40 years of North American photography

Johann Marsbar · July 20, 2022

One of my regular travelling companions on the North American trips had seen some of the photos I'd taken on the Sept 2010 trip to the Cresson area and was interested in doing something similar himself. After some discussion, I came up with tour for September 2011 which involved a stay at the Station Inn again, but which covered completely different ground for most of it and he decided to come along with me on that trip.

The flight to the US was the direct LHR - PHL service with US Airways as for 2010, butthe outward trip was somewhat messed up by the airline as they provided a 767 instead of the booked A330 - a smaller aircraft - and all the allocated seating needed to be changed. Instead of sitting together (I'd booked the flights, so adjacent seats were allocated), we actually both ended up with window seats about 8 rows apart!. Add to that the usual congestion at LHR awaiting departure and we eventually took off about an hour late - an annoying delay, particularly as I had a longer drive once we arrived in the US. We actually arrived at PHL about 50' late, but then encountered an unusually slow moving (for Philadelphia) Immigration process that took over an hour to get through....

About 90 mins later than expected, we picked up the car and headed off southwards. Yet again, the booked "compact" car was conspicuous by its absence, so a free upgrade was given to a rather nice Chevrolet Malibu which turned out to be one of the best vehicles I've hired over there. The first full day was to be spent in the Baltimore area so I had booked two nights in Timonium at a Red Roof Inn that wasn't too far from a Light Rail stop and we finally got there around 21.00 that evening.

The following morning, first port of call was M.B.Kleins Emporium at Cockeysville using the car to get there. Several $$ were duly spent there, particularly as they were doing Kato N RDC's at that time for the equivalent of about £20 each.....

Once back at the hotel from Kleins, the car was parked up for the rest of the day and after dropping off our purchases, we made our way to the Light rail and bought our Day Tickets.....

After a walk around the Inner Harbour and Fells Point areas, we made our way back to Penn Station and walked from there the short distance to the Baltimore Streetcar Museum, our main attraction for the day. This visit turned out rather different than planned as we discovered that it was actually their "Members Day" when the place is nominally closed to the Public. However, for a suitable donation we were invited to join in with the proceedings, which included rides in things like an ex Philidelphia Snow-Sweeper that you wouldn't normally get to do !

All of their operational fleet was out for the day, including runs by work equipment, so it was a good day to be there. I even managed to get a drive of car #554 over their demonstration line, a Brownell Car Co product of 1896. At that stage, the car was showing distinct body-sag due to its age and being a long car on a 4-wheel truck. Work must have started fairly soon after our visit to rebuild the body to eradicate that problem as they had just completed that work when I last went there in 2016.

Car #4533 is a 1920's one-man operated rebuild of a 1904 Brill product, whilst #264 behind it dates from 1900.....

PTC (Philadelphia) Snowbroom C-145 is a Brill product of 1923 and has since been fully restored.....

Philadelphia PCC #2168 dates from 1948 and had only just been fully restored by the Museum at this point....

Another ex Philadelphia car, #2187 was converted to a works car by SEPTA during the 1980's. The BSM acquired it in 2005 and use it as their works car.

BTC Autocar tower wagon, built in 1952, with trolleybus #2078, a 1940 Brill product, visible behind...

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum is well worth a visit if you are in the area and is run by a very friendly bunch of people. The Museum is unusual in that it is located Downtown, rather than the usual suburban/rural sites that such US sites normally occupy.

Baltimore does have a central network of free bus services nowadays and a then fairly new Van Hool A300L is seen with Penn Station in the background......

From the Streetcar Museum, it was a case of heading back on the Light Rail back down to the Inner Harbour to get something to eat (and their beer...) at Pratts Ale House, though the evening Baseball activity at the nearby Camden Yards did mean the place was heaving, so we had a bit of a wait to get a table.

By the time we came out it was dark, as can be seen by this view of the restored frontage of the former B&O Camden Station.....

It was then a case of taking the Light Rail back to the hotel for the night before heading off west early the following morning....

jamie92208 · July 20, 2022

I do like those early streetcars. Very like the ones that I measured up at Branford and Seashore in 2012.

