Trains still a-rollin’

There's another!

—Anyone following this blog knows Yrs Trly has the Cresson webcam on while in my house.
I’m a railfan and the Cresson webcam looks out on the old Pennsylvania Railroad’s mainline through Cresson PA.
The railroad is no longer Pennsy. It’s now Norfolk Southern. It’s a main trade-route to-and-from the east-coast megalopolis.
Cresson is west of Altoona, the other side of Allegheny Mountain. Altoona is east; Cresson is west. Cresson is just a small town. It’s not the metropolis Altoona is.
But Cresson has a bed-and-breakfast for railfans: “Station-Inn.”
Pennsy’s old mainline still sees a lotta trains. So it attracts railfans — two of whom are my brother and I.
We’re currently experiencing a COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to traffic-deaths, and flu-deaths, it could be overblown. Of course it does flood hospital ICUs, and swamps our medical system.
Nevertheless, the deluge of trains through Cresson seems unaffected.
WHUPS! There goes another!
Trains my brother and I see every time we visit. Unit coal or crude-oil, unit auto or grain, the Slabber, the Trash-Train, and stackers galore.
And there goes another Trailer-on-Flatcar (TOFC).
There are dead times. Maintenance-of-Way fiddles switches, or fixes signaling. Otherwise wait 15-25 minutes and a train comes.
Railroading looks like forever. 138-pound welded rail. No more stick-rail in 33-foot lengths bolted together.
I’m told the welds are stronger than the rail.
The railroad out front is still on wooden ties. Many railroads are now using precast concrete ties.
And wheel-greasers are much more common. Less rail-wear.
Signaling is what’s trouble-prone. It’s controlled by circuits through the track, and miles of wiring. That’s all outside, where something like rain can close a circuit, indicating a train.
Switches get thrown electronically from distant dispatching.
And of course signaling has to work for heavy trains to move efficiently.
You don’t just start/stop a train. Doing so might take miles.
That webcam is background. I don’t pay much attention until I hear a train.
“That’s the Trash-Train,” I say. Westbound it’s loaded with east-coast trash and garbage in purple containers for landfilling out west.
I also know Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian when I hear it coming.
RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA! “Sounds like 07T,” I say.
That’s Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian near 6 p.m. (Eastbound is 04T, about 9:15 a.m.)
I haven’t seen the Pennsylvanian for a while.
Perhaps COVID-19 discontinued it. Everything else seems unaffected. I bet Station-Inn is closed too.
But trains keep a-rollin’ out front.
Our leaders worry about getting our economy running again. On the webcam it never stopped.

• Years ago Allegheny Mountain was the barrier to east-west trade across PA.
• 38 pounds per yard. Eons ago I saw 143 pounds per yard, but that was bolted rail, not welded. 138 pound rail is heavy; I’ve seen 100 pound rail, even 70 pound.
• 33-foot lengths so a 40-foot flatcar could carry it. Welded rail (also called “ribbon-rail”) is usually carried in rail-trains, pre-welded off-site into quarter-mile lengths.
• Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian is the only passenger-train left on this storied cross-state railroad. There used to be many.