My train-calendar for April 2021

747 on Two passes an empty unit grain-train on the Cresson-Runner awaiting a crew. (Photo by Jack Hughes.)

—As the dude who designed and produces this train calendar, I continually harangue my brother about not repeating a view I published before.
“Aw man; not them downtown overpasses again, or the Post-Office bridge, or 24th Street. Brickyard is always a repeat.”
My brother and I are the ones taking these train pictures. I also let him drive.
This photo is at a location I never published.
The Route 22 expressway over Allegheny Mountain, which cost a fortune, crosses the old Pennsy main at this location west of Cresson.
Train 747, westbound on Two, passes an empty unit grain-train on the Cresson-Runner. The grain-train is waiting for a crew.
Norfolk Southern delivers grain from out west for an ethanol plant up in Clearfield PA. The branch to Clearfield used to be Pennsy, but now it’s Corman.
It's actually Corman that delivers the grain up to Clearfield, although sometimes they use NS run-through power. Corman has its own locomotives.
Norfolk Southern delivers the grain to a long stick-rail siding beside its main through Cresson. That’s the Runner.
Corman brings the empty covered hoppers back down to Cresson, then leaves ‘em on the Runner, so NS can take ‘em back for another train-load.
So my brother is bopping back north (railroad-east) on Highway-53, probably returning from Summerhill or Cassandra. 53 crosses the Route 22 expressway next to where the expressway crosses the old Pennsy.
A westbound on-ramp from 53 merges into the expressway, and ends just past the railroad overpass.
We avoided this location, thinking it dangerous. We thought we’d be adjacent to 70-80 mph expressway traffic.
My brother noticed another train-photographer set up on the overpass, and then noticed the photographer was on the on-ramp.
The location wasn’t next to expressway traffic. Suddenly this location was safe.
But it’s not very photogenic. Too much tangent track. We need curvature.
If the sun were out, it would look better. But it’s cloudy.
We’re west of the mountain, and clouds flowing east pile up against the mountain’s western slope.
A previously unpublished location, and two trains, a “double.”

• “Stick-rail” is the old way of doing things. Short sections of steel rail, usually only 39 feet long, are bolted together with splices to form the railroad. Now a railroad is formed of “ribbon-rail:” rail welded together in lengths of a quarter mile or more. Most heavy use railroads are ribbon-rail; light use (like short lines) are quite often still stick-rail.