Jamie

Johann Marsbar · July 20, 2022

They were very lucky in that the privately owned Baltimore Streetcar Company put some very early cars into a "Museum Collection" back in the late 1920's and most of those have survived to this day, though before the Museum obtained a permanent site, some of them where severly vandalised, though not quite to the extent of the ones that were "preserved" in Dublin or at the Middleton Railway. The Museum published an interesting book on their history up to 1980 back in 2016 - which I luckilly got a copy of on my last visit there - though that appears to be sold out now and I'm still waiting for the next volume to come out....

A full list of their collection can be seen at....

https://baltimorestreetcarmuseum.org/collection

Most of those are at their main site, one significant exception being the 1922 Brill trolleybus body, which I have never even seen a photo of in its current state. None of the BSM members I've spoken to have ever seen it in person either !!

Johann Marsbar · July 21, 2022

Another day that didn't exactly go to plan, we left Timonium at around 07.00 and headed west, calling in at Brunswick, MD, to find zero rail activity there - not even any stabled locomotives, before continuing on to Cumberland where we had booked a trip on the Western Maryland Scenic later that morning.

After a quick look at the CSX yard in Cumberland....

...we continued to the WMSR station where we were expecting a run up to Frostburg and back behind 2-8-0 #734. Unfortunately, we then found out that the loco had been failed due to (apparently) leaking boiler tubes that morning, so a diesel had been substituted - not that the train had appeared in the platform as yet. My overall impression of the WMSR was that their organisational skills left rather a lot to be desired and perhaps it's just as well they are not running a Brewery......

Eventually our train appeared behind a former Reading GP30 dating from 1962 and once we were moving it was quite a scenic run up to Frostburg and they even used the turntable at the terminus to turn the loco!

90 Minutes in Frostburg seemed to be at least 60 minutes too long as there didn't appear to be anything open on a Sunday - other than a few places adjacent to the station. Mid-September could hardly be described as "off season" either!

Once back at Cumberland, we had another look at what CSX had to offer (not a lot).....

....before we headed off northwards into Pennsylvania and our destination of the Station Inn at Cresson. When I stopped en-route to fill the car up, I then discovered that my credit card wasn't working, which was something of a problem, to say the least. I'd used cash at Kleins the previous day, so that hadn't flagged up the problem earlier. I was able to sort that all out the following morning by a phone call from the Station Inn (where Tom Davis refused to take any money for the call...) and it seems that Halifax had made a foul up with the dates I'd told them I was going to be away!

The next couple of days of the trip we were going to be visiting the Pittsburgh area - on an out/back basis each day - so the following morning we called in at Lilly for about 30 mins and saw 3 trains, including Amtrak.....

...before carrying on west to Monroeville, some 2 hours from there. Pittsburgh seems to be a place you have to have either carried out an extensive amount of research for in advance or have the benefit of someone with extensive knowledge of the area (not just the rail operations) to get any benefit of a visit there. Monroeville was chosen as I had been there in 2003 and therefore knew where you could "view from a public place" the Union RR loco shed. All that was visible there - albeit in a good position for photography - was this MP15 #23.....

Nothing appeared to be moving, so we carried on to Duquesne Yards - nothing moving/visible in any form there either - before getting caught up with inadequate roadsigning, roadworks and driving through some pretty depressed areas whilst trying to get to the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum - our main destination for the day. At one point during our mystery tour, we did actually find an area where the tram tracks were still down in the street, the routes round there shutting during the 1960's. When I commented on where we had driven to one of the volunteers at the tram museum, he said that one of the places (think it was McKeesport) was not the sort of place to go at the best of times and that the local buses usually had some windows shot out when driving through the place.....

Johann Marsbar · July 22, 2022

We eventually arrived at the Trolley Museum somewhat later than planned, discovering that we had just missed the last full tour of the site by a couple of minutes. Since I was last there in 2003 they had erected a substantial display building at the opposite end of their main running line, and this was nominally only accesible by tram from their original museum complex which was where the entrance was still located.

In the end, we were advised to drive to the new building and join the tour there, which we duly did, arriving about the same time that they were still getting off the tram! The museum entrance will eventually be moved to the new site and a $16.5 Million fundraising/development appeal is currently underway for this and construction work has already started....

https://pa-trolley.org/capital-campaign/

The PTM is nominally aimed at collecting cars from Pennsylvania and the track gauge is the PA standard of 5ft 2.5in (though Philadelphia is 0.25" narrower...), so the few cars they own from other places have been converted to that gauge. The full collection is listed here https://pa-trolley.org/roster-of-collection/ , and a section of images is shown below....

