I have a friend in Georgia whom I visit twice a year, typically in May and October as those dates avoid the nasty southern summer heat. However this year schedule conflicts pushed back my October trip to the Armistice Day Weekend in November. Well this turned out to be a mistake which I hope to avoid in the future as not only did I get hit with bad weather again (not the date's fault) the late date and Daylight Wasting Time absolutely destroyed most of my ability to take photos on the RF&P and CSX A-Line from Amtrak's Train 79, the Carolinian.

Therefore this photo set is going to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for those photos still acceptable for public display. To compensate for the lack of light I took a lot of video so this will also be a video heavy post. Also this set will cover both the trip down, my time in Georgia and the trip back. For the trip down you can view the entire set here and for the Georgia and trip back pics you can find those photos here.

We begin North of Washington DC where one advantage to taking the Carolinian is that it runs express between Baltimore and Washington skipping the BWI and NCR stops. In this video Train 79 rockets through CARROLL interlocking and then the New Carrollton Station, southbound on track 3.



A bit south of there we pass through LANDOVER interlocking where the former PRR freight branch to Potomac Yard splits off. Notice that it is not possible for passenger trains out of DC to access Track #1 at LANDOVER. Instead they must cross over at CARROLL.



On the two track segment just before the Union Station complex we can see that the new 138Kv circuits to the new Ivy City substation have been completed.

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One again SEPTA was nice enough to invite a number of rail enthusiasts to its annual employee picnic and skillz rodeo located at the Fern Rock Transportation Complex. Like last year the Fern Rock shoppes held a number of technical displays, while outside joy rides and skills tests were being offered on the BSS cars. Over at the Fern Rock Regional Rail station a selection of SEPTA Regional Rail EMUs were displayed on the infrequently used third track.

As I had already attended the year before, I didn't feel the need to take a second set of photos of the same subjects. Also more parts of the shoppes were closed off than the year before which reduced the variety of photographic subjects in general. However I did make an effort to get some better quality photos of some of the technical displays. You can see all of the 2011 Rodeo Photos here.

First up is a Silverliner IV gearbox and drive assembly fresh from being rebuilt. The electric motor would be mounted to the exposed gear on the left and each truck would have two of these gearbox assemblies, one for each axle. Oh, don't let that small hole fool you as that is not actually one of those "unsafe" hollow axles.

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On October 6th, 2011 the Philadelphia Phillies lost the 5th game of the National League Divisional Series in an embarassing and painful to watch 1-0 loss with the only run coming the first inning. Had that been my only activity that day it probably would have ranked amoung my most disappointing. However, before the the game I had gone out with Phil Nasadowski to help him get some footage for his Silverliner II 16mm film, and to both of our delights II's and III's were out and plentiful with several sets running all day on the R5 and more sets appearing in the peak periods.

I trip started at Jenkintown, having just missed a train of II's at Glenside. Jenkintown provided a handy parking space so Phil and I could just catch the first II to wherever and not have to worry about his car. When a train of II's did show up we rode them out to Paoli and then caught a different set back in to Center City before trying to find some set of II's on the R3 routing to West Trenton. We eventually had to settle on a train of IV's to Bethayres where another railfan met us and gave us a ride back to Jenkintown for us to set up camp and film the parade going past.

Anyway you can see the entire set of photos, which includes a PRR Main Line survey section due to a friendly crew providing a rear vestibule ride on the inbound R5 leg of our trip, right here.

After getting dropped off at Jenkintown to meet Phil one of the II/III replacements including SL-V single #715 shows up as a non-revenue test train.

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Late last summer it became apparent that the killjoys at Norfolk Southern were embarking on a project to resignal the entire Altoona terminal area which for the 100+ years have been under the auspices of ALTO tower, which I had visited previously in 2005. This was coming on the heels of a similarly mean spirited project to replace the PRR position lights up and around the horseshoe curve and unlike a number of other recent resignaling projects I was not going to be caught flat footed and therefore resolved to drive out the 3+ hours to Altoona to document what was there before it all came crashing down.

Unfortunately my schedule in the fall of 2011 was quite full and combined with the fact that many people didn't know when the project would be completed and that there was a Fall Foliage running out of Altoona and around the Horseshoe Curve on October 1 I made the choice to pick that weekend for my trip. I say unfortunately because the weather was just a few hairs short of completely unworkable with a light to moderate drizzle falling over the entire day with ambient lighting about what you would expect. Doublely disappointing was that my first trip was in only slightly better conditions so it looked as if every time I was to go to Altoona the clouds would roll in and the sky would open up.

Anyway armed with a pair of cameras, one a high resolution DSLR, I set out in the wee hours of Oct 1 in order to make it to the "Brickyard" automatic signal west of town to snag a picture of the Bennett Levin PRR E8's passing under it. After that I would head downtown to take as many photos of ALTO tower and its related signaling as I could and then I could head out to see if CP-ANTIS was part of the re-signaling project as it's interlocking hardware dated from 1981 instead of the 1970's or before for the rest of the Altoon Terminal. All said and done I took about 500 photos that day which are all visible in the full gallery.

We begin at the Milepost 238 automatic known as "Brickyard" which is also the distant to SLOPE interlocking, which itself is under direct wire control from ALTO tower. This section of the main line has three tracks, the outer two running under Rule 251 with only the center track #2 being bi-directional rule 261. Both eastbound signals on tracks 2 and 3 can display / over / for Slow Speed moves at SLOPE as SLOPE has a very short signal distance to ALTO and will display Slow Approach instead of Approach when a Stop signal is displayed at ALTO. The Approach Medium indication available on track #1 is for 1 to 2 diverging moves at SLOPE.

