“Addicted to the Cresson webcam”

My father and I about to set out in pursuit of trains (4/7/1946). (Behind is my Aunt Mary.) (Photo probably by my mother.)

—I said that to my contact at Railstream, source for the Cresson webcam.
Yrs Trly has been a railfan all his life. In 1946 my father, probably at my mother’s insistence — “Thomas, you gotta do something with your son” — put me in the wicker front basket of his red Columbia balloon-tire bicycle, to take me to nearby Haddonfield, NJ, to watch trains.
Free entertainment, and I was smitten. I was age-2.
At that time Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (“Redding” not “Reeding”) through Haddonfield was still using steam-locomotives.
By then many railroads had switched to diesel-electric locomotives, retiring their steam-engines.
PRSL used hand-me-down steamers from its co-owners, Pennsy and Reading. PRSL also had steamers of its own — but they also were hand-me-downs.
At that age I was terrified of lightning and thunder, and also camera-flash. But I could stand right next to a panting, throbbing steam-locomotive.
Ya never see steamers any more. Railroads are fully dieselized.
I always tell other railfans I was lucky enough to witness steamers in actual revenue service.
Pennsy, a coal-road, hung onto coal-fired steam locomotion as long as it could. But dieselization was so attractive even coal-roads had to switch.
With dieselization came retirement of water-towers and coaling facilities. Also servicing of steamers.
Haddonfield had grade-crossings, and also was a station-stop. Engineers whistled those grade-crossings, but my father said they were whistling for me.
He also claimed the train’s engineer was waving at me. Wrong! A train approaching from the east had me on the locomotive’s left side. That would be the fireman. The engineer was on the opposite (right) side.
I been chasing trains ever since.
It led me to various railfan pilgrimage spots: Cajon Pass and Tehachapi Loop in CA, Sherman Hill in WY, Cass Scenic Railroad in WV, and most importantly, Pennsy’s Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona PA, a trick to get over Allegheny Mountain without steep grades.
My brother-from-Boston became a railfan too after I introduced him to Nickel Plate 765, a restored steam-locomotive.
A few years ago Norfolk Southern Railroad brought 765 to its old Pennsy climb over Allegheny Mountain. Pennsy is now Norfolk Southern, but its crossing of Allegheny Mountain, including Horseshoe Curve, is still there.
That old Pennsy main became a main east-west trade conduit, and still is very active under Norfolk Southern.
After 765 my brother became interested in chasing trains around Altoona. I did that myself earlier with an Altoona railfan conducting day-long “tours”= train-chases.
That railfan took along his railroad-radio scanner tuned to 160.8 MHz, Norfolk Southern’s main operating frequency for that line.
Each time a train passed a lineside signal, its engineer had to call out the signal aspect on railroad-radio; e.g. “25V, west on Three, 245; CLEAR!” (“25V” is the train-number, “Three” is Track Three, “245” is the milepost signal location [245 miles from Philadelphia], and “CLEAR” is the signal aspect [clear block ahead].
My friend would hear that on his scanner, and suddenly we’d bootleg turn his aging Buick in hopes of beating 25V to a prime photo-location. (He knew the signal locations.)
My brother and I started doing that. We both bought scanners, and my brother also did a lot of research to know what trains we’d see.
Railroad-radio also broadcasts lineside “defect-detectors.” (No more caboose.)
“Norfolk Southern milepost 253.1, Track One, no defects” (dragging equipment, overheated wheel bearings, etc).
That got broadcast from the detector location after a train passed. The train’s engineer would hear that and continue, or “Stop your train!”
We’d hear that, and know an eastbound on Track One had passed 253.1.
A few years ago a railfan bed-and-breakfast in Cresson PA, over the mountain from Altoona, set up a video-cam to view trains passing through Cresson. This was done with Railstream, an operation to stream that video over the Internet. Railstream has other locations.
I tried that webcam — I forget why — probably from the bed-and-breakfast’s website.
The bed-and-breakfast, Station-Inn, is very much aimed at railfans; and there are many. Station-Inn used to be a hotel next to the railroad. Cresson is high up the mountain, and used to attract Pittsburghers in Summer.
Station Inn’s building was never torn down. Now it caters to railfans, but it’s rather rudimentary: steam heat and no air-conditioning. I’ve stayed there occasionally — but it’s unfriendly to seniors: no elevators, and long staircases to climb.
Breakfast is in a “Common Room” = jaw with other railfans — sometimes unpleasant for me.
That webcam is very active. Freight-trains galore! Stackers, unit coal, auto, and crude-oil trains, trailer-trains (TOFC), the Slabber, and the smelly trash-train. Mixed-freight manifests too. And sometimes the Tuxedos, or a similar railroad move.
Often a train’s engineer renders a tune on the locomotive horn — for railfans waving from Station Inn’s porch.
I also used to play Station Inn’s railroad-radio scanner-feed. But no longer, since train-engineers no longer call out the signals. That’s Positive-Train-Control and in-the-cab signaling. Many of the old lineside signals have been removed.
Train-engineers still call out “MO,” “UN,” and “AR” etc. Locations of nearby interlockings — crossovers usually. That scanner-feed also gets defect-detectors.
But that scanner-feed is distracting. Railroad employees also air jabbering not worth hearing.
That webcam gets everything: loud Harleys and macho pickups, and girlfriends screaming at loathsome lotharios. There also is Cresson’s fire-siren, and nearby church-bells.
Occasionally I hear an F-bomb. Is there a “deplorable” anywhere that doesn’t modify every phrase with the F-bomb?
RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA! “Sounds like 04T,” Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian about 9:15 a.m.
Later RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA-RUMBA! “Sounds like 07T,” Amtrak’s westbound Pennsylvanian, about 6 p.m.
Every morning I fire up this ancient laptop, it takes a few minutes, and log in to Railstream’s Cresson webcam. I run that webcam all day. It became background.
This is especially true if WXXI-FM, the public-radio classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I usually listen to, is holding one of its occasional begathons, which I can’t stand.
I also can’t stand opera.
“I YouTubed Schubert’s song-cycle, but there was one problem. They were singing!”

