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Toronto, Horseshoe Curve, and other PA locations


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Hi folks,
 
I decided to do a bit of a road trip.  I went Boston->Brampton, ON->Horseshoe Curve->Rockville Bridge->Steamtown in Scranton->Boston.
 
Brampton was for the "Great British Train Show", which I'll cover in a different thread. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/133869-my-great-british-train-show-brampton-on-visit/  This one is for the prototype stuff...
 
While up on Brampton, I went into Toronto for Saturday late afternoon.  I wanted to see the old CN roundhouse which is preserved downtown and the exhibits around it, see Toronto's Union Station, and go up the CN tower.
 
The roundhouse area has several preserved locomotives, rolling stock, and buildings.  Here's a few
 
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"Rogers Center" in the background is where the Toronto Blue Jays play professional baseball.  its a 50000 seat park.  Not many major league stadiums have a steam engine sitting outside.
 
There's also this nice diesel
 
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And a few caboose
 
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Over to Union Station, I saw the special "40th anniversary" Via Genesis unit leading a westbound out of the station.
 
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This interesting 2 car train is a shuttle between the train station and the airport
 
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After the station visit, it was over to the CN tower.  The CN tower is a 1800+ foot tower right in downtown.  It was originally built by the Canadian National railway in 1976.  There is an observation deck at about 1100 feet up, and a higher one at 1465 feet up.  I went to the observation deck level.

Here's the tower itself.
 
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View of the roundhouse area from the tower
 
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View of Union Station from the tower.
 
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Next stop: Horseshoe Curve ;)
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Mike:

slight correction. The CN roundhouse disappeared under the Skydome* and I like to think that the turntable pit is the shower room for visiting teams.

The preserved roundhouse is the CPR John Street.  

There were plans to use it a base for various excursions until it was disclosed that the sub-dirt constructions in between would not support a locomotive.

 

The UP (airport) express was supposed to be 3 car units. When operation finally started, they hadn't ordered enough of them to run the 15 minute service and have a spare unit or two, so they run with 2 cars. The initial fare was so high that this was more than adequate.

 

 

*may have new name -- I can't keep up with them.

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There's no easy way to get from Toronto to Horseshoe curve.  But I didn't care.  I drove from Toronto on Sunday night for several hours (including a 2 hour stop at Niagara Falls), and stayed at a hotel near the NY/PA border due south of Buffalo.  The next morning I got up and drove for a little over 3 hours (with a couple short stops) through small rural towns on twisty-turney roads at about 45-50 mph.  Not as fast as a highway, but quite a pleasant drive through beautiful countryside.  Even found a few restored stations and a "mini golf" course with a RR theme and a bunch of cabooses and passenger around the property.  That place also had a microbrewery set up in a converted Pennsylvania railroad express baggage car, with tables in a D&H caboose.

 

Most people approach Horseshoe Curve coming up from Altoona, to the east.  So they see it in front of them as they come up the valley.  My route took me there from Gallitzin, from the west, so I came down the mountain, went thru the tunnel, and BAM, it was right in front of me.  I think I prefer my route...

They have an old PRR GP-7 on display.  The K-4 pacific used to be here, but then they "restored" her, they replaced her with this engine.  The K-4 is now in pieces, most of it is stored in a museum in Altoona.

 

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The first train was an eastbound down the hill.  Shortly after, you could hear this westbound coming up the hill about 2-3 minutes before you could actually see it.  Its a unit ballast train from Herzog.  Quite an interesting train..

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Note the cars themselves.  Yes, those are solar panels on each car.  I was pretty confused when I saw them, so I googled this train.  I figured it was just a normal "unit train", but no, this was a lot more...

These cars are made to dump the ballast remotely, controlled by Herzog employees via computer, riding in the locomotives.  Each car has a GPS device and an computer controlled system to control how far to open the hopper bays.  The solar panels are to maintain the charge on the batteries which provide power to that equipment. The crew can program each car to dump its load at a specific location, determined by the GPS.  This puts the ballast exactly where its needed.  The ballast can be reliably dumped at speeds in the 10-12 mph range (usually), but they claim it can be done at much higher speeds.

 

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And the train had a couple pushers at the end.  This was the first train I had ever seen with pushers.
 

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In the end, while it was dumb luck I was there on the right day and the right time, I'm REALLY glad I got to see this train.  (still need to get a video up on you tube...)

More to come... ;)

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Sounds like a fun roadtrip, was the miniature railroad running at the roundhouse when you visited?

 

No.  The live steamers weren't running.  I'm a live steamer myself, so it would have been nice to see them and chat.

