My calendar for October 2020

04T (Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian,) descends the west leg of the Mighty Curve (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—“Any chance you can get two aging geezers up to the viewing area before 04T comes down the mountain? We heard it calling MO.”
(04T is Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian).
I had walked into the roadside Horseshoe-Curve museum complete with camera, tripod, and lens-bag.
The Curve itself is up on the mountain-sides.
The viewing-area is right in the apex, but you have to get up to it. There is a 194-step staircase, or the funicular, sort of a glorified elevator except it’s outside.
Cables pull tiny imitation railroad coaches up and down the funicular. There are two cars, one up and one down.
It’s a railway; the cars run on track.
There is no way my brother and I could beat 04T climbing 194 steps.
Two guys were in the museum funicular-area sharing coffee; one to operate the funicular.
“Sure,” they said, even though it wasn’t time. The funicular operates every half hour (although right now it’s not operating due to COVID-19).
I motioned my brother into the museum, and up we went.
Horseshoe Curve is a triumph of 1840s engineering.
It got continuous railroad over Allegheny Mountain without impossible grading. That is, a train could operate up and over the mountain without stopping — although it might need helper engines.
“How come the railroad didn’t just trestle this valley to avoid a horseshoe?” A tourist asked.
“Because that woulda been too steep,” I shouted.
“Look at this railroad,” my brother said; “and the west leg ends higher than where the east leg enters. It’s a 1.75% grade; that’s 1.75 feet up for every 100 feet forward = not very steep, but not as in limiting as 3 or 4% or more. Interstates are limited to 7%.”
Allegheny Mountain used to be the barrier to trade between the east coast and midwest.
The Alleghenies don’t go all the way up into New York State, so New York could build the Erie Canal, which opened up trade to the Midwest, and made New York City the premier east coast port.
Capitalists and investors in Philadelphia and Baltimore worried New York City would forge ahead.
Both Baltimore and Philadelphia had the Allegheny barrier to cross.
Baltimore’s solution was the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad; since railroading technology seemed to be moving ahead of canalling technology.
The state of Pennsylvania built a cross-state combination canal/railroad system, which linked various existing railroads with new canal.
Allegheny Mountain had to be portaged — it couldn’t be canaled.
And grading at that time was so rudimentary, the portage railroad had to have inclined planes.
Cross-state operation was bog-slow and cumbersome = transferring canal-packets to railroad flatcars for operation over the portage railroad, then winching the loaded packets/flatcars over the mountain.
Operation was so slow Philadelphia capitalists came together to found the Pennsylvania Railroad = through continuous railroad across Pennsylvania.
John Edgar Thomson was brought in to engineer the building of Pennsy.
Thomson had built railroads locally, but was in Georgia at the time.
Wisdom suggested putting the railroad up on mountain-sides, to ease the grade over Allegheny Mountain.
Thomson engaged his prior railroad experience, which was to build down in valleys where traffic was. Then take on Allegheny Mountain suddenly.
But not too suddenly.
No switchbacks, nor grades so steep they’d limit train weight. You might need an additional engine to get a train over the mountain, but you weren’t breaking a train into sections — or using switchbacks.
I been wanting to take this picture for years.
My first visit to the Mighty Curve was Labor Day 1968. At that time Horseshoe Curve wasn’t the historical site it is now = no museum, no visitors center, and no funicular.
There was a tiny store staffed by railfans at the base of steps since replaced.
Finding Horseshoe Curve was near impossible; the Mighty Curve is nothing like what’s pictured in photographs, plus no direction-signs.
My wife and I were wandering around west of Altoona, in the wilderness, and suddenly “there it is! We’re right smack in the middle of it! It's up there on the mountain-sides.”
Noisy argument has arisen within my family. A younger brother insists he and my other siblings visited the Mighty Curve before I did.
I’m not so sure about that, since I have memory my parents decided to visit after I did, and I told them entry was free.
I really don't care, but I’ve visited the Curve hundreds of times. Although only a few times at first, then never at all for perhaps 20 years.
And before the historical site, you could get trackside out past the viewing area. Now the viewing area is fenced.
I never developed interest in revisiting the Curve until shortly after my stroke in late 1993. Revisiting would counter my stroke.
My first revisit may not have been until 1996. I got rained out at least once, but then my brother and I decided to ride our motorcycles there. Like I needed a help-mate.
Riding motorcycle after a stroke took nerve, and I’m not loaded with overconfidence. I’m easy pickings for CONSERVATIVES.
I been to the Curve many times since. It’s immensely attractive, right in the apex. Trains are in your face.
And getting a train over Allegheny Mountain requires maximum fuel usage. “Throttle-to-the-roof” in steam parlance, or “Run-Eight” in diesel parlance. Diesel-engines aren’t throttled; in a diesel locomotive “Run-Eight” is maximum fuel delivery.
The other problem is getting down, since west-to-east on the Mighty Curve is down Allegheny mountain. A train has to not run away down the mountain.
Diesel-electric locomotives can have regenerative braking (“Dynamic braking”), wherein their electric traction motors get turned into generators, which add braking.
Downhill is safer as a result. Individual freightcar brakes no longer burn up — they aren’t applied as hard.
It used to be anything descending the mountain was wreathed in brake-smoke, and occasionally trains run away — 60-70 mph through Altoony destroying buildings.
The grade can also stall an uphill train. “Too many cars,” a crewman from a stalled train once told me.
The Curve itself is also an impediment. The wheels aren’t differentiated between the rails. Which leads to metal-to-metal sliding; not much, but that explains all the squealing you hear.
As soon as we got to the viewing area my brother and I set up. It wouldn’t be long; 04T was calling out “MG,” halfway down the mountain.
There it was, glittering stainless behind marginal fall-foliage.
I’d already spent many minutes trying to set up a fantastic photograph.
My brother just shot: no fevered input or poking around.
Just shaddup and shoot! Sometimes that’s what it takes.
If he gets too much, I can always crop, which I probably did — I forget.
All six coaches, plus the P42 up front = the entire train on the west leg of the Mighty Curve.
And unlike the old days, the Pennsylvanian won’t stop mid-curve for the train crew to announce “Horseshoe-Curve;” Pennsy’s triumph of 1840s engineering.

• I had a stroke October 26th, 1993 from an undiagnosed heart-defect since repaired. I pretty much recovered. Just tiny detriments; I can pass for never having had a stroke. It slightly compromised my speech. (Difficulty finding and putting words together.)
• RE: “Throttle-to-the-roof” and “Run-Eight…….”—The throttle on a steam-locomotive, which controlled steam usage, was hinged to the roof of the locomotive cab. As the engineer pulled back on the lever to open the throttle, it angled toward the roof. Wide-open throttle was “Throttle-to-the-roof.” A diesel locomotive has eight fuel input positions. (Diesel motors aren’t throttled.) “Run-Eight” is last = maximum fuel input.
• “MO” and “MG” are telegraph call-letters of old railroad towers once at those locations. “MO” Tower was railroad-east of Cresson, and is long-gone. “MG” Tower (though abandoned) still exists, and is “mid-grade” on The Hill. Both locations are now just crossovers controlled from Pittsburgh.