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN. It’s 1956, but it’s the exact location where my father and I first watched trains. (Photo by Robert Long©.)

• “Haddonfield” (“hah-din-field”) is an old Revolutionary-War town in south Jersey near where I lived as a child. A railroad (PRSL) to Atlantic City went through Haddonfield, in the ‘40s and ‘50s when I was growing up. Before that it was Pennsy, and originally it was Camden & Atlantic. PRSL through Haddonfield was where I first watched trains.
• “PRSL” is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much parallel track. It was promulgated in 1933. It serviced mainly the south Jersey seashore from Philadelphia, by ferry across the Delaware River at first.
• “Cajon” (“kuh-HONE”) and “Tehachapi” (“tuh-HATCH-uh-pee”). Cajon is the pass through the San Gabriel mountains from the Los Angeles basin up to the Mojave Desert. Tehachapi Pass is up outta the huge San Joaquin valley over the Tehachapi mountains toward Los Angeles. The railroad loops itself to climb up to the pass.
• “Cass” was once a logging railroad. Side-rod steam locomotives could not do a logging railroad; it’s too steep and rickety. Special applications of steam-locomotive technology were developed = Shay locomotives primarily. The logging operation tanked, but the railroad was saved, to become a WV state park.
• “The Slabber” is an all open gondola-cars loaded with two heavy steel slabs just manufactured at a steel-plant. The slabs are being transferred to a rolling-mill to be rolled into thin sheet-metal, like for automobiles or appliances. “Slabber” is my brother and I; I’ve never heard railroaders use it.
• The “trash-train” is containers-on-flatcar filled with trash and garbage; all to be landfilled elsewhere.
• The “Tuxedos” are EMD F7s rebuilt by Norfolk Southern for executive train-service. They haul restored passenger equipment. There are four units: two A-units and two cabless B-units. They’re repainted black and/or dark brown, so are called the “Tuxedos.”
• “MO,” “UN,” and “AR” are telegraph call-letters of old railroad towers that used to be at those locations. “MO” and “UN” are gone, but “AR” is still there, though abandoned. All three locations are interlockings controlled by Pittsburgh. They’re signaled, and train-engineers call out the signal aspect.
• Amtrak’s “Pennsylvanians,” eastbound and westbound, are the only cross-state passenger trains left on this line. There used to be many.