Monthly Train-Calendar Report for October 2017

Shaddup and shoot! (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—Proof of “shaddup-and-shoot!”
The October 2017 entry in my own calendar is loaded Norfolk Southern coal-train Y90 descending Track One atop the mountain where “The Slide” merges back to the original Pennsy main.
The Slide is steeper than the original Pennsy main: 2.28% versus 1.75-1.8 %. As first built it was 2.36% — enlarging New Portage tunnel for doublestacks slightly reduced the grade.
The Slide was a ramp to New Portage tunnel, part of a railroad the state built to circumvent its original inclined-plane portage railroad over Allegheny Mountain.
PA gave up on its New Portage Railroad almost as soon as it was built. That railroad was still part of the state’s Public Works System, combined canal and railroad.
It was so slow and cumbersome compared to Pennsy it couldn’t compete. So PA abandoned it.
Pennsy was interested. New Portage Railroad would give them an already-completed tunnel under the summit = a second tunnel.
Plus, an additional railroad grade up the east slope of the mountain. (Pennsy didn’t railroad it at first, but eventually did. That grade was abandoned a few years ago, and expressway over the mountain built.)
But that tunnel was slightly higher than Pennsy’s original tunnel. VIOLA; a ramp up to that tunnel from the original Pennsy grade. It’s called “The Slide.”
It’s not too steep, since even 2.36% is not 2.5%, which is when things begin getting difficult. Plus it’s currently only operated eastbound, downhill not up.
Y90 is a second section of 590. My brother was taking pictures of Y90 coming down The Slide. Train passed, he turned around and snapped this picture — just for the heck of it = a “shaddup-and-shoot.”
So I’m cycling through our hundreds of fall-foliage possibles, and happen across this picture. Holy mackerel! There it is = the October foliage picture for my calendar.
—You should know a tiny bit of cheating is in this calendar picture. My Photoshop-Elements can increase color saturation. But ya can’t overdo it.
I never used it before, but with this picture I tried it. Not much; just enough to overcome the flatness of the original image.
—You should also know the train is going away. The four locomotives are two rear helper-sets to hold back the heavy train as it descends the east slope. During 12 miles into Altoona the train will descend 1,016 feet. The helpers are adding dynamic-braking.




Fond memories. (Photo by Fred Kern.)

—About 1949-1950, when I was five or six, my father, knowing I was a railfan, took my sister and I on a short train trip into Philadelphia.
It was on a passenger-train very much like the one pictured. Five or six Pennsy coaches pulled by an E-6s Atlantic (4-4-2), Haddonfield (NJ) to Broad Street Station in Philadelphia.
We lived in a south Jersey suburb next to Haddonfield.
The October 2017 entry in my All-Pennsy color calendar is E-6s #1600 on the final PRR run to Norristown (PA) in 1953. Norristown is just west of Philadelphia.
We were on Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL), at least the old Pennsy line from Camden, NJ to Atlantic City. It went through Haddonfield.
PRSL was still using steam-locomotives. Dieselization had begun, but in the early ‘50s PRSL still ran mainly steam.
PRSL was a 1933 amalgamation of Pennsy and Reading railroads in south Jersey because they had too much competing track. Even side-by-side through the Pineys in many places.
PRSL had a few of its own engines, but mainly it used engines of Pennsy or Reading. Same with passenger-cars.
For me this ride was a thrill. West out of Haddonfield, then up the connector Pennsy built about the turn-of-the-century to get trains to NJ without ferries.
The connector crossed the wide Delaware river on Delair Bridge built 1895-’96. It connected to Pennsy’s main to New York City at Frankford Junction in North Philadelphia.
Looking out our windows, all we could see below was river then Pennsy’s yards. No bridgework.
Smoking steam-engines filled the yards. Pennsy still had plenty of steamers.
Our ride ended at Broad Street Station, still in use at that time. It was abandoned in 1952.
The station, which was not through, was a vestige of Pennsy’s original intent to save Philadelphia as a port. New York City become the premier east-coast port, so Pennsy merged up there too.
With Broad Street abandoned, 30th Street Station became PRR’s main Philadelphia railroad-station, but it’s not downtown.
From Philadelphia we took a short rapid-transit ride to Camden, where my paternal grandparents probably picked us up.
The E-6s was large for an Atlantic. The first Atlantics were a trailing-truck added to a 4-4-0 to support a larger firebox and boiler.
They were teakettles. Pennsy had ‘em too: their E-3s and later E-5s. Many railroads had ‘em, but they were teakettles — not modern like the E-6s.
The E-6s was developed about 1910 as a way to move passenger expresses from Washington DC to New York City. The railroad wasn’t electrified then.
The E-6s was a manifestation of Pennsy engineering, mainly Alfred W. Gibbs, to get the job done with as few drivers as possible: i.e. a big 4-4-2 instead of a 4-6-2 Pacific.
You couldn’t expect much from a 4-4-2. like climbing grades. E-6’s were flatlanders, later commuter power.
Many operated in south Jersey = terrain not challenging. Get toward 10 passenger-cars and ya needed a K-4s Pacific.
I saw many E-6 Atlantics, and that train-trip with my father is goin’ to my grave — along with the Grand Tetons at dawn, Don “Big Daddy” Garlits, and the Packard-Merlin P-51 Mustang.