Pittsburgh Railways car #3487, a Brill product of 1905....

Pittsburgh Railways McGuire Snowbroom of 1896.....

Toledo Railway & Light Company private car "Toledo" of 1906.....

Philadelphia Transportation Co Brill car of 1923......

Pittsburgh Railways St Louis built PCC car of 1947.....

...and a Federal St & Pleasant Valley horsecar of the 1870's......

The museum is adjacent to an operational standard gauge freight line and they do have some exhibits parked on some trackage connected to that line, including this Armco Steel Baldwin-Westinghose switcher of 1930....

The operating car at the Museum the day of our visit was another Philadelphia Brill of 1923......

Just before we left the Museum, we were lucky to see some activity on the adjacent rail line when this Pittsburgh & Ohio Central GP11 passed the site.....

A return would be made to the Pittsburgh area the following day to visit a couple of relatively obscure rail operations, one of which has since closed down.

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Edited July 22, 2022 by Johann Marsbar
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Johann Marsbar · July 23, 2022

"And now for something completely different............"

As a Subscriber to Railpace Magazine I have found that some articles/news items in there provide inspiration for places to visit on my US trips - though, more often than not, some of them have a habit of appearing within a month or two of my return from that particular area! Our second day in the Pittsburgh area resulted from a short article on an industrial rail operation that literally appeared in Railpace about 4 weeks before we were due to fly out. I had already highlighted a tourist operation that appeared to be worth a visit and as the two operations were in the same general area to the east of the City, it was possible to combine the two to make a decent day of it without resorting to linesiding on something like the NS main line to fill up the time.

The Industrial line in question is in the town of Natrona, PA, and consists of a single line connecting two seperate steel plants operated by Allegheny Ludlum - The Breckenridge Plant and the Natrona Plant - which produce stainless steel. Unusually, it runs alongside a public road (and an NS line) so there are no problems with photographing the line from public places. At that time they were in the process of replacing their older GE centre cab locos so there were 3 different loco types in use.

After leaving Cresson, we had a couple of hours drive to actually reach Natrona and once locating the area using the maps printed in Railpace we spent a very busy 90 minutes there photographing passing traffic. Trains on the AL line were operating on a very regular basis, sometimes literally one after the other, which is more than the adjacent NS Connemaugh line which, despite a lit PRR Position Light signal displaying "Approach", we saw no movements on during either our morning or afternoon sessions there.

There is not a lot of information about the AL loco fleet available online, so I'm going by what was written in the magazine at the time.

First to appear was one of the 3 new RX500 locos built by Republic Locomotive - likened to the old Athern HO scale "Hustler" switcher by the Author of the article in Railpace....

A scrap steel train is seen behind one of the three GE 80T locos in the fleet.......

The right-hand track at a higher level is the NS Connemaugh line.

One of the older GE 50 Tonners passes one of the (closed) local churches..............

About this time, my colleague had been "nobbled" by a local who wondered what we were taking photos of. It turned out that he was a member of a local citizens group who was trying to raise the profile of the area as following the closure of several local industries (other than the steelworks) it had undergone change from a very close-knit Slovak/Polish Community to one rather more "diverse" and one slowly declining. He was rather amazed to find we were from the UK and that their town had been featured in a national US magazine ! He offered a tour of the areas highlights, but we said we had somewhere else to go fairly shortly but would be back later that day - to which he said he'd look for us then.....

Part of one of the roads that run alongside the line has been closed off so it looks as though front gardens run down to the tracks....

It was soon time to head off to our "Tourist Railroad" for a ride, though this one was a bit different and was another operation that had been highlighted in a recent photo in Railpace - the Kiski Junction Railroad.

Located in Schenley, PA, they operated a short run (about 4 miles) from there to Bagdad, PA, alongside the Kiskiminetas River.

This ex C&NW GP7R of 1951 was parked up next to the station in Schenley............

...but the main attraction of the train ride was the haulage provided by this ex US Army Alco S1 built in 1943........

The paint job was a bit OTT, as was the brass eagle on top of the bell and other embelishments!