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After returning from Boston I reserved a Saturday to help Phil scout some locations for his Silverliner II 16mm film. We were hoping to spot some II's in action, but as it was a weekend we would be lucky enough to see SEPTA trains at all let alone the old stuff. Like I said the primary goal was scouting out some locations that Phil would need in his film and once found he could come back on a weekday and stake them out for II trainsets.

Specifically we were looking for a station next to a grade crossing with good sight lines. By the end of the day we ended up making stops at Prospect Park, Secane, Morton, Primos, North Wales, Lansdale and Warminster. You can see the entire set of photos including all of those locations here.

We begin at the SEPTA Prospect Park station where we just stayed long enough for a double headed northbound Regional train to round the curve and pass under the 94 automatic signal.

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Ever since the new Siemens Blue Line cars arrived a few years ago I have been trying to get out and ride them for more than a stop or two downtown. Well this year on a trip up to New Hampshire I had some extra time making my connection between North and South stations and so I decided to head out on a trip to Reveah Beach (as I wasn't sure if Wonderland still dumped outbound riders outside of fare control. Anyway, after that I caught an MBTA train up to Haverhill to visit my friend up at Portsmouth, NH and later returned to Boston via a Downeaster which gave me an additional opportunity to take some photos at North Station.

This trip took place only a few days after Hurricane Irene flooded out the NEC at Trenton so I have some photos of what that looked like only hours after service was restored. Like always you can find the full set of photos located here.

For all of you who remember, SEPTA made the mistake of leaving some equipment at the Trenton Station where it proceeded to get flooded out by several feet of water. Managers at SEPTA claimed not to be able to have predicted that the flooding would have taken place, but as you can see by the spray painted markings on the retaining wall they had two previous instances of flooding to learn from, one in 1975 and Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

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San Francisco basically consists of two thing...Caltrain and MUNI light rail and since last week our theme was Caltrain it's time we move onto the the MUNI section of this trip. This year I was a bit too busy to go out on an official MUNI field trip on one of their more far flung lines, however I was able to get some pretty good coverage of both the Cable Car system and the Heritage F Market Trolley line.

So for those of you who like such things this set of photos is going to be packed with them instead of the normal droves of railroad signals. So I urge you to all check out the entire collection of photos here because the selection below is not going to feature all pictures of such.

We start on Powell St showing cable car #21 heading southbound through a "pop out park" installed where street parking used to be. Ironically the company that made this destruction of car habitat possible was Audi.

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I get out to the Bay Area once a year or so on work related trips and each time I always make sure to include a ride on the Caltran Caltrain that runs between San Jose and San Francisco. Like I have said before it is easily the best commuter operation west of the Mississippi that was rebuilt in 2005 with new track, signals and a peak period express service that cuts 30 minutes off the normal trip time and completed the 50 mile journey with only 3 or 4 intermediate stops. Furthermore, the use of gallery cars provides a superb railfan view, although it is now quite frequently marred by bug splat.

Anyway this would be by 4th "survey" style photo set of the Caltrain system starting out from the Milbrae Station, which connects with the San Francisco International Airport, heading to San Jose then taking the train all the way back to San Francisco. Since I had already completed my standard def video compilation of the line I opted for only a few short clips on the return trip which is generally too backlit for standard photography at 4:30 in the afternoon.

New this year was an extended wait at the Millbrae station because BART eliminated the direct SFO to Millbrae connection during the day instead forcing people to connect with a Red Line train at San Bruno that in turn caused me to miss the hourly headway southbound Caltrain by 2 or 3 minutes. Yup, it seems like even out west public transit agencies can't seem to co-ordinate their schedules.

Anyway, you can view the entire set of photos here. What differentiates this set from those that came before is that I FINALLY got sunny weather for the initial southbound trip.

We begin at San Francisco International Airport where I get to sit around while a poorly scheduled BART service is screwing me out of my Caltrain connection. Here we see a 'C' car #430 sitting at the outbound end of the stub terminal.

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On the July 4th Weekend in 2010 I embarked in an 11 mile walk around Philadelphia, railfanning and engaging in various July 4th related activities. Since that was so successful I decided last year to give it another go, this time with a railfan friend from Fox Chase as Chuchubob wasn't available. Unfortunately the weather was a bit gray, but since it wasn't raining I pressed on with the expedition, taking a Route 11 trolley to 58th Street and then walking down past the 58TH ST interlocking on the CSX Philly Sub, Amtrak. PHIL interlocking on the NEC and then the CSX Schuylkill River Bridge just past Bartram's Garden, finally returning via a Route 36 trolley to Center City.

After lunch the plan was to meet up with Subchatters Alex and Amanda and them go camp out at North Philadelphia station for a while until we got tired of the heat and humidity.

Anyway, you can see all of these photos by clicking this link (especially if you like B&O CPLs).

We begin our walk at the corner of 58th and Woodland with SEPTA K-Car #9089 on a Route 11.

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Well I am finally returning to me regularly scheduled programming with an informal railfan trip organized by the West Jersey Chapter NRHS that consisted of a driving tour around the former PRSL territory looking for interesting historical artifacts that have survived in the decades since their abandonment. Stops include Winslow Jct, Tuckahoe,Woodbine Jct. Vineland, Newfield and Glassboro. Of course I'm not usually one for taking pictures of overgrown rights of way or an odd tie poking out of the sand, but there were more than a few subjects of general interest available on the trip and my featured photos will focus on those.

You can locate the entire set of photos here at: http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/11-07-02_PRSL_ARTIFACTS/-Thumbnails.html.

We start off at the Southern Railroad of New Jersey yard at Winslow Junction. Old Red and White CNJ painted GP-7 #100 was once the mainstay of SJRR operations, but today is buried deep in the storage track as newer power has come in to supplement it.

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