King Coal in PA. (Photo by Willie Brown.)

—The October 2017 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is a Norfolk Southern coal-train near East View, PA.
East View is in southwestern PA, not too far from huge Bailey Mine. It may be Bailey Mine coal.
The photographer, Willie Brown, has been in this calendar before. Usually a picture of a Norfolk Southern coal-feeder to the main. He’s from Powhatan Point, OH, on the Ohio river, and there are coal-mines near.
He’s an engineer, and usually his pictures have been Norfolk Southern coal trains on a line from a mine. Usually his pictures were in Winter = snow.
It’s nice to see something other than his feeder trains. The engines all appear to be GE road power. 7667 is an ES44DC, 4,400 horsepower.
Coal comes in different types: powder for generating electricity, “metallurgical” that has contaminants that enhance steel-making, plus other types for industrial use.
Hardest is Anthracite. mainly from northeastern PA, It’s very rocky, and shatters like glass. It burned clean in steam-locomotives, and was used for residential heating. It burned clean, but you still had to shovel it and shovel out ash. Partly because of that, residential heating moved to fuel-oil, and now it’s natural gas or propane.
“Bituminous” coal is softer, and often contains contaminates like dirt or sand that cause soot.
Coal from Powder River Basin in Wyoming has lower heat-content, but not bad. It’s relatively free of impurities, particularly sulfur, so doesn’t generate as much soot or sulfur dioxide — which becomes sulfuric-acid in your nose.
Norfolk Southern moves all sorts of coal. Part of NS was the old Norfolk & Western in WV and KY, which shipped rivers of coal from Pocahontas coal-region.
Other railroads shipped coal, but they weren’t Norfolk & Western. One was Chesapeake & Ohio, now part of CSX.
Now Norfolk Southern includes the old Pennsy, which succeeded partly because of its coal business in PA.
Railroads are scrambling because the coal-business, a lynchpin, is dwindling. Natural gas is cheaper, and burns cleaner. Gumint is making coal-burning difficult.
Near Altoona is old Sonman coal mine; it was along Pennsy’s original main east of Portage. That original main was bypassed in 1898, and Sonman is no longer a mine.
But it’s trackside, so became a loadout for a number of mines that truck in coal.
That loadout loads long unit coal-extras for the railroad to ship. Sonman loads metallurgical coal, mostly for export.




Ready for duty. (From M.D. McCarter photo collection©.)

—The October 2017 entry of my Audio-Visual Designs black-and-white All-Pennsy Calendar is Pennsy H-10 Consolidation (2-8-0) #9964, probably readying for another peddler assignment near Chicago.
#9964 was built as an H-8sc, later updated to H-10. H-8s, H-9s, and H-10s were all pretty much the same boiler and firebox, but different cylinders, and differing tenders.
But #9964 has the tender of an L-1 Mikado (2-8-2).
Peddler-freights are no more, replaced by trucking. Trucking is much more flexible, as long as gumint builds the highways.
As railroading began towns did all they could to get railroad-service. Railroad magnates took advantage of this. Railroads got built difficult to operate.
New York, Ontario & Western, abandoned in 1957, is a prime example. Five mountains to cross, to hit every podunk investor that funded it.
Railroad-service required a railroad siding located along or near a railroad.
Railroads couldn’t go anywhere and everywhere. Hill-climbing had to be easy, which pretty much limited railroads to river courses.
Highway-trucks can do steep grades; railroads can’t.
Railroad-cars can carry quite a bit more, but can’t be as easily parked.
Peddler-freight was about done when I was born.
I remember a peddler serving Haddonfield, NJ, the town near where I lived growing up. This was about 1948. The peddler shoved cars into sidings, plus a coal hopper into a residential coal supplier.
Its locomotive was also a 2-8-0 Consol. The railroad was Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (PRSL), and went through Haddonfield to Atlantic City.
Residential coal-heat was also about done. Our house, built in 1943, had oil heat. It didn’t have a coal-chute.
My elementary school did, but converted to oil. (One time the school janitor showed us those boilers.‘Lebenty-times-seven! Fire and brimstone! “This is where we toss little boys that disobey the teacher.”
A house behind ours had a coal-chute. Every couple weeks a coal truck delivered.
My brother and I see a few local-freights in Altoona. There are still a few lineside industries using rail-service.
But mainly the local-freights are delivering cars to shortlines that were once Pennsy branches = more lineside customers.
Gumint often buys an old branch, then brings in or establishes an operator to continue rail-service. To maintain its tax-base = “jobs-jobs-jobs!”
(Visible at right is an old wooden Pennsy caboose — Pennsy called ‘em “cabin-cars.” And behind the turntable looks like a postwar Packard.)