Railroad Media Archive
Conrail Pittsburgh Line East of Gallitzin June 1993
updated
---Locations---
0:00 - Alexandria
4:11 - Muncie
10:55 - Alexandria
14:55 - Marion
20:11 - Alexandria
22:03 - Marion
37:28 - Alexandria
40:00 - Not sure. Possibly around Wabash?
43:03 - Wabash
44:09 - Marion
46:08 - Alexandria
49:39 - Not sure. Somewhere on the Marion Branch.
51:48 - Alexandria
1:01:16 - Marion
1:03:59 - Wabash
1:06:56 - Marion
1:09:11 - Alexandria
1:12:46 - Waynoka, Oklahoma
1:14:56 - Curtis Hill area
1:19:47 - Marion
1:27:21 - Definitely somewhere on the Marion Branch.
1:28:22 - Wabash
1:31:10 - I think this is Marion.
1:34:55 - Not sure.
1:36:08 - Wabash
1:38:04 - Marion
1:53:08 - Alexandria
The image is a train on the impressive Moodna Viaduct in Salisbury Mills, NY.
Creative Commons image link: commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moodna_Viaduct_Wikivoyage_banner_small.jpg
Radio audio aboard my only trip on the NEC, a day trip from NYP to Washington and return on trains 141 and 148. Also included is some NJ Transit radio at the beginning. The two remaining interlocking towers heard in this recording: Dock in Newark, and K in Washington, D.C. have since closed.
Creative commons image used as overlay: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_Regional#/media/File:Northeast_Regional_152_(12384532733).jpg
I don't know who took these other than their initials are "RK", and that they were still shooting silent standard 8mm movies in the mid 1980s. I converted the tape to the 18fps of Super 8mm film and the speed still looked off. The standard 8mm framerate of 16fps looked more natural. These films were copied to Hi8 tape in the 1990s I suspect with a Tobin transfer unit.
These were mostly taken around Harrisburg, Allentown, Alexandria and Manassas, Virginia, and Potomac Yard. The excursion with 611 on the Southern W-Line was in 1984. The 2102 excursion from Harrisburg to Bethlehem, PA might have been 1985 (could use some clarification).
Yes, this video is only 480p. Films copied to tape have a much lower quality ceiling and would have looked terrible upscaled further.
This is a ride on Conrail local WILO-01 (I think) from Kent on the former Erie-Lackawanna west through Ravenna, Leavittsburg, then Warren. At WAR (formerly the location of North Warren tower) they head south on the former PRR PY&A branch down to Niles where they appear to pick up some steel coils, head back north to Warren and this time head east on the former Erie main (the one-time 2nd subdivision) and the photographer gets off at Cortland.
I am guessing on the local symbol. A Conrail freight schedule from this era showed WILO-01 as Lordstown to Kent and return, but said nothing about them going to Cortland (and likely Latimer and the Youngstown Line).
The Erie main through Kent and Ravenna was sold to the Wheeling & Lake Erie in 1994. The line further east through Windham to Leavittsburg was abandoned, but the rails remain in place in many areas. The PY&A from Niles to Warren plus the Erie out to Leavittsburg was sold Ohio Central in 1996, and its subsidiary Youngstown Belt runs on it to the present day (at least around Warren and Niles...out to Leavittsburg appears to not be used).
The Erie out through Cortland to Latimer stayed Conrail and NS past 1999 and is still technically NS, but as far as I'm aware hasn't seen service since a steel mill in Warren shut down in 2013. Conrail and later NS brought coke down from Ashtabula for the mill. Last I knew NS was storing cars on it. As an aside the old signals east and west of Warren on the Erie ("SB" and "MK", respectively) are still standing in 2023.
---Locations---
0:00 - Kent.
4:52 - Starting east through the remnant of Kent yard and crossing over the CSX New Castle Sub (one time B&O main).
13:07 - Crossing over the Conrail Cleveland Line and former PRR Brady tower (still standing in 2023).
The next 25 minutes or so are spent switching industries in Ravenna.
51:00 - Windham.
57:53 - Leavittsburg a.k.a. SN...where the line to Cleveland through Youngstown used to connect (the 1st subdivision). The parallel line to the right is CSX Newton Falls Sub (rails now gone).
