
“Do you wanna stay here and just watch trains?” Phil asked.
“My heart’s not in it,” I said; “I guess we might as well call it a day.”
It was after 4 p.m.
“Too many things are on my mind,” I said. “Plus my wife is gone, so I get depressed when things go awry.”
“Well, I guess you oughta take me back to my house,” Phil said.
Since Phil is no longer in business giving “tours” (train-chases), I take he and his wife out to dinner afterward.
It’s my paying him for leading me around.
We decided to hit Aldo’s Italian-restaurant in Juniata just north of Altoona.
It’s probably the best Italian restaurant in the area.
I had to find it on-my-own, and my confidence seems to have withered with my wife’s death.
But I found it easily; signs were out front, and I had been there once before.

DAY THREE: back to reality
A reality even worse than what it was when my wife was alive.
Back to cooking on-my-own and doing and folding laundry.
The drive back was slam-dunk easy, but my wife was no longer along to monitor improvements to our route.
I have driven this route-segment hundreds of times, the Rochester-area to Williamsport.
When I started driving it back in the ‘60s, I was driving from northern DE to my college in western NY.
To Altoona is a different route south of Williamsport, more westerly than easterly.
When I began, the route was nearly all two-lane, particularly north of Williamsport.
South of Williamsport was the infamous three-lane along the Susquehanna (“suss-kwee-HA-nuh”) river toward Harrisburg.
The third lane was the middle, marked “pass with care” or “no passing.” Traffic bunched up behind a slowpoke, then all zoomed past in the “pass with care” section.
Now even the three-lane is four-lane expressway, as is the entire route in PA north of Williamsport.
When I started driving to Altoona perhaps 18 years ago, the trip took six-seven hours. Now it takes five.
Four-lane expressways opened adjacent to the old two-lane segments, plus there was limited-access rerouting after flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes.
Last to go was the old “Blossburg Hill” up Blossburg mountain. That was a few years ago.
Heavily-trafficked two-lane segments switched over to completed four-lane expressway, and two-lane limited-access was converted to four-lane.
There also was the segment through Steam Valley that used the old road southbound. It wasn’t up to interstate standards; all curvy and hilly, speed-limit 45 mph.
Even that was replaced recently.
The only segment still two-lane north of Williamsport is just above the NY state line.
And even that has new four-lane expressway being built adjacent.
I suspect that will be open before I kick the bucket, but my wife didn’t make it.
I used to do all the driving down to Altoona; my wife sewed. We’d monitor the route-changes and comment.
It’s strange driving it alone. No one to bounce my comments off of.
Like how the lightly-traveled four-lane expressway seems overkill. Like PA presumed gas-prices will not skyrocket, so traffic will grow.
I pulled into my garage at 1:42; left Tunnel-Inn about 8 a.m.
I brought home my dog from boarding about 6:30.
I felt pretty good; like it was good to be home even if alone.
But when I awoke the next morning I felt horribly alone.

• “Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that tanked in about eight years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.
• “Bob” is me, Bob Hughes, BobbaLew.