What made this tourist train a bit different was that it actually operated as a revenue mixed train. Terminus of the line at Bagdad was adjacent to another Allegheny Ludlum plant and on arrival, the loco detached to retrieve two gondolas of scrap which were then hauled back to Schenley on our train!

It was an interesting run and at that time a new extension of about 10 miles in length was being rebuilt north of Schenley with the promise of significant coal traffic, the line opening later that year. Sadly, traffic only lasted until 2016 and all operations (including the passenger runs) were suspended at that time. The line has since been abandoned and appears to being converted to a trail, so it's a line I'm glad I managed to travel on.

After our trip, we returned to Natrona for another couple of hours, although not all the time was spent trainwatching. The chap we had been talking to in the morning duly reappeared and we were given a tour of the rather ornate interior of St Ladislaus Catholic Church and he presented us with a box of the locally produced Natrona soft drinks as well !!

On the rail front here a few more photos taken that afternoon......

All in all it had been quite an interesting day and made a change from wall to wall widecabs on NS !

Johann Marsbar · July 25, 2022

The next two days reverted to the Rolling Stones mantra of "Paint it Black" on the NS Main Line between Tyrone PA, and South Fork, PA, though there were a few exceptions to that theme. Unfortunately the weather wasn't particularly good on both days as there was quite a bit of rain about.

Cresson, opposite the Station Inn...

Tyrone......

Altoona Works......

#999 was an experimental loco - basically a battery powered GP38 - and was fairly new at the time I took this photo. I saw a photo of it in an identical position taken last year, so my guess is that it hasn't actually done a great deal of work! It was supposedly sold by NS in 2019 and is eventually going to somewhere in the Los Angeles area.

Lilly......

Cassandra......

South Fork/Ehrenfeld.....

Summerhill......

and by the route 53 in Cresson....

That train had 4 helpers to push it up the grade towards Gallitzin but a pair detatched as they passed us - they weren't following that close behind!

Mike_Walker · July 25, 2022

A variation on your experience of things appearing in Snailpace* after your return is what Jim Boyd used to call the "curse of Railfan". He'd run a feature in the magazine on an interesting shortline or some rare locomotives only for them to close down or go for scrap before the mag hit the subscribers' mailboxes or newsstands. It generally happened at least once a year and I have been the "victim"!

* That's how founders Tom Nemeth and Denis Connell always described their "baby".

Johann Marsbar · July 26, 2022

We left Cresson on the Friday morning and commenced our journey to the eastern part of Pennsylvania under cloudy skies, though it wasn't long before it started raining and that rather restricted our activities for the rest of the day. I had planned various stops along the way for linesiding the NS miain line and the light (and rain) wasn't that bad when we paused at Ardenheim to see the westbound Pennsylvanian pass......

A quick look at Mount Union and Newton Hamilton didn't produce any useful photo locations, so we carried on to Matawana which turned out to be a good location, but by this stage the rain was a problem. The former Railroad Hotel acted as a good "photo prop" and is a view that turns up in Railpace on occasions.......

If that place was restored as a "Railfan Hotel" like Cresson, my guess is that they would do a lot of business there, particularly as it isn't that far from the East Broad Top RR - now undergoing a fairly spectacular rebirth.

By the time we got to Anderson the rain was even heavier....

...and Mifflin, whilst a good spot, it did get close to monsoon conditions at times! This NS MoW crane was an interesting item that was parked up there.....

This was the location of the former station that served the town and ther subway under the tracks was still in situ and if it had been dry, would have provided easy access to the other side of the tracks for photos, but it was just too wet to do much exploring. We basically sat in the car until we heard trains approaching most of the time....

We eventually gave up photography for the day and proceeded via Northumberland (where we ate in the former PRR station there - now a nice restaurant) on to the bright lights of our destination for the next two nights....

Johann Marsbar · July 27, 2022

It would have been nice to stay in the former Lackawanna Station in Scranton which is now a Radisson Hotel, but as neither of us had a surplus arm and a leg to dispose of, we settled for a somewhat cheaper place to stay that I found right in the Downtown area of Scranton - The Red Carpet Inn - which still appears to be trading, though it wasn't the sort of place I'd stay in again in a hurry....

