My calendar for May 2019

11J passes 26T in front of Altoona’s Amtrak station. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—The May 2019 entry of MY calendar begins pictures taken by my brother Jack.
It’s train 11J, all auto-racks, westbound on Track Two, passing 26T, an eastbound stacker on Track One.
We are at Altoona’s Amtrak station. Amtrak’s Pennsylvanians, both eastbound and westbound, have to use Two. Normally One is eastbound, but Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, has to be on Two so passengers don’t have to cross a track.
But it’s afternoon, so order is restored. One is back to eastbound, and Two is only westbound. The eastbound Pennsylvanian on Two is morning.
Amtrak’s Pennsylvanians are the only passenger trains left on this railroad. There used to be hundreds. And of course Amtrak is not Norfolk Southern. The railroad is Norfolk Southern, but Amtrak only has trackage-rights. The Pennsylvanians are subsidized by the state of PA.
There are two pedestrian overpasses near Altoona’s Amtrak station. The one my brother is on is covered. The second, visible, isn’t. Vagrants call the covered overpass “the elevator bridge;” the uncovered overpass only has stairs.
My brother likes either overpass, and always includes “Altoona Pipe & Steel” in his pictures. Altoona Pipe & Steel is the large warehouse visible top-right. It’s adjacent to the track, and has a siding.
The overpasses cross the railroad to Altoona Railroaders Memorial Museum. Altoona used to be Pennsylvania Railroad’s shop-town. It employed thousands.
Pennsylvania Railroad is no more. Its railroad still exists, but it’s now Norfolk Southern.
My brother probably took the picture alone while I was driving to Altoona. He shows up a day before me, and also takes copious notes. I’m more interested in “throttle-to-the-roof” and “assaulting the heavens,” but we got so we pretty much know what to expect.
11J and 26T are regularly scheduled; coal and crude-oil run extra, as do trash, steel slabs, ethanol, and maybe grain. Railroading has gravitated toward “unit trains” = trains that avoid yarding. Yarding is time-consuming.
11J is all car-carriers, and it could be said a stacker like 26T is also a unit-train. It’s just double-stacked well-cars, and it runs loading to unloading.
“Mixed freights” are loose cars assembled into a train in a yard. Quite a few “mixed freights” are regularly scheduled, and don’t seem to have the priority of a stacker.
The railroad also runs “Trailer-on-Flatcar” (TOFC), and some are top-priority. 21E is the vaunted “UPS-train;” guaranteed cross-country service for UPS trailers, and now FedEx too. 21E gets top priority, all bow = no delay.
My brother noisily insists 21J is another UPS-train, but my Altoona railfan friend says 21E is the UPS-train. Tempest-in-a-Teapot, as far as I’m concerned. Most TOFC trains get two locomotives; 21E gets three. But I’ve seen 21J with three locomotives.
My brother keeps a crib-sheet he got from the Internet, but my Altoona railfan friend was a railroader. I don’t care that much; what I want is action.
And on Norfolk Southern’s old Pennsy main across PA I get it. Wait 15-20 minutes and here comes another — sometimes more frequent than that.
West of Altoona is Allegheny Mountain, once the barrier to trade with our nation’s interior. To conquer it helper-locomotives get added, and all locomotives are “assaulting the heavens” climbing the mountain.
“Throttle-to-the-roof” is steam-locomotive parlance. Wide-open-throttle in a steamer is the hinged throttle-lever taken to the cab-roof. “Run Eight” is full fuel-delivery in a diesel locomotive.)