So now to finally finish my story of trying to get to Boston after a kerfluffle with a terrorist dying in a boat cancelled my existing travel arrangements via Amtrak Train 95 on Friday evening. I had been intent on just cancelling my trip and was in the process of returning to Philadelphia when received word that the trains were running again. Taking action I got off my RiverLINE train in Robeling, NJ and after booking a ticket on my usually blacklisted Train 66 I headed back to Trenton and then New York.

Train 66 arrives at 2am as you saw before I went down to the South Ferry station to grab some photos of the new old station and its gap fillers. Upon returning to Penn Station and grabbing a bite to eat I went to kill 3 hours in the Amtrak waiting room when I noticed that Train 66 was now listed as "Delayed" on the big board. A trip to Amtrak customer service with the question "is Train 66 running" yielded the response "technically yes, but it was hit by a tornado and is stuck south of Washington, DC.

Well now I was pretty much screwed seeing as there was no way to abort my trip aside from taking Train 67 back down south which involved the same wait, but a disappointing outcome. It was only on another trip back to Amtrak customer service when I heard another traveler being told that the buses were running again and if I was to walk up to the PABT I could catch a 3am departure.

Well desperate times call for desperate measures so so all I had to do was walk the 8 blocks from Penn Station to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. If being forced to ride a Stinkbuggy wasn't bad enough it had started to rain and I must have looked at someone the wrong way because the next thing I knew I was running for my life! I managed to get away, but that's when the CHUDs came after me.

I eventually managed to purchase a ticket on the 2AM departure, which was the first bust departure north since the lockdown. There was a rather long line, but they had enough buses lined to to take everybody and I got on a 1/3 filled brand new 2013 bus that had not yet been thoroughly stinkafied. Departing about 30 minutes late I managed to fall asleep somewhere on the Thurway and woke up as we were pulling into South Station right on time. You know I'm committed to trains, but the Bus service can be reasonably nice so Amtrak had better not slack off in terms of service.

Anyway, in Boston I was scheduled to catch the first northbound Downeaster departing at 8:50, which was still several hours away. To kill the time I hopped an Orange Line train to Oak Grove and later took some pictures at South Station. A few days later I reversed the process and headed home from Exeter.

Anyway enough narritive as I assume you all want some photos. Again you can find the full set here, just scroll down a little.

First off is a video of my Rutgers wrapped RiverLINE train as it heads south from Robeling without me. Thanks to the POP system I didn't have to get a second fare to abort my trip.



In Trenton I got video of HHP-8 #663 arriving with a southbound Regional. The Limited Clear signal at the end of the eastbound platform was for an approaching Keystone. The southbound Regional is greeted by a Medium Approach indication at the end of the westbound platform



And a northbound Keystone departing past the Limited Clear signal at the end of the eastbound platform with AEM-7 #950.



NJT Arrow III set parked on track #4 at Trenton. #1327 has had its original United Knitting Machine twin arm pan replaced by an off-brand Schunk type.

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Due to my whiplash trip to Boston during the lockdown weekend I am really having to break my photoset up simply because I took such a wide variety of pictures as my plans careened back and forth from cancelling my trip and pressing on to Boston. If you remember the last set of Photos I was left on the Sandy Ferry with no hope of completing my trip and my sights set on an Amtrak train from Philly to Baltimore departing at 9:30pm. Well I got as far as Robeling, NJ when I got word and Train 66 was un-cancelled and after booking a ticket I headed back to NYC and found myself in Penn Station with about 4 hours to burn before the 2AM scheduled arrival.

Luckily there was one major sight I had wanted to see that would not be affected by the darkness and that was the brand new old loop at the South Ferry terminal on the (1). I had previously gotten photos and video of the loop operations with my old camera, but the video was low def and I had lamented never being able to capture the squealing wheels and gap fillers in HD. Well just like with the Rockaway Ferry is was Sandy to the rescue once again, destroying the new station and pressing the 1905 technology back into service.