It was at least in walking distance of the two main attractions there, though as we had a lot to fit in during our stay there we headed off in the car first thing on the Saturday morning to go and inspect a selection of rusting objects in the southern part of the City - namely the lineup of Alco and MLW locomotives by the Delaware Lackawanna RR shops.......

Most of the stock was viewable from public roads adjacent to the tracks, apart from the few members of their operational fleet which were parked beyond their shops and were inaccessible. Not all of the locos present were owned by DL as there were a couple owned by Vintage Locomotives Inc, former CN/VIA FPA4 #6763 at the head of the lineup being one of those, with the other being this former Long Island RR Alco C420.....

There was quite a mixture of loco types there, though how many will ever return to operation is another matter. Some were obviously being used for spares and most had been languishing there for a number of years before our visit. Some like this ex KB&S RS11 were in quite reasonable condition though.....

Amongst the other locos were this NYC liveried FA2, ex Long Island RR and before that L&N.....

This RS-11 #1805 was delivered new to the Duluth Winnipeg & Pacific in 1956, whilst C425 #2457 was originally with the Spokane Portland & Seattle....

RS-11 #351 was ex Winchester & Western and was from Norfolk & Western before that......

RS3 #204 is seen in the faded colours of the St Johnsbury & Lamoille County RR but was delivered new to the Lehigh & Hudson River Railway in 1950....

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Edited July 27, 2022 by Johann Marsbar

Johann Marsbar · July 28, 2022

One of the options during the full day in Scranton was to ride the "Stourbridge Line" from Honesdale, PA. On the day in question, the only option appeared to be a full day excursion as far as Hawley where some sort of German Festival was taking place which would have limited anything else we wanted to do, so we decided against this. It didn't help that the RR website was nigh on useless and very little information on the event at Hawley seemed to be available online either. However, we decided to pop over to Honesdale that morning to see what rail activity was going on, together with making a visit to the local Historical Museum as well, which contains a few items of interest.

On arrival we had a quick look at the Stourbridge Line station where this ex Maine Central GP7 of 1950 was parked up......

along with some of their coaching stock.....

which included these cars which had recently arrived from the Bute, Anaconda & Pacific tourist operation.....

Not a lot seemed to be happening, so we headed off to get breakfast and once that task was completed, their BL2 (ex Bangor & Aroostook) had been brought out of the enginehouse.....

and then proceeded to make up the train for the days excursion. The operation seemed a bit disorganised, so that at least explained why I couldn't get much sense out of their website!

The line actually closed at the end of 2011 and it reopened under new management as the Delaware, Lackawaxen and Stourbridge RR in 2015.

The local Wayne County museum contains a 1932 built replica of the Foster, Rastrick & Co Stourbridge Lion (1829) of the Delaware & Hudson, though there is not a lot of room in there to get decent photos....

In addition they have the 1882 built passenger car "Eclipse" which was used on the D&H Gravity Railroad.......

Johann Marsbar · July 29, 2022

From Honesdale it was back to Scranton for the rest of the day, which is the home of the "Steamtown" rail museum, operated by the US National Parks Service. Having been there before, the main attraction as far as I was concerned was the new museum that had been established next door rather than Steamtown, but, for some reason , admission to the place was free the particular day we were there so we did go in and have a look around.

It strikes me as one of those places that promised a lot, but never really lived up to expectations, particularly if you frequent some of the US rail forums online and see some of the comments on there about the place. Whist they spent vast amounts of money in rebuilding the roundhouse area, an awful lot of their equipment hasn't received much attention (if any...) since the place was established in the 1990's. It's not just the Delaware-Lackawanna stored loco lineup depited a couple of posts earlier that has rusting locos in it. This former CN 4-6-4T of 1914 that was used on Montreal commuter services had deteriorated considerably since I previously saw it in 1998 and another 11 years on from 2011 it looks even worse now from images I've seen online....

Brooks-Scanlon Baldwin 2-6-2 #1 of 1914 is another one in need of attention.....

One of the locos displayed in the Roundhouse was EJ Lavino Steelworks Alco 0-6-0ST #3 of 1927.....

UP Big Boy #4012 was looking very presentable out by the car park and this has recently (2021-22) had a 12 month restoration/repaint carried out on it......(The cost? - Best part of US$1.6 Million!!!!)......

