Train-chasing with Faudi on phone

(“FOW-dee;” as in “wow.)

I finally got one (a westbound approaching 257.2). (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Photo by Tom Hughes.

That’s yrs trly in the red jacket; my brother Bill is at right.

Another foray to Altoona, PA to chase trains in the area.
This would my eleventh “tour” with Phil Faudi, the railfan extraordinaire from Altoona I chase trains with.
Except he wasn’t able to accompany me, due to his wife having a virus of some sort on top of the multiple-sclerosis she already has.
I will never forget when Phil called after I arrived.
It was like a punch in the gut.
I felt like there went my train-count, 20 or more with Phil, to perhaps five with me alone.
A five or 10-minute wait per train with Phil, as opposed to a half-hour or more for me, if at all.
But Phil had an idea. He’d monitor his scanner at home, and call me to tell me where I might catch what he heard coming.
Suddenly my train-count was recovering.
Phil would call my cellphone, so I could be out anywhere along the railroad.
It just so happens I invited my railfan nephew, Tom, along. He would have accompanied me and Phil.
Then my younger brother Bill, my nephew’s father, suggested he’d like to join us. (Bill is not a railfan.)
So now it was just me and Bill and my nephew, but Phil only by phone.
Phil also gave me a list of all scheduled eastbounds, since he would be unable to monitor the west side of The Hill.
I had my scanner, but unfortunately it’s not Phil’s scanner, which has a tuned antenna so gets better reception.
My trip to Altoona was uneventful.
The only thing worth mentioning is what I call the Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer Memorial Freeway, a short segment of perhaps eight miles from Presho to the PA state-line, is not open yet.
It’s graded and paved, but a bridge needs to be erected yet.
I had to use the ancient two-lane, the only section of two-lane remaining in a trip to Altoona.
Other than all the rural two-lanes I use to get across New York.
I could use a freeway, but it’s roundabout, and takes as long as my slower two-lanes.
A trip to Altoona is now almost all limited-access expressway in PA.
I arrived at Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”), the bed & breakfast we always stayed at, at about 3:15 p.m., my usual time.
My nephew would stay with me, since I had reserved a room with two single beds. And my brother would stay at a motel in Altoona — since I hadn’t reserved for him.
My brother and nephew would arrive about 6:45; they suggested we all eat supper together at a restaurant.
I had set up my CR-V to seat four, but without Phil we were down to three. My brother suggested he drive his car so I could answer Phil’s phonecalls.
Our train-chase would begin at Slope Interlocking, an overpass in Altoona over the old Pennsy “Slope Interlocking,” where The Hill begins.
Slope is also where the leads began into vast Altoona Yard. There once was a tower. —The switches are all interlocked to avoid conflicts.
Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian was coming, and was on time. We’d catch it at Slope.
So began our parade of “doubles,” what Phil calls two trains at once.
An eastbound stacker came down The Hill on Track Two, then another on One, and then Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian beside it on Track Two.

Stacker and trailers down on Two. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

Rare. (Photo by Tom Hughes with Phil Faudi.)

But I had the wrong lens on. I had my big telephoto zoomer.
My nephew got the better picture. He wasn’t using telephoto.
And 513 is a rare locomotive, not the usual P42.
It’s an Amtrak version of the General-Electric freight locomotive.
I’ve seen them on eastbound Pennsylvanians, but only because the eastbounds are what I see; there’s only one eastbound per day.
The 500-series could be on westbounds too.
The eastbound Pennsylvanian gets into Altoona at 9:51 a.m. (Westbound about 5 p.m.)
We saw it about 9:35-9:40.
I called Phil. “Where to next?”
He suggested going west from Slope over The Hill, but he couldn’t monitor that side, which is why he had given me that list of eastbounds.
And so began our train-chase coached by Phil on the telephone.
Phil says he called me nine times. My cellphone says I called him 15 times or more.
We tried the approach to Ledges, but the snow was so deep we turned back. My brother was driving us around in his BMW sedan, which was not my CR-V.
Just-the-same I probably would have turned back my CR-V.
Brickyard-Crossing was among our stops.
Actually it’s the Porta Road grade-crossing, the only grade-crossing in Altoona.
But there used to be a brickyard adjacent.
It was there we saw our “triple,” first one train passed by a second, and then a third train.
That’s a train on all three tracks.

