My calendar for April 2020

Local C42 returns to Rose Yard. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

(This blog was done with two computers = my old computer, plus the one that replaces it. My new computer is incompatible with Photoshop-Elements 10, so the photo was resized with my old computer. But the blog itself is via my new computer.)

—C42 is the train-number. C42 is a local; not a road-freight. It goes out and switches cars into and out of factory sidings along the railroad.
C42 also takes cars to Nittany & Bald Eagle Railroad out of Tyrone. Nittany & Bald Eagle is the Pennsylvania Railroad’s old Bald Eagle branch. Nittany & Bald Eagle is the shortline that operates it.
It’s built-to-the-hilt, since Norfolk Southern has trackage-rights. Occasionally NS operates heavy unit coal-trains up toward Williamsport.
N&BE doesn’t go to Williamsport. It only goes to Lock Haven, where it connects to NS’s Erie line. To Williamsport is Norfolk Southern.
5631 is a GP38-2, and the  train has two units. That second unit is probably also a GP38-2, although we’ve seen GP40-2s.
Locals are why towns were crazy to get railroading in the 19th century. Expand your market beyond local.
And C42 is what’s left after trucking made railroading no longer what it was. Years ago a lot more locals were plying the rails.
Probably my first contact with railroading was a local that came out to Haddonfield (NJ) from Camden on Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines. A tiny coal-yard was off the tracks delivering anthracite-coal for heating.
A local pulled by a Pennsy Consolidation (2-8-0) came out to shove a loaded hopper-car up the dealer’s trestle. Anthracite would then be dumped out of the hopper-car into coal-trucks below.
By then home-owners were switching to fuel-oil. My family had an oil-burner; it heated water to circulate through radiators.
By now most homes heat with natural-gas, or propane away from a gas-company.
A house behind my childhood home heated with anthracite, and my elementary-school, built in 1926, had an unused coal-chute. (The school had converted to fuel-oil.)
The home of my paternal grandparents in Camden also had an unused coal-chute.
Trucking became much more flexible than railroading after improved roads became common. Factories no longer had to be trackside. And shipping was no longer at the beck-and-call of the railroad — it could be quicker. And with trucking the trucking-companies don’t own and operate the rights-of-way.
C42 is returning to Rose Yard north of Altoona after switching lineside customers railroad-east of Altoona.
Altoona was Pennsy’s locus of operation. It’s just east of Allegheny Mountain, long-ago a barrier to east-west trade.
Pennsy became immensely successful, and Altoona had yards galore. Pennsy moved tons of freight, much of which was coal mined in PA.
Altoona was also Pennsy’s shop-town, where they also built locomotives. It’s no longer what it was. Lots of empty land where railroad-yards were.
Helper locomotives still get added to get trains over the mountain. And there still are yard-tracks to hold trains for later.
But C42 isn’t a road-freight. Other locals are left, and we see some. Switching cars on factory sidings is slow and cumbersome. A gate may be locked, or autos parked on the tracks.
The advantage is a freightcar can hold a lot more than a truck. Plus each truck needs a driver.
A single truck can’t carry 14-15,000+ tons — 25-50 tons max. Many coal-gondolas are 120 tons.
Freightcars can be entrained together, 100 cars or more. That’s one or two crewmen delivering 14-15,000+ tons.

• The GP38-2 is an unturbocharged version of the EMD GO40-2 = easier to maintain. Anything “-2” has recent modular electronics.
• Coal comes in varying grades. Anthracite, commonly mined in northeast PA, is very hard, and doesn’t have the heat-content of the softer grades. But it burns much cleaner (no soot), so homes heated with it. Railroads also used it, but had to have locomotive fireboxes much wider than standard. Railroads in northeast PA, which used anthracite, were the “anthracite lines.” (Reading, Lehigh Valley, Jersey Central, etc.) —It was called a “Wootten" firebox.