Adventures in a winter-wonderland

Where’s the train? (It’s in the blowing snow.) (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

Last Thursday (January 23rd) my brother and I chased trains in the Altoona area, Allegheny Crossing, where the railroad breaches Allegheny Mountain.
.....In the frigid cold.
I’ve chased trains in this area with Phil Faudi (“FOW-dee;” as in “wow”), the Altoona railfan-extraordinaire expert chasing trains in this area.
But Phil opted out because of the frigid conditions, which was just as well.
Our hands froze, our feet froze, and I got chilled.
17th-St. overpass in Altoona was worst. The temperature was about 5-10 degrees, but the wind was whipping right onto that overpass.
Phil was monitoring his rail-scanner inside his house. He also can see part of the railroad. He’d call my cellphone.
So we weren’t in the dark, just waiting clueless in the extreme cold.
We’d know a train was coming.
The railroad is also fairly busy. Phil couldn’t monitor radio-transmissions on the far side of the mountain. An eastbound might appear unknown to Phil.
I had my scanner too, but I ain’t Phil.
Phil also has the advantage of knowing what’s scheduled when. —I don’t yet.
And furthermore many radio-transmissions are lost on me. The train-engineers have to radio the signal-aspects as they proceed, and I know those locations fairly well.
So if I comprehend a signal-callout I know where the train is, and if we should wait for it.
But the engineer will also give his train-number, which triggers Phil, but for me falls flat.
So there we were, my brother and I, ramming all over the area, then freezing outside waiting for trains.
My brother is 56; I’m almost 70!
At least with Phil we’d know a train was coming. We wouldn’t give up and go warm up, all to have a train arrive while we were inside my brother’s truck getting warm.
It was so cold you had to always wear gloves, and operating a camera calls for bare hands.
Although I got so I could trip the shutter gloves-on at the end.
One jaunt, from McFarland’s Curve north (railroad-east) of Altoona down to Summerhill was about 40 miles.
That’s east-slope to west-slope of Allegheny Mountain.
And up on the mountain was 10 degrees colder than Altoona — at least on the previous day (Wednesday). Altoona seemed as cold as the mountain on Thursday.
This chase was the first since Tunnel Inn in Gallitzin (“guh-LIT-zin;” as in “get”) closed.
So I stayed at Station-Inn in Cresson (“KRESS-in”) on the west slope.
My brother stayed at a motel down near Altoona.
Station-Inn is a bed-and-breakfast for railfans like me.
Tunnel Inn was too, but Station-Inn is crude compared to Tunnel Inn, yet has a better breakfast.
Breakfast at Tunnel Inn was muffins and coffee made by the proprietor.
Station-Inn is a home-cooked breakfast from a kitchen. Thursday morning was pancakes, and Friday — my drive-back day — was sausage-gravy and eggs on Texas-toast.
Tunnel Inn closed because the proprietor’s children have moved nearby, and the proprietor wants to adequately deal with his grandchildren.
So Tunnel Inn becomes a residence; it was Gallitzin’s town-hall and library before the proprietor remodeled it. —That’s when Gallitzin built new town offices.
That town hall was built in 1905 by the railroad, and sits right next to tunnels the railroad had through the mountaintop.
But there was (is) a third tunnel on the other side of town. Most eastbounds use it; so not everything passed Tunnel Inn.
Station-Inn has all tracks out front. You see everything, eastbound or westbound.
I also have to worry about Station-Inn, whose proprietor is probably my age.
Running a business is a bit much for someone 70 years old.
I know he enjoys what he’s doing, but one becomes too old.
The proprietor was eating breakfast with us, and allowed how he was considering selling; mainly because of his age.
Station-Inn is very well promoted. It has a webcam, and an Internet railroad radio-feed. It caters to railfans. A typical railfan is more interested in viewing trains than enjoying gigantic TVs and air-conditioning.
The proprietor advises people use Holiday-Inn if they want TV and air-conditioning.
My brother arrived a day earlier than me, so chased trains Wednesday while I was driving down.
He had left Tuesday morning, but got tied up in traffic in north-Jersey (not a Christie bit), and also got himself on the Turnpike instead of Interstate-80.
So he only got as far west as Sunbury, PA; had to cancel his Altoona motel reservation, and motel near Sunbury.
While driving up The Hill Thursday to meet me, he found himself paralleling Norfolk Southern’s RoadRailer.
RoadRailer is highway-trailers on rail-wheel bogies.
He tried to beat it to Gallitzin, but almost failed. The picture below is what he got.


RoadRailer west. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

Our first stop was Main St. bridge over Track One in Gallitzin.
The arguing began. My brother was driving.
“Watcha goin’ that way for? We go this way and we gotta zag all the way down to that junction on 53 with the road up into Gallitzin.”
“This way is quicker!”
“No it’s not. Portage St. is more direct. Use the expressway and Portage St.
“This way is quicker!”
I don’t think my brother knew Portage St., but we beat the train we were chasing, and my brother got the better picture.


