My calendar for March 2021

Eastbound stacker negotiates the curve past South Fork. (Photo by BobbaLew.)

—The reason the Pennsylvania Railroad was built, Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, was because PA’s cross-state combination canal/portage railroad was so slow and cumbersome compared to NY’s Erie Canal.
The Erie Canal was through. PA’s combination canal/portage railroad wasn’t. It required changing from canal to railroad.
And the portage railway over Allegheny Mountain couldn’t use the grading technology that came later. Allegheny front couldn’t be canaled.
All across PA Pennsy zigged and zagged up and down valleys to notches through the Appalachians. It followed the Juniata River (“June-ee-AT-uh,” not “Juanita.”)
But there were no notches through Allegheny front.
At Altoona Pennsy attacked Allegheny front. Railroad with cuts, curves, fills, grades, and also a summit-tunnel, got Pennsy over the mountain.
Doing it with 1840s grading was an engineering triumph.
Once across it follows the Little Conemaugh River southwest to South Fork, starting point of the Johnstown Flood.
Tyrone to South Fork is very active, and trains assault the heavens to go over the mountain.
My brother and I chase and photograph trains up and down those 40-50 miles of railroad.
Some parts are 79 mph track-speed, but over the mountain is much slower. Trains have derailed going too fast.
South Fork is our southern-most photo location on that segment — railroad-west.
South Fork is probably 20 miles south of Altoony. It’s where the railroad turns back toward Pittsburgh; that’s the big curve.
I had to pull teeth to get my brother to try South Fork.
“Too far,” he’d always say, and he drives.
Now, all-of-a-sudden, he discovered South Fork. Not me, of course, I’m only the first-born!
The train, a double-stack, is eastbound on Track One.
You’re seeing maybe only 1/10th of the train. Imagine all those containers as trucks on an interstate.
Those interstates would be clogged; plus every truck would need a driver. Probably only two or three are crewing that train.
I also see a borrowed BNSF unit in the lash-up.
250+ containers are not clogging the highways.

• According to my all-knowing mother, the correct pronunciation of “Juniata” is “Juanita.”