Not all the locomotives at the site are owned by the NPS and this Alco RS3 of 1952 is owned by the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society......

Reading FP7's #902+#903, dating from 1950, are owned by a couple of NRHS Chapters........

and "Lackawanna #663", an F3A built in 1948 for the Bangor & Aroostook is owned by the Tri-State RHS.....

In 2011 they did actually have an operating steam loco on-site (a rarity in recent years.....) and some short trips in the yard area were being run by this ex CN 2-8-2 #3254, built by CLC in 1917...

Then it was off to the place next-door, which turned out to be a very impressive set-up.......

Johann Marsbar · August 1, 2022

The museum "next door" to Steamtown is the Electric City Trolley Museum which was established in Scranton in 1999, though, as a preservation group, they previously had a very chequered history at a number of sites in PA/NJ starting from the early 1960's.

The set-up consists of a Museum building in Scranton and a restoration facility at Moosic, connected by a 5 or so mile long electrified line which is actually shared with Delaware-Lackawanna freight services. A lot of that trackage was originally used by the "Laurel Line", a third rail powered Interurban that ran between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre up to the early 1950's and includes a long tunnel at the Scranton end of the line.

At the Museum, a variety of cars were on display, albeit mainly ones of Philadelphia area origin. This electric freight motor/works car was built by St Louis Car in 1907 for the Philadelphia & Western (69th St to Norristown) and actually survived in use there until 1990!

One of the first generation passenger cars off the P&W is also at Scranton, #46 being another St Louis product of 1907. It ended up rebuilt into a works car in the late 1920's so has needed considerable restoration work to return it to passenger configuration...

To show how electric trams actually work, they have restored this ex Reading Birney Safety Car of 1920 to a sectioned exhibit. It looks complete from this angle, but the other end is cut-away with glass panels with all aspects of the body construction and the electrical gear labeled and on display for curious visitors.....

This tram ended up in Philadelphia as a rail-grinding car and was withdrawn in 1971. They have restored it to its original 1904 passenger car state when it was delivered new to the system in Wilmington, Delaware.....

Just to show how they discover vehicles for restoration, this unrestored car (another one from Reading) was also in the display building.....

The Trolley Museum excursions depart from the same platform at the Scranton end that the Steamtown ones depart from.....

The vehicle in use that day being Red Arrow Lines #76, a 1926 Brill product, where it is seen parked outside their restoration workshops at Moosic.....

The workshops are adjacent to a local baseball ground and a regular feature of museum operations is running a service out to games at that stadium with all-inclusive ticketing for the game and the ride.

On normal open days at the Museum, they only seem to run 4 round-trips for visitors, so you have to plan your visit carefully! They stop off for a short time at the workshops so that visitors can peer through glass windows to see what works are underway there. Whilst the rest were doing that, I had a word with a couple of the volunteers and we were let into the building for a quick look around what appeared to be a very impressive restoration facility.....

This car is Scranton #324 - originally new from Brill in 1903 and which was modernised at various times through to the 1930's. At the time of our visit in 2011, work hadn't started on this particular vehicle.....

...but this more recent photo taken from the Trolley Museum Website shows the transformation that it has undergone since then!!

Johann Marsbar · August 3, 2022

We left Scranton on the Sunday morning and headed off to Allentown for a Railroadiana and Model Train event that was taking place that day at the delightfully named DeRuff High School. Arriving before the event opened, we had an explore around the local area and found this NS loco + slug combination working in Allentown yard....

The slug, #862, was formerly a PRR Alco RSD-12 of 1958.

After visiting the show, we headed west to have a quick look at what was about in Port Clinton at the Reading and Northern..........

and even the local Fire Department had parked some of their equipment in a photographable position....

From there, the next point of call was the Reading Railroad Historical Museum in Hamburg, PA. They have quite an extensive collection of Reading RR exhibits and have recently erected a storage building to house some of them - something that was badly needed......

They even had a couple of local buses in the collection, including this former Red Rose Transit (Lancaster) Flixible of 1990....

From there we continued south to Lancaster, where we would be staying for the last 4 nights of the trip. En route, we diverted via Strasburg and the nearby Irishtown Road level crossing which still hadn't been closed off by that date....

