In pursuit of fall foliage
—“Call Jack,” I commanded into my new car’s Bluetooth.
I was in Tyrone PA, having completed most of my five-hour drive to the Altoona area.
Tyrone is where the old Pennsylvania Railroad, now Norfolk Southern, turns east toward Harrisburg. It goes through a notch.
Tyrone, north of Altoony, is about as far railroad-east that we go. My brother and I have photographed in Tyrone, so he might be there.
“Where are ya?” I asked.
“24th Street bridge,” he said; so I’d go to 24th St. bridge in Altoony.
No Jack when I got there. I took a few photos, and then called Jack.
“I went to Brickyard. I’m on the embankment. Here comes one!”
I drove to Brickyard Crossing, and there he was up on the embankment with another fan, both sitting in canvas chairs.
The embankment looked too challenging for this geezer, plus I wanted to take what is my lead photo.
That's my cannon (300 mm zoomer) on tripod, although probably only 180–200 mm.
Our usual drill is Jack drives out to Altoona Wednesday, nine hours for him. I drive down Thursday.
Except his nine hours became 10&1/2 hours due to an accident-caused traffic-jam on Interstate-80 in Jersey. Someone flipped their motorhome trailer blocking all three lanes. A crane had to be brought in.
Jack usually arrives in time to take a few photos, but this time it was dark when he got there.
DAY ONE (Thursday October 8th)
Cheat-shot (they’re probably helpers on the rear of 25v). (Photo by Jack Hughes.)
—His first stop was “Five-Tracks” where PA Route 53 crosses five tracks of the old Pennsy up the west side of Allegheny mountain.
“Of all the railfan hotspots I’ve visited I’ve never seen five tracks side-by-side on railroad right-of-way.”
The leftmost track pictured, Main-8, is only a storage siding, but tracks Four through One (right-to-left) are main-line railroad.
Tracks Four and Three (right-most) are on the original Pennsylvania Railroad right-of-way out of Pennsy’s original tunnel. Tracks Two and One are on the right-of-way of New Portage Railroad and aim at New Portage Tunnel.
Pennsy got New Portage when it was abandoned eons ago, since it gave them a second summit Tunnel.
But it was higher, so they had to ramp up to it. One can see the New Portage alignment is higher than the original Pennsy.
Tracks One and Two merge into only one track through New Portage Tunnel.
But the railroad’s crossing of Allegheny mountain is three tracks, not the usual two.
Who knows how long that will last with Precision-Scheduled-Railroading. It used to be four tracks. Conrail cut back to three. (Pennsy-Penn Central-Conrail-Norfolk Southern.)
What’s pictured is what my brother and I call a “cheat-shot.” It looks like the train is approaching, but the locomotives are helping hold back the train going away as it descends the mountain.
The locomotives have engaged Dynamic braking.
—The first picture is train 36A threading a cut through rock at the end of the 1898 bypass. It has a slide-fence.
The second picture is the same train past the Overlook bridge heading toward Lilly.
(All American railfans, BY LAW, should be required to visit Cassandra Railroad Overlook. Shade man, shade is hard to come by at Horseshoe Curve).
—The next place my brother went is the overpass in Lilly PA. It’s just north (railroad-east) of Cassandra.
Grade-crossings are few and far between on this heavily-traveled railroad. I can think of only two between Altoona south (railroad-west) to South Fork, a distance of perhaps 15-20 miles.
Most highways get over the railroad by an overpass built recently. Or perhaps the railroad bridged the highway eons ago. Route 53 still has narrow stone culverts under the railroad.
Sometimes the railroad built the highway overpass; grade-crossings lead to crashes.
This railroad sees a lotta traffic.
—My brother also tried Carneys Crossing before that Route 22 on-ramp, but nothing is worth doing.
Westbounds approach down a long tangent from that on-ramp which isn’t very photogenic.
Carneys is one of the two crossings-at-grade south of Altoona before South Fork. It’s also the location of a defect-detector.
“Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track Three, no defects.”
We hear that on our railroad-radio scanners, and use it to know if a train is coming.
If it’s a full train — not just helpers — we got a minute or two at Cassandra. Or it’s already in sight at Cresson. That defect-detector doesn’t broadcast until the last train-car is past.
If it’s a helper-set, that detect-detector broadcasts well before the helpers are in sight at Cresson.
253.1 isn’t our only detector. There are a few others.
—Another place my brother went is the Route-22 on-ramp near Cresson.
Route-22 over Allegheny Mountain is a gigantic four-lane expressway, built at huge expense, and probably up to Interstate standards.
Route-22 crosses the railroad on a gigantic overpass; and standing on it to photograph trains going under it is clearly unsafe. Traffic would be passing at 70-100 mph.
But recently my brother noticed the bridge over the railroad is near the Route-53 interchange. You wouldn’t be standing next to expressway. You’re standing on an on-ramp to the expressway.
This makes photography here much safer, although you might attract attention from the gendarmerie.
