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Chasin' Down a Train

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  • Chasin' Down a Train

    We found ourselves overstaffed at work today, had three drivers on expecting more calls than we actually got, since the recent week of absolutely FRIGID days has kept everyone at home. (Monday was SUPER busy as dozens and dozens of car batteries called it quits when the mercury first went below zero)

    Around noon, boss told me to just knock off for the day since there was no point in me standing around losing the feeling in my toes on company time. You don't have to tell me twice!

    Thirty minutes later, I'm nearing the end of my commute and about a mile from home when a horn suddenly goes off and shakes me out of my highway hypnosis.

    What? What I do? Who's blaring that at me? Sounds like a truck.

    And there it goes again, and... wait, that's no truck....

    It's a train at the crossing?

    The one that NEVER has a train at it?

    Yep. Looks like my cut-short work day means I'm now running on time to actually SEE the train that I know goes through here, but I never get to see it, just HEAR it from the next valley over as it signals for this very crossing.

    And it's not the usual Norfolk Southern coal drag? It's our semi-famous * little shortline railroad coming through? I gotta get a picture of this.

    https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...4a&oe=55589527

    Oops, too slow on the shutter.... well, time to pull a 180 and try and beat her to the next crossing. (If you aren't a railfan, you won't understand this strange compulsion, but just pretend you do for the story and play along.)

    And they've upgraded the track around here, meaning the trains no longer do 25.. they do 40.... well, fortunately, nobody else was on the road and I got to the next town with time to spare and wait....

    https://scontent-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...5b&oe=558765AA

    Darn it! Something glinted into the camera lens and put a huge violet/blue tinge on everything! I managed to cure it as best I could in photoshop, but at the time I took the picture, it was awful!

    Back into the car and on to the next town.... and this time I was ready

    https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.n...30097085_o.jpg

    BAM! New FB profile picture and a nice one if I do say so myself.

    For those really interested, the N&BE motive power on display is veteran GP8 #1603 (ex-Reading ex-Conrail GP7 rebuilt at IC-Paducah), GP10 #1804 (ex-PRR ex-Conrail GP9, also an IC refurbish out of Paducah) and GP38 #2004 (ex-Penn Central) wearing the EL-inspired colors of the North Shore line.

    So that's how I spent my afternoon, placating my desire to pursue my main two hobbies, photography and trainspotting.

    * The Nittany & Bald Eagle stood in for the fictional Allegheny & West Virginia Railroad in the Denzel Washington action movie Unstoppable a few years back. If you saw that film, you actually saw this area, albeit in the fall with a light misty rain falling. The road in the foreground follows the tracks for about 10 miles and in places is so close that the shoulder is essentially the tracks. Many of the ground-level "pacing" shots in the film were done right here.
    - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

  • #2
    Nice shots, Arga. Very cool engines, I like the N & BE livery. I'm also chuckling over the afternoon the engineer had spotting you at multiple crossings.

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    • #3
      I hope your toes felt better after you got those lovely photos.
      "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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      • #4
        If he even noticed :P

        When the NBE first started hauling around here circa 1984, they had only a single chunk of track (reactivated ex-PRR branch line that had been abandoned), imagine it as a big letter "J" from the air, with us living at the end of the hook end, and the junction with the big railroad (then Conrail) at the other, with pair of sold-on ATSF CF-7's in the Santa Fe blue/yellow scheme for motive power, and they didn't even paint the big letters out or change the road numbers, just put "NBE" on the cab and away they went.

        By 1990, when they'd taken delivery of the GP's, they had their own livery to put on them, and I've always liked the Eagle right on the nose.

        During those first hardscrabble years, their only customers were a Corning plant and a lime plant, the name of the railroad referenced where those two things were, the lime plant just outside Bald Eagle, PA and the Corning plant in State College at the foot of Mt. Nittany.

        30 Years on and the Corning plant is gone (they made glass CRT computer monitors, LOTs of them, requiring 9 railcars worth of sand every few weeks, the plasma screen among other things forced them to close around 02') but they've still got the lime plant, and, branched out into other local industries.

        In fact, a few years back, something happened I thought I'd never see in my lifetime, they laid new track in this town, out to a rock quarry that wanted rail service. They also refurbished a "missing link" section that they owned, but had been abandoned, allowing them to connect to the Norfolk Southern on both ends and offer up trackage rights for NS trains that suddenly had a short cut.

        That's when we stopped being just a wobbly, long, industrial spur and became an actual freight corridor, and they upgraded the track, throwing out the old sectional rail for continuous-welded rail.

        Since then, about a dozen or so trains a week come through, instead of one-a-month. Like I said, I hear them whistle for the crossing, but rarely get to see them.
        - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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        • #5
          Very nice photos! Maybe send a copy of that last one to the N&BE offices, they should like it.
          I don't have an attitude problem. You have a perception problem.
          My LiveJournal
          A page we can all agree with!

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          • #6
            I think I'm going to at least try to do some cut and paste work first, and get rid of that highway reflector that's sticking up like an obscene middle finger, that's really the only blemish in an otherwise "brochure ready" shot, isn't it? But such is the angst of the amateur photographer in me.
            - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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            • #7
              Sorry for a thread necromancy, but, here's something else I got that day. Video. Was taken between pictures as I was passing the train up to get to the next crossing. I never posted it before because I thought it had been deleted when I couldn't find it on the camera memory stick. Turns out the cam stores video in a different folder, didn't accidentally find it again until a few days ago.

              https://www.facebook.com/paul.seifer...ideo_processed
              - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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              • #8
                I've chased a few trains over the years...usually on NS' Monongahela Line, out of Shire Oaks Yard (Elrama, PA...south of Pittsburgh). Once trains leave Shire Oaks, they have to slow for a long curve before New Eagle. Usually, if there's no traffic present, I can get well ahead of them in the MG, pull over, and then wave to the engineer. Unfortunately, I don't have video
                Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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                • #9
                  There's another good spot along the William Penn Hwy between Huntingdon and Mapleton Depot where the Pittsburgh Line and the road are straight arrow even for about 3 miles. A bit more spectacular in that the speed on that line is 60-65
                  - They say nothing good happens at 2AM, they're right, I happen at 2AM.

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