 

One thing I found amusing/interesting was that they have a lead from the live steam track up to the turntable pit, but no track on the turntable itself. ;)

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I need to do something like this on my next trip stateside. I THINK I've managed to convince my wife to start in Orlando and end in NYC, or the other way around. :)

I had never been, and I'm planning on going back next summer to bring my 13 year old ;)  Its an amazing place to watch trains.

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I just uploaded a video of the Herzog train to you tube.  I'm looking "out" the horseshoe, so its an uncommon view of the curve.  You can really see the height differential between the two curves entering the curves.

https://youtu.be/tefFRRx8Cdw

Note that the there's almost a mile of track between when you first see it to when it disappears from sight...

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Next set of photos from Horseshoe curve....

5 units pulling a stack train upgrade.  What a rumble...

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Horseshoe curve is a 3 track mainline.  The center track can be used in either direction.  As the stack train was passing, another westbound came upgrade, slowly overtaking the stack train.  Once again, a completely new train-watching experience for me.  

 

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A little later, this eastbound came downhill, with a UP loco in the consist.

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And one more westbound

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I have uploaded a few videos of trains on the curve on you tube...





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Awesome. You should upload these to Railpictures.

I tried to upload one of my photos (which I haven't added to this thread yet, but its coming, taking things in chronological order).  I thought the combination of subject and location would make the cut. It got rejected as "blurry".  They have some VERY strict criteria to get a photo published on that site.  I'm not convinced I even have the camera equipment required...

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Great Photo's Mike! And good weather for the Curve. It's a stunning location with a variety of different types of freight (double stacks and unit gondola trains), most with multiple units on the front and a pair or two of helpers on the rear. Plus, the helpers coming back down the curve from Galitzin light engine. And the noise! (From the prime movers and the flange squeel as the train passes around the cuve). Must have been fantastic in the days of steam and still gives a good show today. I've been there a couple of times and got some good photo's.

 

What i found really interesting was that both times I was there was that it seems that many families stlll go there to have a picnic lunch and watch the trains go past. Maybe the lore of railways / railorading is not yet dead in the eyes of the general public.

 

Sorry I didn't make it to Brampton. Maybe in a couple of years time. I might even have the garratts finishe by then!

Edited by PhilMortimer
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Great Photo's Mike! And good weather for the Curve. It's a stunning location with a variety of different types of freight (double stacks and unit gondola trains), most with multiple units on the front and a pair or two of helpers on the rear. Plus, the helpers coming back down the curve from Galitzin light engine. And the noise! (From the prime movers and the flange squeel as the train passes around the cuve). Must have been fantastic in the days of steam and still gives a good show today. I've been there a couple of times and got some good photo's.

 

What i found really interesting was that both times I was there was that it seems that many families stlll go there to have a picnic lunch and watch the trains go past. Maybe the lore of railways / railorading is not yet dead in the eyes of the general public.

 

Sorry I didn't make it to Brampton. Maybe in a couple of years time. I might even have the garratts finishe by then!

There were quite a few people who seemed to just be picnicking.  There were a few people sitting at the tables, and when a train when past they simply looked up and kept eating their lunches.

 

I'm already thinking that I'm going to bring my 13 year old son down some weekend next summer for a camping/train watching trip.  He was originally going to be with me on this trip, but events conspired and it didn't happen.

 

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After leaving the Curve, I went to the top of the grade, Gallitzin, PA.  There, the PRR bored two tunnels through the top of the mountain, about 3000 feet long each.  These have been enlarged to handle double stacks.  One tunnel is used for eastbounds, and isn't terribly visible without trespassing on the ROW.  The other tunnel is used for track 2 and 3, so you can see trains heading either direction.  There is a small park next to that bore, and this nicely restored caboose is on display

 

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Just west of the tunnel, a road bridge crosses the tracks.  They've nicely cut holes, about 1' high by 3' long, in the chain-link fence so railfans can take photos through the fence, so you can get some nice "head on" shots.

 

I waited there to see a westbound exiting the tunnel.  Before that happened, I saw an eastbound, so 2 trains at Gallitzin

 

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A video of the westbound train is up on you tube.  You can see some of the hole in the fence in the video.

 


 

After that, I went down into Altoona to visit the Railroaders Memorial Museum, and to see Juniata shops (from the public road)

 

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The museum is about life in Altoona for the railroaders themselves, rather than about the railroad.  Well done museum.  They have a small yard with some equipment, like a caboose, some passenger stock, some of which you can see above.  They also have a very interesting, depressed center, heavy duty flat car converted to a stage.  16 axles over 4 trucks.  Quite a piece of rolling stock.

 

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They also have a 5 stall roundhose (modern, as far as I could tell) with more equipment around it.  Inside then have two iconic PRR locomotives.

