Harrisburg with Gonzo & Tom

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Since it's a holiday (for a few of us lucky souls), Tom and I headed up to central PA to meet Gonzo and spent some time out in this wonderful (read: cold) weather, and caught some NS action in the snow.

I've got a few more images, as well as numerous sizes, on the gallery page here: http://ed.kapuscinski.net/gallery2/v/ProtoRR/Feb2007/

First up, while waiting for Gonzo to get done at the coal mine, we saw the Steelton local (which I've been hoping to see for a LONG time) heading to work. I navigated unfamiliar territory, and ended up catching him while he was waiting for, well, who knows... (the longer it takes, the more money they makes...) This was really frustrating, because as cool as this photo is, it was about 300' from these gorgeous s-curves that would've been absolutely awesome.


After meeting up with the infamous Gonzo, we heard some chatter on the scanner and his STI made great haste for Hummelstown.


We then headed back (we were trying for food, but NS keep feeding us trains) toward Rutherford. There was a car that set off defect detector due to some dragging banding, and they decided to fix it right here in front of us. While they were working on that, another eastbound snuck up beside him to get by. There are a few more pix in the gallery too.


After they tucked the offending banding up back onto the car, they started off. Here they are a few hundred feet from knocking down the signals at, get this, CP Beaver. The trailers behind the leader are the RoadRailers inside the Rutherford Triple Crown facility, and the track on the left is the lead into the Rutherford intermodal terminal.


And here's the lead douche9 knocking down the signal @ CP Beaver.


A boring intermodal came by, but it was saved by a blue trailing unit. We actually saw quite a bit of blue today, which was a NICE treat. Then again, I also saw a lot of blue GP15-1s being collected in Enola getting ready to be shipped out.


We then grabbed some burritos at Neato Burrito. This place is the shiz-NITE. Check it out if you're in HBG.
http://www.neatoburrito.com/

After some tortilla lovin, we headed west to Cove. This was taken at what WAS the site of the Cove Diner. The regular spot at the signals was snowed in, and doesn't look like it'll be good till spring.


Ahh, and here's a train making ready to head up the Buffalo line (we'll see him again later). This 31T was all ready and rarin to head out, but had to first cut out a shop (bad ordered) car, then had to double up his train (I guess the yard crews were too busy to assemble it all on one departure track???) before he could head out. Luckilly he had a blue leader!


While he was getting going, a westbound empty coal train also was departing to head west on the Pittsburgh Line. He also had blue in the consist, although his was a trailer.


I feel that there are a lot of "done" photos in the Harrisburg area. Shots from the Iron Bridge outside Enola, the Cove signal bridges, crossing Rockville, etc... One of the areas that never seems to be explored anymore, anyway, is CP Wye, at the east end of the Rockville Bridge. There's a public road that goes right through the wye here (but railfans beware, the guy in the house adjacent to the tracks is NOT railfan friendly). Here's the 31T again, heading north for Buffalo (and we thought it was cold in HBG!).


And if you think these Dash 8s look funny on this tight curve, you should've seen the 89' boxcars. Strangely enough though, there wasn't NEARLY as much flange squeal as I had expected.


And even though the light was fading, we got lucky at the grade crossing and caught 31T's counterpart, the 30T coming down off the Buffalo line. It was funny seeing the two trains in such close proximity, because for all the emptys on 31T, there were loads  on 30T. Believe it or not, this is an NS train. Gonzo made a point of mentioning that the Buffalo Line trains are HBG's only hope for foreign leaders, since that line doesn't need the cab signals that put the newer GE and EMD power on the point of Pittsburgh Line trains. Here we caught two CSX AC4400s (which I could've seen in Baltimore, but they wouldn't have been heading across Rockville Bridge here in the Charm City...)

[SAH]

Thanks for taking the time to write up your trip Ed.  Brought back some memories of fun train chasing trips.  I really like the shot at Hummelstown.  And the Steelton shot - did you hold some bare super trees in front of the lens to frame the engines?  ;D ;D

Steve

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Wow, I didn't even notice that, look! There are balls in that tree!!!! I now feel much better about my supertrees!

I'm glad you enjoyed them.

[cr6841]

Since it's a holiday (for a few of us lucky souls), Tom and I headed up to central PA to meet Gonzo and spent some time out in this wonderful (read: cold) weather, and caught some NS action in the snow.