First this down on One. (Photo by Tom Hughes with Phil Faudi.)

Then a train up on Three, and

Then the triple begins; this is the second train. (The first train of the triple is still up on Three.) —This train was all auto-racks, which blocked the third train down on One. (Photo by Tom Hughes with Phil Faudi.)

The last triple I saw was almost 44 years ago.
Unfortunately the only way to photograph a triple is from above, an overpass.
Brickyard is a grade-crossing, not an overpass. All we could do was see it was a triple; the second train was blocking the view of the third train.
Triple passed, we had another double.

This one is up on Three while train-three of the triple is stopped on One for this one to clear. (Photo by Tom Hughes with Phil Faudi.)

The third train of the triple was stopped to clear this train.
At some point we ended up at South Fork, and the sun came out. It’s a fabulous shot with strong telephoto, a gigantic curve.
I called Phil, who remember can’t monitor the western side of The Hill. (He’s at home on the eastern side.)
“A westbound is coming; 25 minutes to the top of The Hill, then 20-25 minutes to South Fork.”
“Have we got time to go up to CP-W?” I asked, which is just north (railroad-east) of South Fork.
“Yes.”
But in moving there we lost a fabulous shot of an eastbound at South Fork.
All I got was a helper-set – so pictured.

And so it goes. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

The eastbound came as soon as we left, and I’d never heard it.
About all I can do is try again in a few months.
And hope I can get a tuned antenna like Phil if alone.
I also have to develop the ear Phil has, to pick out train-symbols from the gibberish as the engineer calls out the signals.
If I’d had all that, we wouldn’t have lost that fabulous shot at South Fork.
Next was CP-W (checkpoint W) just north of South Fork.
An eastbound went by as we were walking down to it; a ballast-strewn service-road.
CP-W is where the South Fork Secondary switches into the main line; and there used to be a flyover there. The flyover is long-gone; it was only there to keep trains switching onto the South Fork Branch from blocking the main.
Phil said more westbounds were coming, and we kept getting eastbounds, and doubles.

I think this is my best picture. (Photo by BobbaLew with Phil Faudi.)

I think this is the westbound UPS-train. (Photo by Tom Hughes with Phil Faudi.)

(“UPS” because it’s all United-Parcel-Service trailers, very high priority. The train goes all the way to the west-coast.)
Time was passing quickly, more quickly than I expected it would.
Already it was 4 p.m., and getting dark.
We concluded at 257.2, a highway overpass over the tracks that has the 257.2 signals mounted to it.
That section is a bypass built in 1898 to ease curvature approaching Allegheny Summit from the west.
Far down the tracks is a deep rock cut; a lot of rock had to be blasted out to make that bypass.
Also visible far down the track is Cassandra (“kuh-SANN-druh;” as in “Ann”) Railfan Overlook, a footbridge over the tracks next to the tiny town of Cassandra.
Railfans were attracted to that footbridge.
Much of the original mainline is still extant, as it serves a coal-tipple. It used to cross here and go into Cassandra.
It switches into the mainline at right.
We were losing light, but I managed to snag the lede picture (above).
I’ve shot many photos off that bridge, but that lede picture is the first I’m happy with. It’s not fabulous, but it’s pretty good.
We ate supper at the infamous spaghetti-joint, Lena’s in Altoona.
We never saw Phil, so our chase, fairly successful, went unpaid for.
(I usually eat out with Phil.)
I returned home the next day, a Sunday, very depressed; seemingly more so than my last train-chase in September.
I was returning home to the same sorry, sad situation I had left two days earlier — the fact I am now a widower.
My beloved wife of over 44 years died nine months ago, and I miss her dearly.
I still have my dog, but I told her “your master is still a wreck.”
And so yet another train-chase drifts into the filmy past.
Train-chases I can still do, but no railfan excursions yet.
I lack the confidence.