At Main St. bridge in Gallitzin. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

The Main-St. bridge in Gallitzin is not a Faudi-location.

What I was trying to repeat. (Photo by Bill Price.)

I was trying to reprise a picture from long ago in my All-Pennsy color calendar.
Same view, but a previous bridge.
And so began our ramming all over the area, punctuated by the freezing cold.
By now Phil had called, so our waits for trains weren’t for nothing.
15-20 minutes outside was endurable if we knew a train was coming.
All over Allegheny Crossing we charged, and it was unbearably cold.
Outside on the frozen tundra we’d stand, shoot, and then off we went in pursuit of another location.
Our travels were a chance to get warm.
Phil would call, and off-we’d-go per his advice.
We’d stand on overpasses for minutes on end, freezing; but we knew a train was coming.
Phil told us a westbound was climbing The Hill, so we stayed in Gallitzin, but went to the tunnel-mouth (Two and Three) at Jackson St. bridge.
But an eastbound coal-extra came up Two, and blocked our view of that westbound.


Here comes the coal-extra. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

My picture below is the pushers on the end of the coal-extra.
The westbound had already cleared.


Pushers on the end of the coal-extra. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

From there we drove all over, zagging this-way-and-that.
In Altoona we went trackside by the 7th St. overpass, and I snagged the picture below.
Phil had told us it was coming; and my picture is a pot-shot.


Coal-extra on the drag-tracks in Altoona. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

(This may be the same coal-extra that blocked our view in Gallitzin.)
I had my telephoto on, and shot the locomotive as it approached.
Then as it curved away, I shot another: my pot-shot.
I have learned to “just shut up and shoot!”
I have lots of pot-shots that are my best.
We then drove up to McFarland’s Curve north (railroad-east) of Altoona. The curve is framed by a gorgeous old Pennsylvania Railroad six-target signal-bridge.
The railroad was originally Pennsylvania Railroad; now it’s Norfolk Southern.
We got a train charging under that signal-bridge, which once covered four tracks, although now it’s only three.


Under the six targets at McFarland’s. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

Of those three the mainlines are to the right: Tracks One and Two.
The third track, to the left, is a siding controlled by signals.
I think from there we drove 40 railroad miles down to Summerhill on the west slope, where my brother snagged the lede picture.
At some time we also perused the Route 53 bridge over the west slope north of Cresson.
When we arrived it started snowing heavily, but I snagged the below picture.


Westbound in the snow from the Route 53 overpass. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

At this point the railroad is five tracks. The train is on Four, which is next to Three.
Then comes Two and One and Main-Eight. Main-Eight is a storage-track for trains awaiting over The Hill; usually coal-trains.
My brother is always blown away that the railroad is five tracks at this point. He’s never seen that anywhere else.
Four mainline tracks is extreme, but even then Allegheny Crossing is a bottleneck. —There’s only three tracks over the mountain.
The snow let up after this, but the good picture is in the snow.
I think Summerhill was our final stop, although my brother tried an access-road to the eastern tunnel-mouths.
That access-road merges onto the abandoned right-of-way of New Portage Railroad, incorporated into Pennsy as its Muleshoe, an alternative over the mountain to Horseshoe Curve, which is part of Allegheny Crossing.
The Muleshoe was abandoned by Conrail, a successor to Pennsy and Penn-Central. Later an expressway was built over the mountain, and it cut the Muleshoe right-of-way.
But a railroad overpass over the Muleshoe right-of-way still exists, and we drove under it.
By then our light was fading, but my brother took pictures anyway of a freight-train climbing the mountain westbound, plus another that crossed the overpass eastbound.
But there wasn’t enough light for me, or I didn’t think it was worth it.
By then it was 5 o’clock, and we had been out all day.
FREEZING!
But at least I now knew how to get to those tunnel-mouths — without a long trek in the woods.
And I had come away with at least six pictures set aside for future calendars.
And they’re snow-pictures; I had run out of snow-pictures.
The January/February/December and perhaps November entries should be snow-pictures.

• “Jack Hughes” is a brother, the fifth of my parents’ seven children. Only four are left. A brother born in 1949 died of Leukemia in 1953. A brother born in 1954, who had Down Syndrome, died in 1968. My sister born in 1945 died December, 2011. Jack was born May 16th, 1957, the first of the final wave. Two others from this wave are still alive: a brother born in 1958, and a sister born in 1961. That brother lives in northern Delaware, the sister in Lynchburg, Virginia with her husband Paul Broda. —I am first-born, 1944, and all that remains of the first wave. Those from the middle wave are gone. (Jack lives near Boston.)
• “Station-Inn” is the old Callan House in Cresson, once a trackside hotel. It was built in 1866. People would come from Pittsburgh in the summer and stay at Callan House.