After checking in at our hotel, which was near to the Amtrak station, we walked to the Iron Hill Brewing premises on the Franklin & Marshall Univerity complex for an evening meal, passing by the still open NS stabling point in Dillerville Yard on the way.....

Mike_Walker · August 3, 2022

Back in the late eighties the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society were able to lease space in the old Company shops in Reading enabling timeless images such as this to be created. At that time the line from Temple (Reading) to Hamburg was operated by the Blue Mountain & Reading, the forerunner of today's Reading & Northern. The shops were later redeveloped sadly.

5308 is an ALCo Century C630 whilst 5513 was the first production EMD GP30.

Johann Marsbar · August 3, 2022

1 hour ago, Mike_Walker said:

Back in the late eighties the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society were able to lease space in the old Company shops in Reading enabling timeless images such as this to be created. At that time the line from Temple (Reading) to Hamburg was operated by the Blue Mountain & Reading, the forerunner of today's Reading & Northern. The shops were later redeveloped sadly.

5308 is an ALCo Century C630 whilst 5513 was the first production EMD GP30.

Rather appropriately, the August Railpace turned up today and there is a photo of a Reading RR "Parade" Camelback loco - on rubber tyres - posing outside some of the shop buildings there in June this year. The buildings have been stabilised and are now used by the Yeager Supply Company as a storage warehouse.

Johann Marsbar · August 4, 2022

On the Monday we took a run into Philadelphia on Amtrak and had a run around the City on one of the SEPTA day "Independence Passes", which at that time were scratch card or punch type tickets with no limit on the number of trips you could do in a day. You are now restricted to 8 journeys and they are smartcard based, though paper ones may be still available for visitors.

There is a time limit (09.30) for their use on the Regional Rail services, so our first journey was north on the Market-Frankford Elevated and thence onwards on the route 66 trolleybus to get Breakfast at the "Dining Car" - a traditional (and well patronised) diner on the trolleybus route that I had discovered the year before.....

After breakfast, we carried on to the City Line terminus of the 66 and connected into the 304 motorbus service that runs through Croydon and eventually ends up terminating at Bristol station where some time was spent photographing passing Amtrak traffic......

...both the Amtrak AEM-7's and HHP-8's having since been withdrawn from service.

From there we took a SEPTA local service back into central Philly and then out to Wayne Junction where this elderly (early 1960's) "Silverliner" car was being shunted around....

I believe the official "Farewell Tour" for those units had happened over the weekend prior to our visit and they only saw limited use thereafter.

Next on the Agenda was the Route 15 out to Westmoreland with its rebuilt 1940's PCC cars....

The tracks branching off to the right on the second photo are a line that goes to one of the riverside casino developments (and a brewery...) but that still hadn't opened to passenger traffic at that stage. It has acted as the default eastern terminus of the line for most of the past 10 years as well, due to the amount of road construction work on the main route up to Westmoreland loop.

We did leap off the tram at one stage after seeing a couple of locos outstationed for working the local Conrail Shared Assets lines - one being from CSX and the other from NS, though the latter was still, rather appropriately, in Conrail livery...

From there it was out on the Market-Frankford line to 69th Street Terminal and thence on the former "Red Arrow" Interurban line out to Media to visit the local Iron Hill Brewery premises for sustenance. One of the cars used on the Media/Sharon Hill lines is seen at the terminus in Main Street, Media, with the tracks ending about 15 ft behind the tram....

From Media we headed back to 69th Terminal and took a short run on the "High Speed Line" out to Bryn Mawr........

...before heading back into the City and catching our Amtrak service back to Lancaster.

Johann Marsbar · August 6, 2022

The following day was spent doing a circular tour around the area, calling in at places of interest, the first of which was Columbia, PA. Rail traffic through here tends to be nocturnal in operation, but we dropped lucky this day as there were a couple of trains parked up in town (or just outside), one of which was more accessible than the other......

Formerly a very busy, electrified, PRR freight artery, the "Port Road" line doesn't see a great deal of traffic nowadays.

From Columbia, we headed north to Middletown, the HQ of the Middletown & Hummelstown Railroad, a freight cum tourist train operation with a rather diverse selection of rolling stock parked up in their yard at Middletown.