 

A GG1 (which admittedly needs some restoration, but its inside and safe from the elements

 

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And the K4 #1361.  This is the K4 which used to sit at Horseshoe curve, and one of 2 preserved K4s  (the other in Strasburg at the Railroad Museum of PA).  They have the boiler and tender inside.  The chassis and other parts are stored elsewhere out of public view.  If/When it ever runs again is really anyone's guess.

 

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Then, over to Altoona Works (AKA - Juniata shops)  At one point, this was the largest railroad shops in the world, over 200 acres and 16000 workers.  The current NS shops still employ 1100 workers.  There's a "fan site" out at http://www.altoonaworks.info/ if you want to know more about this place.

 

And, I was fortunate to spot this:

 

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This is Norfolk Southern's power for their office car special.  The A units are F9s, the Bs are F7s.  Would love to see that train operating.  It usually pulls around 12-15 passenger cars for executive trips.

 

At this point, I needed to start heading east, so I left Altoona.  "Tomorrow" is the drive home, with a couple of interesting stops...

Edited by Mike Boucher
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Thanks for posting Mike. Horseshoe Curve and Altoona are a couple of my favourite locations and well worth a visit to anyone who is in the area. IMHO Pennsylvania is one of the most under-rated states by those from the UK.

 

John

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I spent the night in Harrisburg, PA, 2-3 hours east of Altoona.  Just north of Harrisburg, PA is another iconic Pennsylvania Railroad structure, the Rockville Bridge.  Buit in 1902, they cai its the longest stone arch railroad bridge in the world, at over 3800 feet long across the Susquehanna River.  It has 48 arches!  Originally built a 4 track, it now holds 2.  At either end is a wye.

 

The next morning I got there about 8:15AM, just as an eastbound crossed the track.  But, the parking is on the north side of the bridge, so its a lousy photo location as you're looking at the shadow side of the trains. The best view is just south of the bridge, which right now is a railroad themed bed-and-breakfast.  If you're not staying there, don't even thing about trying to take photos from the property, there are a LOT of no trespassing signs.  I walked down the road about 1/4 mile further to a clear spot just off the road.

 

This wasn't the first train I saw, but its the best "representative photo" of the bridge...

 

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The first westbound I saw turned out to be a highlight.  In 2012, Norfolk Southern has painted a series of 20 locomotives in "Heritage Paint Schemes".  That is, one each in a vintage paint scheme from each of the "fallen flags" which now make up NS.

 

http://www.nscorp.com/content/nscorp/en/the-norfolk-southern-story/heritage-locomotives.html

 

They're are incredibly popular amongst railfans.  There's even a web site for spotters to track where they are, what train they're on, etc, to help other railfans.  That site also tracks other unique paint schemes or interesting locomotives for other railroads as well, such as the Office Car Special set of F units from my previous post, Union Pacific has some Heritage Units as well, and NS's "Operation Lifesaver" paint schemes.

https://heritageunits.com/

To my luck, the first Westbound had the "Lehigh Valley" heritage unit on the lead of a stack train.  Got me a new check in my spotters guide ;)

 

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I stayed at the bridge for a few hours, catching some interesting trains.

This work train came out onto the bridge, stopped, and then reversed back into the yard on the east side of the bridge.  Don't know why, but there was interesting MOW equipment...

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I put a video up on you tube of this movement.  Not the greatest video, as I didn't zoom in...

 

 

An eastbound catches the morning sun.

 

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And a manifest freight starts crossing the bridge from the northern wye track.

 

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I left the bridge at about 11AM, and did a quick drive down to Enola yard a large yard with a small engine repair facility, just south of the bridge.  There, I saw another Special NS paint scheme, one of the "Operation Lifesaver" units.

 

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Next report will be the last, a few quick stops on the drive home through PA and NY state

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On the drive back from Altoona/Harrisburg, I stopped into Steamtown in Scranton.  Ate lunch, and took a few photos of the engines...

 

Big Boy #4012 is looking like its time for some new paint.

 

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The other engines out have been painted more recently...

 

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While there, this Delaware Lacawanna freight came off the CP mainline, stopped briefly in the yard, and then continued up the track towards Moscow.

 

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An hour or so up the highway, I stopped at Port Jervis, NY.  They have a restored turntable with a E unit displayed on it.

 

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There was also an RS3 and some passenger equipment parked near the turntable, for a tourist railroad which never got off the ground.

And that's it.  Quite a trip, 1550+ miles over 5 days and about 1100 photos.  (and you should be glad I didn't post them all! ;) )   I'm glad I got a check mark next to "Visit Horseshoe Curve" on my bucket list.  Hope everyone enjoyed the photos!

Edited by Mike Boucher
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