My calendar for October 2018

65V at “the sewer-plant.” (Photo by Jack Hughes.)


—The October 2018 entry of MY calendar is at a location my brother-and-I call “the sewer-plant.” It’s off a highway-bridge to Ehrenfeld just north of South Fork.
At top-right is “the sewer-plant.” Visible is the tower for lime to treat sewage.
I shoot here off my tripod, and use that tower to level my camera. My brother shot hand-held, so what leveling I did, if needed, was by Photoshop on my computer.
The train is 65V, unit ethanol, westbound on Track Three. The ethanol gets blended with gasoline for automobiles, currently to 10%.
My brother has a printout with all the train-numbers. A train’s engineer radios the aspect as his train passes a signal: e.g. “65V on Three, 261, CLEAR!” That’s how we get the train-number. “261” is the milepost signal location from Philadelphia; “CLEAR” is the signal aspect, similar to a green light = the block of track ahead is unoccupied.
My brother’s printout had the contents of 65V. I guess it’s a regular train, but it runs “extra” = not scheduled. Coal and crude-oil also run extra, but also have regular train-numbers. 590 is loaded coal eastbound. Trash and slabbers also run extra. Last month was slab-train #61N. Double-stacks and mixed are regularly scheduled, not extra.
An “idler,” the covered hopper, is between the locomotives and tankcars. The locomotive crew is thereby protected if the train crashes. My brother and I have yet to see a crash, and hope we never do. Track can wash out, or rails break. The train can also derail, or break an axle.
We did view the results of a crash. Loaded auto-racks derailed destroying all the new Hondas inside. Helpers derailed the train through a yard-entrance switch.
Tankcars have immense momentum, so those remaining on track continue into the crash. Those off the track continue into the weeds. Cars pile up, and tankcars rupture and spill their contents. You hope they don’t ignite.
And freight-trains often carry toxins.
65V is downhill off Allegheny mountain. The West Slope isn’t that steep, but dynamic braking is probably engaged.
My first guess was 65V was an empty crude-oil train back to the Bakken oil-fields in ND. Crude-oil unit trains look similar: solid tankcars with an idler at each end.
65V may have needed a pusher-set, two SD40Es, 3,000 horsepower each. Pushers help a train up the mountain, then help hold it back going down with dynamic-braking.
No helpers are up front; no 6300s. Anything 6300 is an SD40E. 6300s are also used as other than helpers. They’re a Norfolk Southern rebuild of an EMD SD-50.
If 65V is empty it probably didn’t need helpers.
Allegheny Mountain was the Pennsylvania Railroad’s greatest challenge. For the 1840s the grading was revolutionary, and even then helpers were needed.
But a complete train could go over the mountain — it didn’t hafta be sectioned. Plus operation was continuous — no switchbacks.
An earlier state-sponsored combined canal and railroad used railroad to portage the mountain. It had steep inclined planes. Flatcars loaded with canal-packets were winched up the planes, usually singly.
Trees are turning. Soon 65V will be plowing snow. Usually not much, but sometimes a thrower has to be brought in. I’ve seen one in Cresson. Switches freeze, and damaging icicles form in tunnels.
Pennsy’s original tunnel atop Allegheny Mountain had to be enlarged to clear double-stacks. I was also widened to clear two tracks: Two and Three. For years it was only Track Two.
New Portage tunnel, Track One across town, was also enlarged. Pennsy got New Portage Railroad, including its tunnel, when New Portage was abandoned by the state. New Portage gave Pennsy a second tunnel atop the mountain. But it was higher; Pennsy had to ramp up to it.
A third tunnel was bored next to Pennsy’s original tunnel. It opened in 1904, and was abandoned in 1995 after the original tunnel was enlarged.