1:01:40 - Home signal for CP-SB (signal and cantilever still stand in 2023).
1:03:18 - Warren.
1:07:21 - Crossing the one-time B&O Fairport Branch (crossing was also called North Warren).
1:10:20 - Going around the connection to the PY&A to head to Niles.
1:13:02 - Going under the B&O Fairport Branch, then the Erie 1st Sub, followed by the Newton Falls Sub.
1:20:24 - Coming into the "yard" at Niles, grabbing cars and heading back the same way.
1:29:00 - Back at WAR and turning east on the former Erie 2nd Sub.
1:30:37 - Ducking under the signals and cantilever of one-time CP-MK. (Both still remain in 2023).
1:41:59 - Cortland.
0:00 - Triskett
0:44 - E 34th St.
1:04 - E 55th St.
4:21 - Somewhere near E 55th St.
5:41 - Somewhere near University Circle where the Red Line, NKP and C.U.T./NYC all parallel.
7:29 - Now onto the Shaker Heights Line. At the loop and the end of the Van Aiken Line.
8:32 - Starting into the cut just east of Shaker Square.
9:05 - I think this is the Lee Rd. station on the Green Road line. That's the only place where there's a curve like that.
9:41 - Warrensville Loop (the end of the Green Line).
10:35 - Back at the Lee Road curve.
11:55 - Coventry station (obviously).
12:58 - Shaker Square.
14:32 - Going over the PRR (now NS's Cleveland Line) along McCurdy Ave.
16:07 - Cut by St. Luke's Hospital.
21:02 - Back in the spaghetti bowl of trackage just east of C.U.T.
23:28 - NKP freights somewhere.
24:21 - NYC trains at the west of Berea.
25:22 - Some kind of a fan trip/group outing along the Shaker Heights Lines in the late 70s during the CTS-RTA transition period. All the locations were previously seen.
36:31 - Red Line "Airporter" cars at Puritas station.
The Shaker Heights Rapid Transit (now RTA's Blue/Green Lines) have been in operation in some form or another since 1913. Some of the PCC cars ran into the 1980s, and the Breda cars that replaced them are still running today.
It's pretty obvious the narrator simply pointed a camera at a screen and ran the films on a projector while narrating, so the quality really isn't the best, but the films and his commentary are priceless.
More info on Cleveland streetcars can be found here. http://www.tundria.com/trams/USA/Cleveland-1946.php
I will definitely have more on Cleveland's RTA rapid transit lines in the future.
The audio of the presentation isn't the best since there was no microphone other than the one on the camera.
Speakers in order of appearance:
MUSA President Charlie Dunn
Marion Area Chamber of Commerce President Pam Hall
Marion Mayor Jack Kellogg
Kevin P. Keefe and Rob McGonigal from Kalmbach Publishing (TRAINS and Classic TRAINS magazines)
Kevin and Rob presented MUSA with TRAINS Magazine's first preservation award of $10,000.
0:00 - NS in downtown Cleveland across from the Amtrak station and unused RTA North Coast Station.
3:36 - NS westbound at Huron.
4:28 - Sequence at the River Road crossing in Vermilion.
7:42 - Wheeling train #224 just east of Norwalk near the summit of Hartland hill.
9:41 - FRA inspection train crossing Tiedeman Road in Brooklyn.
9:55 - Sequence at Marcy Trestle in Cuyahoga Heights.
17:23 - NS #315 coming off the Black River drawbridge in Lorain.
19:19 - Sequence at Old Middle Ridge Road in Amherst.
24:36 - Sequence at Grafton where the CSX Greenwich and CL&W Subdivisions intersect. The persevered tower is the last pure Big 4 tower-on-stilts in existence. Unfortunately, for the first train I couldn't get to the sunny side of the tracks quickly enough. The local seen coming south runs between Lester and Elyria.
27:24 - NS westbound at "Shawville" (where Route 83 crosses the Chicago Line near North Ridgeville).
29:02 - NS #171 at Orrville crossing under the Wheeling.
Anyway, dawn patrol at Millbury; followed by Clay Center, Graytown, Port Clinton, and Amherst in I'd say early spring 1999. The overpass that was the vantage point at Amherst has since been removed.