Last visit we tried it, intending our visit would be short. In other words, you hafta know a westbound is coming.
Train engineers no longer call out signal-aspects, but they do call out Control-Points (usually interlockings), and CP-MO is nearby in Cresson.
“21J west on Three, CP-MO, CLEAR!” on our railroad-radio scanners.
Zoom, if we’re near the on-ramp 21J is coming.
Pictured is 21J.
That on-ramp is about where the Cresson runner begins. It’s visible next to the track the train is on, left (right in the cab) of Track Three.
Trains for the Corman branches out of Cresson go onto the Cresson runner. Those branches are old Pennsy.
Notable is a unit grain train for an ethanol plant up in Clearfield.
Nothing is parked on the runner in this photo, but often there is.
—My brother did get one more usable picture after the on-ramp. A road north of Cresson runs through woods next to the tracks. Along that road is a cut-out that looks at the tracks where the railroad curves towards Cresson.
Distant in the picture is the Route 53 bridge over “Five-Tracks.” Already you can see the higher grading that carries Tracks One and Two toward the summit.
The train is on the original Pennsy gradient, two tracks at this point. The four-track main returns to three tracks at MO interlocking to the west near Cresson.
It’s multiple tracks because Allegheny Mountain could be a bottleneck. Track One was closed for maintenance that day, leaving only two open tracks over the mountain: Three and Four.
Precision-Scheduled-Railroading might eliminate a track, which could throttle the mountain to only one open track during maintenance.
A lot of two-way traffic is on this railroad. I don’t think one track over this mountain could handle all the traffic.
—By now I was in Altoony. I found my brother up on the embankment at Brickyard Crossing.
Not long ago there was a Brickyard adjacent to the tracks. It has since been taken down, and replaced by a warehouse.
But railfans and railroad employees still call it Brickyard Crossing.
As noted earlier (see above), I shot a few failures at 24th St. bridge in Altoona, and my brother had to gone to Brickyard.
The “Creamsicle,” one of 20 so-called Heritage-Units painted the schemes of predecessor railroads out of which Norfolk Southern was formed, is called the “Creamsicle” because its colors match those of a Creamsicle = yellow and orange.
The railroad it honors is Interstate Railroad.
8105 is a General Electric ES44AC, 4,400 horsepower.
DAY TWO (Friday October 9th)
—My brother, who drives us around, seems to finally wanna visit South Fork PA.
Perhaps what interested him was Track One was closed for maintenance, and “CP-W” was involved.
“CP-W” (Control-Point W) is just east of South Fork.
Hooray-hooray!
How many times have I advocated South Fork, but it’s always too far. We end up at the Post-Office bridge in Altoona, or Eighth Street bridge, or maybe the covered pedestrian overpass if we’re lucky.
How many times have we been down that cemetery road east of Gallitzin? Not bad, but anything we shoot there is repeat. I’m looking for a photogenically interesting picture, which usually involves track curvature.
My brother, on the other hand, seeks the standard three-quarter locomotive view — engine bearing down filling the frame.
Which is fine, since I’ve used many of his three-quarter shots in our calendar.
It’s MY calendar — that is, I’m the one who designed it. I’m also the one who chose the pictures.
I like to depict scenery.
South Fork has a gigantic curve west out of the valley toward Pittsburgh.
Very scenic.
But the light can be wrong. Afternoon is backlit; morning light isn’t.
So we’d drive down to South Fork in the morning.
But it was heavily fogged in. Photography was impossible. We couldn’t even see the tracks.
We turned right around and headed back out of the fog.
The next town north (railroad-east) was Summerhill PA. A recent highway bridge is in town, probably to replace a grade-crossing.
We walked up on the bridge, which is just west of where an old Pennsy signal was (since removed with Positive-Train-Control and in-the-cab signaling) to take the above photograph.
Our photo is a repeat, except prior photographs had the signal-bridge.
—“I bet we can beat that sucker!” I said to my brother as we walked down the Summerhill overpass.
An eastbound came through on Two as we returned to my brother’s car.
Hammer down! Pedal-to-the-metal! We’d charge up Route 53 hoping to beat the train.
This is what it's all about, readers. We see a train and chase it.
It was easier when train-engineers called signal-aspects. Those signals have since been removed with Positive-Train-Control and in-the-cab signaling.
Now all the engineers call out are interlockings. All we’d hear are “MO” and “SO.”
We might also hear “MG”, but that’s 15-25 minutes away, plus a westbound has to clear “MO.”
53 parallels the railroad, and goes under it at two points.
“No train yet” as we drove through the first underpass, an ancient culvert.
“We’re ahead of it, but it won’t be long,” I said.
We continued up 53; maybe 10 miles South Fork to Lilly.
By Lilly we were so far ahead we had time to set up. The train wasn’t boomin’-and-zoomin’.
There’s another recent overpass in Lilly, but we didn’t use it.
