My calendar for July 2020

Three EMDs charge west. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The July 2020 entry of MY calendar is three Norfolk Southern units charging west.
It may be at Gray interlocking.
If it is, the train is obscuring a new signal-bridge, and the tracks would be straight through the interlocking.
Which means the train may already be beyond the interlocking. Also missing is Track Three, which merges back into the Main at Gray.
But the train may be on Three, although I doubt it, because it was boomin’-and-zoomin’.
Track Three, one of Pennsy’s four-track Main, is now a signal-controlled siding.
I was by myself = no Jack (my brother).
The train may also be westbound on One beyond Tyrone’s station.
It’s morning light, and Track One is westbound in the morning to allow Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian to use Track Two.
Two is adjacent to station-platforms. If Amtrak were on One, passengers would hafta cross Two = unsafe.
One is normally eastbound, and Two westbound, but not until Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian goes through.
The lashup is all EMD (ElectroMotive Division), previously General Motors, but now Progress Rail. (GM sold EMD when it went bankrupt.)
The two lead engines look like new SD70-ACe’s.
That third unit is an old SD40-2.
“We need another unit,” the engineer probably told his Trainmaster.
“All I got is 3577,” the Trainmaster said.
“We’ll take it!”
The train was mixed, and probably heavy. Harrisburg to Altoona is all uphill, although not arduous.
Probably Run-Five or Six; Allegheny Mountain would be Run-Eight (full fuel delivery).
That ductwork behind the cab says SD40-2. It’s not the exaggerated “laundry-chute” that came later.
The lead engines don’t have the “laundry chute.”