Locations are (in order): Bucyrus, North Robinson, and Crestline, plus a bonus Wheeling freight between Creston and Smithville. W&LE used their usual Brewster to Lima crew for this train, so I assumed (incorrectly as it turned out) that they were headed for Brewster. It's actually a faster drive from Crestline to areas west of Brewster rather than following the train on CSX from Crestline to New London, thence to Spencer, etc. It wasn't until I was near Orrville that I found out they had dropped the coaches off at Spencer and the power went to Hartland Yard (near Norwalk).
This was taken by former Erie-Lackawanna (and at the time Conrail) tower operator Phil Albano, Jr., who was tracing the former Erie-Lackawanna mainline from his native Ohio. I was privileged to have digitized his several reels of silent Super 8mm films from the late 70s and early 80s using a RetroScan HD to scan the movies with some additional (visual) clean-up in Avisynth. In time, those will be uploaded to YouTube as well.
Back then it was a little easier for railfans and employees to get in places they ordinarily wouldn't, and I'm guessing working for the railroad got you a "pass" to ride on the head end of a commuter train (I think it was a weekend).
Since all of the trackage this video was taken on still exists, this is a nice time capsule to show the former DL&W mainline during the transition between Erie-Lackawanna, Conrail, and NJ Transit. The only major things I can think of that are gone today are the terminal tower at Hoboken that was replaced with a modern brick structure in the early 1980s, and the station at Denville that was torn down on Halloween 1992. In addition, this pre-dates the Meadows Maintenance Complex and the connections to the Northeast Corridor at Karney Jct by almost two decades.
0:00 - NS #145 and Conrail ML-403 at E 305th St. in Wickliffe
3:57 - NLSE and ML-480Y (with NS power) departing Collinwood Yard at CP-171. Viewed from driveway off St. Clair Ave.
10:10 - Eastbound van train race at by the Olmsted Falls depot.
"VN" tower closed in the mid 80s and withered away until about ten years or so ago (as of August 2022) when it was finally torn down.
PS. MD Cabin still stands as a M.O.W. headquarters and actually looks better in 2022 than it did in this video. The model board from the tower is in the museum at Marion Union Station.
The "They tore the daylights out of the siding, by golly!" comment at the beginning was reference to a recent derailment at CP Alton outside of Buckeye Yard.
The train detoured through Springfield, Ohio (the usual route was through Xenia although it did not stop there) for reasons unknown, but a derailment or other calamity was a likely reason. For other unknown reasons they detoured on the former PRR alignment (the Greencastle Branch as PC called it) between the outskirts of Indianapolis and Terre Haute.
The image used for this video was from this actual trip. It was taken while they were waiting for NY-6 to clear the "new" connection outside Terre Haute, Indiana ("Prairie" interlocking, to be specific).
0:00 - On a very windy afternoon, M-MISLAU is seen just out of Helena.
1:01 - Helena East local on the Montana City Branch (12th Subdivision) in East Helena. At the time of my visit 355 was the only active MRL SD45.
1:48 - Backing into a concrete supplier in Montana City.
1:59 - Switching a customer in East Helena.
3:50 - On the move east on the main line passing the endangered Northern Pacific era searchlight signals at the west end of Winston siding.
4:09 - Arriving at Townsend, where the power will run around the train (not seen).
4:37 - On the move back to Helena crossing the Missouri River just out of Townsend.
4:51 - Accelerating from a stop out of the siding at Winston after meeting an eastbound BNSF (not seen).
5:42 - A morning westbound starts up Bozeman Pass just outside of Livingston.
7:51-9:56 - Logan Local in the Jefferson River Canyon between Sappington and Cardwell. This line (MRL calls it the 5th Subdivision) is the former route through Homestake Pass to Butte used by Northern Pacific's main passenger train, the "North Coast Limited". Currently, MRL only goes as far as Pipestone.
9:56 - Arriving at Whitehall, where they will switch a concrete place.
10:31 - On the move back to Logan, re-entering the canyon near Cardwell.
13:04 - Sappington.
13:17 - Coming into Logan.
