Mountain railroading just for Jeffrey Ward!

[Trainman203]

https://mirc.sc.edu/islandora/object/usc%3A57406

[jward]

After a couple of days of trying i still can't get that film to play, though i can view stills.

Here is an interesting observation about Horseshoe Curve. In one of the scenes you will notice the 242 signal bridge has 5 signals for only four tracks. This is due to traffic being much heavier coming down the mountain than up. The through train counts are roughly equal, but helpers returning to the bottom of the mountain after assisting trains to the top skew the overall traffic mix in favour of eastbound. The solution was to make track 3 bi-directional. It is the only one of the four to be signalled in both directions. Also, if you notice, the two westbound (uphill) signals have 3 lights diagonal  just below the number plate. In order to keep traffic moving even when there was a train ahead, these signals are set up to display restricting instead of stop: three horizontal lights on the main signal had, plux the three diagonals. Why would they go to this trouble when the number plate gives trains authority to pass a stop signal after stopping? Because of the heavy grade, starting a train on the mountain was something they wanted to avoid if possible. A restricting indication allows a train to pass the signal prepared to stop short of a train or other obstruction. In an area where trains might take 10 minutes to clear the block after the engines passed the signal, the ability to keep traffic moving  even at reduced speed kept the railroad fluid. During the height of World War two, over 300 trains a day passed by the Curve. It is an incredible amount of traffic, nowadays found only in a few places on the East coast where commuter trains are plentiful.

[ebtnut]

I visited the Curve this holiday weekend.  Traffic was light, as expected for the holiday and the business recession related to the covid virus.  The automated lift was closed due to lack of social distancing so you had to climb the stairs to get to the viewing area.  Probably been 30 years since I did that and it took several brief rest stops for this 70+ body to get there.  The Geep 9 on display really needs to be scraped and repainted.  Probably hasn't had any maintenance since it replaced the K-4.

[Trainman203]

Geep 9's are museum material now.  That thing needs to be moved inside.  They need to commission some kind of artwork sculpture piece to go there.

[jward]

Horseshoe Curve hasn't been the same since they redid the park around 1990. I miss the winding walk through the woods and the 119 steps to the top. I also miss being able to easily access the ledges at either end of the curve that provide the best photos.  And i miss the funky little gift shop that used to be at the bottom, that at one time sold Athearn and Roundhouse kits.

That GP9 may be stuffed and mounted, but one of its sisters still runs on the Pittsburgh & Ohio Central near where i work. There were alot of miles left in those GP9s, and parts are easy to find. The recession of the 1980s and the collapse of the steel industry and the traffic it generated did them in on Conrail and B&O. Hard to justify rebuilding them when you had hundreds of newer locomotives stored.

Traffic levels over the Curve have dropped precipitously in the past year. This is as much due to "Precision Scheduled Railroading" as any other factor. When NS  adopted this , like CSX before them, they effectively declared war on smaller shippers. CSX went from 14 daily general freights over Sand Patch to just 4, NS has gone from 16 to 8. Numerous intermodal trains were also eliminated, then COvid killed off the oil train traffic. We are now at the point where NS is running fewer trains over the mountain than CSX did before 2008. I never thought i'd see the day when fewer than 2 trains an hour tackled the mountain. Just a few short years ago, during my annual 24 hour train surveys the count was 75-85.

[ebtnut]

Jeff:  Yeah I agree.  I got out for the afternoon on Friday.  Caught two trains passing each other at South Fork.  The eastbound was a loaded coal train, which I was able to chase and catch at Lily and Cresson.  A pair of helpers went west.  Shortly thereafter two more eastbounds came through Cresson, one right behind the other on 1 and 2 tracks.  The trailing train was oil/ethanol tanks.  I headed up to Gallitzen to see if a westbound would show, but had to head back to McK.  As I was rolling down US 22 I did see a westbound heading up. Oh well.

[jward]

I've been taking the wife and dog out to Packsaddle on Thursday evenings. Usually between about 5 and dark we catch about 10-12 trains. It seems to be the busiest time of the day. There are 4 mail trains/ stack trains each way, usually a monster westbound freight and Amtrak, plus an Eastbound Autorack and possibly an eastbound garbage train. We can't see the Conemaugh Line from our location, but we usually hear two eastbounds working their way across the river in the gorge. Used to do the same thing many years ago with my grandfather at Latrobe, and we'd often catch 20 or more trains.

Did you know about https://sites.google.com/site/ptrailfan/hsc_board ? This site keeps track of what trains are passing Horseshoe Curve.

[Trainman203]

Jeffrey, you already know that the recession of the late 1950s finished off steam in much the same fashion several years before the end should have come.  I read somewhere that before, the Nickel Plate had planned on the continued use of its 2-8-4's until at least 1963 and maybe even longer.  Can you imagine how the railfan world would have been.  The NKP would have been mobbed daily.  A lot of those engines would have been only 25 or 30 years old, still in their prime.

The 80's recession in the same way killed the last of the classic 40' freight cars.

Your wife goes on railroad outings with you?  Man, I have never heard of such a thing. It's me instead that has to, until recently, go to all the craft shows. 🙄😴. When some fine railroading could be going on.

[ebtnut]

Jeff:  Where do go - Bolivar?  Or down the other end?

[jward]

Jeff:  Where do go - Bolivar?  Or down the other end?

We do to the Torrance end, near CP Pack.

[jward]

Jeffrey, you already know that the recession of the late 1950s finished off steam in much the same fashion several years before the end should have come.  I read somewhere that before, the Nickel Plate had planned on the continued use of its 2-8-4's until at least 1963 and maybe even longer.  Can you imagine how the railfan world would have been.  The NKP would have been mobbed daily.  A lot of those engines would have been only 25 or 30 years old, still in their prime.

The 80's recession in the same way killed the last of the classic 40' freight cars.

Your wife goes on railroad outings with you?  Man, I have never heard of such a thing. It's me instead that has to, until recently, go to all the craft shows. 🙄😴. When some fine railroading could be going on.

The recession of the 1980s also killed off the remaining F units and Alcos on the big railroads, along with the 55 ton and offset side hopper cars.


Yes the wife has been my railroad companion for may years. We've pitched a tent alongside the railroad and spent the weekend many times. She's been to the East Broad Top, and ridden the Northeast COrridor with me. We chased the NS steam excursions a few years back. We've stood on top the mountain above Gallitzen tunnels at 1 am watching a heavy westbound claw its way to the summit. And she's been to such iconic places on the B&O as M&K junction, Sand Patch, and the Magnolia cutoff. All in all a wonderful woman.