14G

14G through J-town. (Photo by Scott Williams.)

—The August 2019 entry in my Norfolk Southern Employees’ Photography-Contest calendar is train 14G heading eastbound through Johnstown, PA next to the Conemaugh river.
I hafta blog this because it looks like something I would photograph.
Visible is the Johnstown Inclined-Plane, which was built partly to help Johnstown residents escape flooding. This was after the catastrophic Johnstown Flood of 1889, when a dam broke upriver.
Damage was tremendous, and over 2,200 lives were lost.
Water equal to the flow of the Mississippi washed away Johnstown. The Conemaugh can flood, and the valley Johnstown is in is narrow.
Other floods occurred since, making the inclined-plane worth doing. Supposedly 17 inclined-planes once served Johnstown. They carried both freight and passengers.
The Johnstown Inclined-Plane ascends 896.5 feet up Yoder Hill to the borough of Westmont. Track-gauge is eight feet, a grade of 70.9%; it climbs 502.2 feet. The cars are big enough to carry 65 people, or even an auto.
The incline was owned and operated by Bethlehem Steel (successor to Cambria Iron Works), but transferred to public ownership in 1935. The incline was designated a Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1994.
Yrs Trly has never been to Johnstown; not yet anyway. The mainline of the Pennsylvania Railroad passed through Johnstown on its way to Pittsburgh. The railroad is now Norfolk Southern.
Railroaders call it “J-town;” probably others too. I have an old railroad video where the dispatcher calls it “J-town” on railroad radio.
A freight-train went into emergency in “J-town.” So the train we were on had to slow and “make noise” passing the crippled train.
I’ve seen 14G many times, but always in the Altoona area. Sometimes it runs in two sections. My brother wondered what “04G” was.
“Sure it wasn’t ‘M4G’?” I asked. “That’s a second section of 14G.” (Second sections are designated by the letter “M.”)
This photo looks like something I’d take myself. Scenery dominates; the train is secondary. That incline, plus the river in a narrow concrete culvert, everything closed in by mountains, all bespeak PA.
Johnstown also had heavy industry. Its steel plant is partly visible. I hope the photographer saw all this = let the scenery dominate.
My brother photographs trains in-yer-face. Which is fine for my calendar: a classic three-quarter view of an on-charging train.
I, on the other hand, look for scenery. Background and foreground dominate, but it needs a train. Sky matters, as do hillsides and foliage.
“I need that station in my picture,” or “That signal-bridge is my frame. Every photograph needs a frame.”
Maybe Williams’ picture is a potshot, but it looks composed. He tried various vantage-points, then settled on this.
He lives in Atlanta, but is native to the old Pennsy main across PA.
This photo wreaks of PA and Pennsy.

• A 70.9% grade is 70.9 feet up for every 100 feet forward. Only two cars, all connected by cable. One counterweights the other.
• RE: “into emergency....” —All the individual car-brakes engaged, stopping the train. This was due to a broken air-line. Each car is “air-braked;” and the brakes set if the air-pressure goes away.
• RE: “my calendar......” —Every year I do a Shutterfly calendar of train-photos my brother and I took. I send them as Christmas presents.