We’d go out west of Lilly to Plane-Bank, where there once was a Pennsy signal, 254.7 I think.
No cannon-on-tripod this time; that eastbound was coming.
—Our next stop would be the trackside railfan platform in Cresson PA, another location like South Fork that always got poo-pooed.
Pittsburghers would come out to Cresson to escape their smoky city.
Cresson was also the location of Cresson Springs resort, which Pennsy got control of and rebuilt.
Cresson Springs took advantage of mineral-water springs, and the clear mountain air.
Cresson Springs is gone, but the railroad remains. A small display of railroad stuff, plus a pavilion, sits next to the tracks through Cresson. Included is a retired Pennsy caboose.
The platform, for railfans, is at the same level as the tracks — in other words you have the climb steps to get up to it.
I’ve always wanted to try it, and have on occasion by myself. But I never got any trains.
Westbounds were coming when we arrived, but westbounds are too far from the platform.
That platform is not very photogenic = it’s too far from the tracks.
Eastbounds aren’t too bad, but in the afternoon they’re backlit.
Trackage past that platform is a long tangent = no curves at all.
We were the right time and light for Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian, which was coming per our scanner-feed.
—I’m not too sure where we went after Cresson, but the photographs make it look like we went to Carneys Crossing next.
Carneys is one of only two crossings-at-grade between Altoony and South Fork. The other is Brickyard Crossing up near Altoona.
Neither crossing is heavily traveled, and Brickyard is little more than a street.
Carneys isn’t very photogenic — too much tangent track.
Looking railroad-west is okay with strong telephoto, and the picture has a surfeit of colorful foliage.
—Next would down to the abandoned trailer behind the Portage railroad station. That abandoned trailer has been there for eons.
This shot is a repeat = I even had it once as a Christmas card.
The 1898 bypass begins in Portage; the original Pennsy main also went through Portage, and is now used as a secondary to a coal loadout that was once a coal-mine.
The original Pennsy main also went through Cassandra, with many tight curves. Which is why the bypass was built. It involved a long fill and a rock cut; all straight.
—Hooray-hooray! It looks like we’re finally going to South Fork (PA).
Railroad-west across PA, the railroad traverses a long valley from Tyrone south to Altoony. The valley parallels Allegheny-front, then crosses the mountain west of Altoona.
It then turns south again to South Fork, were it turns west toward Johnstown and Pittsburgh.
The railroad turns sharply west at South Fork, although it’s a very wide curve.
As noted above, the light into that curve is much better in the morning. But the morning-fog was so dense we couldn’t photograph anything.
So late afternoon, when the engine fronts are backlit.
Fortunately the sun was very bright, and the sky clear, so back-lighting was minimal.
—My brother also got one of the two “bluenoses” as part of the lash-up on 22W.
4000 and 4001 are rebuilds of General Electric Dash 9-40Cs built in 1995, then rebuilt in 2015 by GE/American Motive Power into AC44C6Ms.
They were converted from Direct-Current to Alternating-Current.
Other locomotive conversions were also done, and many more are planned. Some were done in Roanoke, and others were done at Juniata Shops north of Altoona.
Norfolk Southern really struck gold with those shops — one of the largest locomotive repair facilities on the entire planet. (It’s ex-Pennsy.)
The paint-department at Juniata shops went bonkers. 20 Heritage-Units in paint-schemes of predecessor railroads, plus other rebuilds in various colors, not just the standard Norfolk Southern black.
I’ve also seen yellow and green, plus other rebuilds that honor veterans and first-responders.
—By now our light was going away.
But Cassandra Railroad Overlook again, where I’d repeat my years-ago shot in the rain.
By this time the rock-cut before the Overlook would be lit, although the light was extreme.
Visible in my “going” shot is Cassandra Railroad Overlook, the old bridge over the railroad where are the 1898 bypass ends.
—“Any chance this old geezer can lean on your truck?”
I asked that to two gentleman in a black Chevy pickup trackside at the compressor in Cresson.
The compressor-location in Cresson is west of the railroad, which most of the day doesn’t work, since the sun is in the southeast.
But in late afternoon the sun comes around west of the railroad.
“I am not too stable,” I told them; “and usually my brother parks where I can lean against his truck.
But he parked up there, and I wanna shoot down here.”
“Sure!” they smiled.
“I’m age-76, and I can’t stop. Chasin’ trains since age 2.”
Calling myself a “geezer” always works.
The photo is a “double.” 65M westbound on Three, passing 20Q eastbound on Two.
Also visible is the Cresson runner, but nothing was on it = trains for delivery to Corman.
Anything on the runner would block photography of the Main.
—Our final stop was Five-Tracks again.
07t (Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian) was coming.
As the chatters say on Virtual Railcam’s YouTube web-stream of Horseshoe Curve:
“Elvis has left the building. We now resume our regular Norfolk Southern programing already in progress.”
Labels: train-chase
posted by BobbaLew at 12:53 PM
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