I've got a few more images, as well as numerous sizes, on the gallery page here: http://ed.kapuscinski.net/gallery2/v/ProtoRR/Feb2007/

First up, while waiting for Gonzo to get done at the coal mine, we saw the Steelton local (which I've been hoping to see for a LONG time) heading to work. I navigated unfamiliar territory, and ended up catching him while he was waiting for, well, who knows... (the longer it takes, the more money they makes...) This was really frustrating, because as cool as this photo is, it was about 300' from these gorgeous s-curves that would've been absolutely awesome.


After meeting up with the infamous Gonzo, we heard some chatter on the scanner and his STI made great haste for Hummelstown.


We then headed back (we were trying for food, but NS keep feeding us trains) toward Rutherford. There was a car that set off defect detector due to some dragging banding, and they decided to fix it right here in front of us. While they were working on that, another eastbound snuck up beside him to get by. There are a few more pix in the gallery too.


After they tucked the offending banding up back onto the car, they started off. Here they are a few hundred feet from knocking down the signals at, get this, CP Beaver. The trailers behind the leader are the RoadRailers inside the Rutherford Triple Crown facility, and the track on the left is the lead into the Rutherford intermodal terminal.


And here's the lead douche9 knocking down the signal @ CP Beaver.


A boring intermodal came by, but it was saved by a blue trailing unit. We actually saw quite a bit of blue today, which was a NICE treat. Then again, I also saw a lot of blue GP15-1s being collected in Enola getting ready to be shipped out.


We then grabbed some burritos at Neato Burrito. This place is the shiz-NITE. Check it out if you're in HBG.
http://www.neatoburrito.com/

After some tortilla lovin, we headed west to Cove. This was taken at what WAS the site of the Cove Diner. The regular spot at the signals was snowed in, and doesn't look like it'll be good till spring.


Ahh, and here's a train making ready to head up the Buffalo line (we'll see him again later). This 31T was all ready and rarin to head out, but had to first cut out a shop (bad ordered) car, then had to double up his train (I guess the yard crews were too busy to assemble it all on one departure track???) before he could head out. Luckilly he had a blue leader!


While he was getting going, a westbound empty coal train also was departing to head west on the Pittsburgh Line. He also had blue in the consist, although his was a trailer.


I feel that there are a lot of "done" photos in the Harrisburg area. Shots from the Iron Bridge outside Enola, the Cove signal bridges, crossing Rockville, etc... One of the areas that never seems to be explored anymore, anyway, is CP Wye, at the east end of the Rockville Bridge. There's a public road that goes right through the wye here (but railfans beware, the guy in the house adjacent to the tracks is NOT railfan friendly). Here's the 31T again, heading north for Buffalo (and we thought it was cold in HBG!).


And if you think these Dash 8s look funny on this tight curve, you should've seen the 89' boxcars. Strangely enough though, there wasn't NEARLY as much flange squeal as I had expected.


And even though the light was fading, we got lucky at the grade crossing and caught 31T's counterpart, the 30T coming down off the Buffalo line. It was funny seeing the two trains in such close proximity, because for all the emptys on 31T, there were loads  on 30T. Believe it or not, this is an NS train. Gonzo made a point of mentioning that the Buffalo Line trains are HBG's only hope for foreign leaders, since that line doesn't need the cab signals that put the newer GE and EMD power on the point of Pittsburgh Line trains. Here we caught two CSX AC4400s (which I could've seen in Baltimore, but they wouldn't have been heading across Rockville Bridge here in the Charm City...)

ed,

         the leader of the "boring intermodal" is also a cr unit in disguise, but you knew that right??? another tid-bit, all of the NS SD9M's are officially retired, as many have thought that the two in pavonia, are active, but they are not. ALL of the cr gp15-1's are now slated for retirement and on the market, according to a few sources, due to the success of the gp38 rebuild program that sees more coming????? anybody hear of this?

[tom mann]

We have to do this again, @Ed Kapuscinski .

[sirenwerks]

Is it just me or is anyone else not seeng the picks and, when clicking on Ed's link, getting the following:

[Ed Kapuscinski]

That'd probably be right. That gallery site went away a long time ago.
I wonder where the photos went. I think I might've moved them to http://railfanning.kapuscinski.net.

That's an odd 404 page though.

Ahh, Web Detritus.

And yes, Tom, we absolutely must.