My calendar for October 2019

“The trash-train approaches old Slope interlocking.” (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—“Make sure you get that tree!” I shouted to my brother.
He was already in Altoona. He usually arrives a day before me. I hadn’t left home yet, and he was set up on the 24th Street overpass in Altoona over old “Slope” interlocking.
He’d been up-and-down the railroad, maybe 50-60 miles, in search of Fall color. It was our annual late-October trip in search of an October fall-foliage picture for my calendar.
He called me from the 24th Street overpass: “This is the only place that has Fall color. Everything else is done! One tree is almost red.”
“Make sure you get that tree!” I shrieked.
The October 2019 entry of MY calendar is 63Z, the westbound trash extra on Track Three.
The Trash-Train stinks. It’s loaded with trash and garbage in containers to be landfilled out west.
The train has a helper-set leading. That’s two SD40Es added to help climb Allegheny Mountain. The grade over that mountain begins at Slope. I think there used to be a tower.
Slope is also the eastbound Altoona yard-entrance. It used to be a four-track main (the “Broad Way”); you can see where the fourth track was.
In Altoona the main separates into “express” and “drag” tracks. A westbound might come out of a drag-track, then cross over to Three (leftmost) from One. You can see the beginning of that crossover off One.
“Too dark!” my brother complains.
Well yeah, I probably shoulda lightened it more with my Photoshop.
But it’s also a cloudy day.
Fall-foliage last year fell flat. And there have been extraordinaries (see below).
Fall-foliage in Altoona is fleeting. It may be only a day-or-two. I look at area webcams, but driving there takes me five hours. My brother is nine hours — Boston.
Plus we hafta reserve accommodations in advance, usually a week or two for me, plus back then my brother was working. Recently he retired.
We can’t just drop everything. Ya gotta live in Altoona to get a guaranteed extraordinary Fall-foliage photograph.

This is just a shaddup-and-shoot = a potshot. It’s going away; you’re seeing the rear of two helper-sets on a coal-extra that just descended The Slide
atop Allegheny Mountain. EXTRAORDINARY!
(Photo by Jack Hughes.)

• “The Slide” is the ramp the Pennsylvania Railroad built up from its mainline to get to New Portage tunnel. It’s currently 2.28%; used to be 2.36% —Pennsy’s main is around 1.75-1.8%. “New Portage tunnel” was part of PA’s Public Works System, a newer railroad built to get around the original inclined-plane portage railroad. “Public Works” is early 19th century, meant to compete with NY’s Erie Canal. Public Works eventually failed, and was turned over to Pennsy, who could use a second tunnel atop Allegheny Mountain.