Three of their diesels were there, which included this ex US Army GE 65 Tonner dating from 1941......

ex Western Maryland Alco S6 #151 of 1956......

and ex Newburgh & South Shore Alco T6 #1016 of 1969.....

Their tourist stock is composed of various ex DL&W electric unit cars.......

Whilst there are a number of Rapid Transit and street railway vehicles also kept in storage there.....

From Middletown we skirted around Harrisburg to see what was visible in Enola Yard and the Rockville bridge area. This selection of CITX locos provided a bit of colour around the loco depot in the yard.......

...and this Intermodal was photographed crossing the landmark Rockville stone bridge....

We then headed back to Lancaster and parked the car up at the hotel as we had plans to return to Harrisburg that evening on Amtrak. However, when we arrived at Lancaster Station, we discovered that there were problems with the train service and the train we hoped to catch was running over an hour late. This would have messed up the time we had in Harrisburg, so abandoned that trip until the following evening and just went to the Lancaster Brewing Company for the evening instead!

Whilst we were at the station, we did see one of the NS locals getting ready to depart......

and a Philadelphia bound Amtrak service came in from Harrisburg......

Johann Marsbar · August 7, 2022

A rather wet morning the following day - which resulted in some flash flooding encountered in the car - precluded much photography, though there was a fair bit of rail activity to observe around the Enola/Rockville areas to the north of Harrisburg.

After managing to find our way around the 12"-18" deep flooded roads around the Steelton area, we arrived at a somewhat drier Landisville, just to the west of Lancaster, where we found the local Shortline - The Landisville Railroad - working its branchline. They only operate Mon/Wed/Fri, so as it was a Wednesday, the visit had been timed accordingly and we found their loco retrieving a cut of cars from the Interchange sidings adjacent to the Amtrak/NS Harrisburg line. Their livery looks rather inspired by the former Chessie System colours, though the loco is quite historic, being constructed as an NW1 for the Lehigh Valley back in 1938. It was later converted to an SW900 and is the main motive power used on the former Reading branchline operated by the Landisville RR. We spent an hour or so following its progress along the line....

Once it had proceeded beyond the Landisville built up area, the train was less easy to follow - though the branch isn't very long - so we then headed back into Lancaster and parked the car at the hotel, hoping that Amtrak were running more to time that day. We needn't have worried, so were able to catch an earlier train to Harrisburg than planned, giving plenty of time to have a look round the station there - including an impromptu tour of the place from an Amtrak employee - before heading off to the nearby Appalachian Brewing premises for a couple of hours and then catching the train back to Lancaster later that evening.

Johann Marsbar · August 8, 2022

The last day of the trip saw us head initially to have a look around York in the hope of finding some York Rail activity - which we actually managed to do, unlike my trip the previous year.

A drive past the end of what is now the "York Industrial Track" - the stub of the former York to Hallam and Wrightsville line - found former Quaboag Transfer GP9 #1701 - new to PRR in 1957 - now owned by the East Penn Railroad and used as their York area locomotive.

Next point of call was the York Rail loco depot located in fairly depressing surroundings in the eastern part of the City centre adjacent to a scrapyard, the fence of which forms an annoying barrier to any chance of a decent photo. YRC #1754, a former B&O GP9 of 1956 did at least have the sun shining on it though.....

Continuing into the downtown area - specifically around where the former station used to be, we caught the rear end of a freight heading west so then attempted to "give chase" to see what was on it and whether it was actually going to stop off at some point. Luckilly for us, after losing sight of the thing, a bit of driving around saw us discover a small yard in the western part of York which was the trains destination. First thing we saw wasn't actually the train we had been following, but this SW9, painted in historic Maryland and Pennsylvania colours but with York Rail reporting marks. This particular loco was new to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie back in 1952......

The freight we were chasing was now performing switching moves in the yard, the locos involved being a pair of ex Santa Fe CF7's.....

#1500 was apparently the last CF7 constructed/rebuilt by the Santa Fe.

After some time watching the yard moves we headed off to the local Harley Davidson factory for a free tour of the plant, before heading east back to Philadelphia for the flight home.

We stopped off in Kennett Square for the statutory look at what was parked up around the East Penn RR HQ. Lettered for Penn Eastern Rail Lines Inc (rather than East Penn RR) was #2206, a 1966 GE U28B formerly owned by the Rock Island.......