Gotta blog this

Every railfan should be required by law to visit “The Mighty Curve.” (Photo by Travis VonGrey.)

—The May 2019 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is two trains rounding “The Mighty Curve” (Horseshoe Curve) west of Altoona, PA.
The stacker is westbound up The Hill on Three. And barely visible is unit coal eastbound down on One.
Horseshoe Curve is by far the BEST railfan pilgrimage-spot I’ve ever been to. It’s part of the original Pennsylvania Railroad line that opened up Philadelphia to trade with the midwest.
The line is now Norfolk Southern, and is a main railroad artery to and from this nation’s east coast. As such it sees lots of trains. Wait 25 minutes and you’ll see a train, often more frequently than that.
And Horseshoe Curve is part of the railroad’s assault on Allegheny Mountain. It made Philadelphia trade with the midwest possible. Allegheny Mountain was previously a barrier. NY state didn’t have that barrier; ergo the Erie Canal.
Getting up and down Allegheny Mountain taxed railroading to the limit. Engines are wide-open climbing, and downhill trains have to not run away.
“The Mighty Curve” has a viewing-area in its apex. Trains are in your face and assault-the-heavens climbing.
I’ve been to other railfan pilgrimage-spots, but Horseshoe Curve is best. Train after train after train.
Horseshoe Curve is now a tourist destination. Pennsy was very proud of it. They used to stop trains mid-Curve so passengers could look. It made breaching the Allegheny Mountains possible in the middle 1800s.
My first visit to “The Mighty Curve” was 1968. It was still four tracks back then (now it’s three), but it no longer was Pennsy. Plus it wasn’t a historical site at that time. It had the same viewing-area as now, but you had to climb a long stairway to get to it. —Now there’s a funicular up to the viewing-area. There was only a small shop at the base run by railfans.
We had a hard time finding it. I followed signs west out of Altoona, and suddenly “We’re smack in the middle of it!” The railroad was way above us pinned to the mountainsides on each side of a valley.
Lead locomotive #6318 is an SD40E, one of the Allegheny Mountain helper-pool. It and 6313, also an SD40E, are a two-unit helper-set added to trains that might have difficulty over Allegheny Mountain.
The east slope of Allegheny Mountain is 1.75-1.8 feet up for every 100 feet forward. Not bad, but difficult enough to frequently require helper locomotives.
That stacker came to Altoona behind two or three road-units. Leading is 7541, a General-Electric ES44DC, 4,400 horsepower. But to get up and down Allegheny Mountain a helper-set was added. The train looks fairly heavy, but probably not heavy enough to need a second helper-set pushing on the rear.
Helpers have always been needed. Lighter trailer-on-flatcar (TOFC), auto-racks, and empty trains can do Allegheny Mountain without helpers. Loaded coal trains or slabbers might need two or three helper-sets, four to six additional locomotives.
Pennsy merged with New York Central in 1968, but Penn-Central quickly went bankrupt. Conrail took over in 1976, a gumint attempt to save northeast railroading.
Conrail eventually privatized, but broke up and sold in 1999. Norfolk Southern got the old Pennsy line across PA, and CSX the old New York Central line across NY state.
Horseshoe Curve was the trick that got railroad over Allegheny Mountain without steep grades. The railroad was looped around a valley to ease the grade.
A helper-set can add additional braking = dynamic braking. The locomotive traction-motors get converted to generators. They help slow the train, which could run away downgrade.
Prior to dynamic braking a train had to depend on car-brakes alone. A train would descend Allegheny Mountain wreathed in brake-shoe smoke.
The SD40E is an EMD (ElectroMotive Division) SD50 rebuilt and downgraded by Juniata shops (June-eee-AT-uh) north of Altoona. The SD50 was 3,500 unreliable horsepower. An SD40E is only 3,000 horsepower.
The SD40E’s replaced SD40-2 helper-sets used by the railroad for years. They also converted the SD50 into a reliable locomotive.
My brother and I always wanted to photograph this location for my annual train-calendar. But to do so we’d have to -a) trespass on private property using an ATV-track up and down the mountain, or -b) climb a 100-200 foot embankment through scrub.
It used to be you could get to this location from the Curve viewing-area, but now it’s fenced. My brother considered vaulting the fence, but that would require an athlete, and my brother is 62 — I’m 75. The fence also is spiked.
The railroad itself is also private property, and railroad-police patrol it. Travis VonGrey is a Norfolk Southern Conductor, and may have used a Norfolk Southern road-railer pickup to get here.
He also may have hiked in from Glenwhite road, something I’d consider, since it looks like the distance I walk my dog. Even then the photograph isn’t that photogenic, and requires perfect conditions. The sun has to be out, and has to be afternoon light.
This photograph woulda been better under such conditions, and also coulda been more open. 6318 dominates.

• Railroaders refer to Allegheny Mountain as “The Hill.”
• Horseshoe Curve currently has three tracks — years ago it had four. Track One (inside) is eastbound, Three (outside) is westbound, and Two can be either way.
• A “funicular” is a cable-car that runs on rails. There are two cars on only one track, but it widens to two tracks in the middle so the cars can pass. There’s still a stairway, but you can ride the “funicular.”
• A “slabber” is a Norfolk Southern slab-train. Numerous open gondola cars are loaded with two steel slabs per car. The slabs were made at a steel-mill, then get transferred to a distant rolling mill to be rolled into thin sheetmetal for cars or appliances. “Slabbers” are very heavy, and the term may be original to my brother and I.