14:00 - Back over to Livingston...the Bozeman Local navigates a short portion of the Yellowstone Branch to switch a lumber facility (R-Y Timber, Inc.).
17:46 - Back out on the main line climbing Bozeman Pass outside of Livingston.
19:21 - Exiting the west portal of Bozeman tunnel.
19:55 - Back at the previous location (just up on the hillside), the Livingston helper shoves the H-LAUPAS (yes, that is an SDP40).
22:08 - Three way meet at Greycliff between a westbound BNSF grain train, the MRL M-LAUMIS, and an eastbound ballast train.
26:42 - M-LAUMIS at Big Timber. I'm not sure if there was a problem with the 250 or if the engineer was showing off (on sunny days most all MRL powered trains attracted a small crowd).
Even if MRL disappears the amazing scenery, canyons, and mountain passes won't go away.
---Locations---
0:00 - BNSF coal train starts up Mullen Pass at Birdseye (with the city of Helena in the distance).
1:37 - Continuing its climb up Mullen Pass, the same BNSF coal train at the east end of Austin siding.
5:06 - Same BNSF coal train one last time crossing Austin Creek trestle (or Skyline trestle, if you prefer).
6:58 - MRL M-MISLAU (Missoula to Laurel road freight) at Jens.
7:43 - BNSF Q train with Boeing fuselages at Bearmouth.
8:24-9:30 - Chase of afternoon gas local* on the 10th subdivision around Arlee.
9:30 - Westbound ballast train followed the afternoon gas. Locations are around Arlee and Perma.
10:57 - Arriving at Paradise.
12:25 - Same BNSF Q train with the Boeing fuselages heads into the fading light at Weeksville.
13:57 - Morning gas local returning to Missoula the following morning. This location is near Eddy.
14:54 - Exiting the siding at Plains after meeting a westbound BNSF (not seen here).
15:52 - Meeting yet another BNSF at Paradise.
17:06 - Along the Flathead River on the 10th Subdivision near Paradise.
18:00-20:05 - The same ballast train shot the previous evening followed the gas local, dumping ballast on the 10th Sub as far as Dixon.
20:05 - Afternoon gas local on the 4th Subdivision climbing the grade out of Missoula.
20:34 - Superior.
20:59 - Crossing the Clark Fork River between St. Regis and Paradise.
21:25 - Coming to a stop at Paradise account bad signals.
22:42 - The following morning an eastbound BNSF oil train slowly descends the grade on the 10th Subdivision into Missoula.
24:13 - That same oil train meeting the MRL M-LAUMIS at Drummond.
25:49 - BNSF grain train ascending Mullen Pass the following morning.
27:37 - BNSF H-PASLAU (Pasco, WA to Laurel, MT) near the east end of Austin siding in outstanding storm light.
30:01 - The H-LAUPAS was next. Seen from roughly the same location (and hole in the cloud cover).
33:14 - The MRL M-MISLAU descending the grade at Austin with our favorite ballast train (and power) in tow, then back east a few miles where the sun was out. It was very windy this day, and tough to keep the camera steady.
*While a Google search will yield a result...since I know people will not read the description and ask...the gas local runs twice daily from Missoula to Thompson Falls to bridge a gap in a ConocoPhillips pipeline.
It was getting late in the afternoon, and I wasn't really wanting to chase their eastbound trip further due to the poor light, so I headed to nearby Wellington, where the Wheeling line to Bellevue crosses CSX's busy Cleveland-Indianapolis line to get whatever I could of their parade, plus possibly Wheeling train #221 (Brewster to Hartland) that is a reliable afternoon run out of Brewster even on Saturdays.
Close to sunset I heard an eastbound on the Wheeling from Carey get track from Hiles (what they call New London) to Spencer. That shot with the setting sun as a backdrop is just east of where they get off CSX near New London. While I was driving from Wellington to New London Wheeling #221 showed up. They got permission through Spencer yard limits and track from Spencer to Hartland just before the stone train got to Spencer. I made a beeline to Brighton (about 15 minutes drive time from New London) to get #221 roaring up Hartland hill just after sunset.
CSX trains at Wellington:
Q560 again (I wasn't really planning on getting them again, it just happened)
I017
Q565
I165
I009
Enjoy!