My first checkbox item was to use the railfanable window in the R62 to get front end video all the way around the loop. I had to split the video between two trains of course, but you can watch the whole thing here as I go from Rector to South Ferry and back again all without changing perspective.



Here we see R62 #1841 waiting for the few passengers that might arrive at 11pm.

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Two weeks ago I had an ambitious plan to Amtrak into New York City, take the LIRR out to Hicksville for some photos, swoop down and ride the H train and then catch an M-2 set on Metro North for a trip to New Haven before continuing on to Boston. Well due to a wannabe terrorist bleeding to death in a boat the Boston and New Haven part of the trip was thrown into a cocked hat, but those segments that began with H seemed to work out so this week's first set of photos is hereby brought to you by the letter H in the form of Hicksville, Howard Beach and the H Train.

You can find all these photos here and don't worry I'll cover the Boston stuff shortly.

We begin in Baltimore Penn Station where the southbound Train 67 was hanging out with a poor man's dual mode consisting of AEM-7 #927 and P42DC #104. Amtrak does this when there is overnight work on the shore line that requires the overhead catenary to be de-energized. Here we see Train 67 depart toward Washington as northbound Regional train 180 arrives with AEM-7 #926



And a photo of the pair before departure.

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Now in its second decade the annual SEPTA Mid-Winter trip has become a staple of the Mid-Atlantic railfanning social calender. However it had to start somewhere and since the original MWT took place when I was still using a film camera its doubtful that I'll ever go and re-scan the 2 or 3 photos I took on that so this set is about as close as you're going to get to Genesis.

The trip consisted of a ride on the R2 to Wilmington and then straight back through Center City to Norristown where we transfered to a Rt 100 train to 69th St, Rt 101 to Media, R3 to Clifton-Alden, Rt 102 to 69th St again, MFL back downtown and then I assume a Broad Street Subway run again.

If you're interested you can find the complete photo set here

After heading up the Chinese Ramp and through 30th St Station we encounter brand new HHP-8 #651 passing ARSENAL tower with Phase III and IV Amfleet in tow.

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I know what you're all saying. Didn't this guy finish posting all the photos from his epic cross country trip months ago? Well you would be right, I did post all of my photos, but I was also traveling with a second unit / B Camera who took the time to take some pictures from perspectives different from straight out the back of the last car.

An attempt to get my Second Unit director to process and color correct the photos himself ultimately failed so I had to go back and do it all myself and now they are in a proper state for release. These photos will cover the entire scenery enabled part of the Zephyr trip between San Francisco and Denver. Also these are not just straight scenery photos, but also include a little bit of railroad action so don't think that you'll only see shrubs and trees.

You can see the whole set of photos right here.

We begin heading out past the Oakland Bay with pacific fog shrouding one of the mountains in the Marin Headlands. Click here for a wider version.

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Have a double feature today due to two rather short photo sets taken in the Baltimore area. The first contains a number of Light Rail photos taken around the Mt Royal Station and Camden Station areas. The second features the increasingly popular Martin State Airport station which allows one to get rather up close and personal with high speed Amtrak trains north of the city as well as various aircraft operated by the Maryland Air Guard.

We begin with the Penn Station shuttle pulling in to the Mt Royal station en-route to Penn Station with LRV #5048.

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While returning home from school for the Thanksgiving holiday in 2003 I managed to take some nice rear vestibule shots from the back of my southbound Amtrak Regional train on Metro-North territory and later followed that up with a trip around the west coast of New Jersey checking out progress on the yet-to-be-completed RiverLINE light rail line. In that case the stops amounted to the Delair bridge area and the light rail complex in Bordentown, NJ.

Not much more to it than that, but most of the photos contains something that's not there anymore so check them out.

At the Amtrak Meriden, CT station the H-5 searchlights at the MP 18 automatic signals were still up and displaying a Clear indication for the northbound Vermonter.

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Back in January I drove up to Princeton with a friend to catch an ECAC Hockey game between the Princeton Tigers and the Engineers of RPI. I'm not going to talk much about the game because the action at Princeton Junction station proved to be much more exciting. I was able to stop off briefly in the afternoon and then again for a longer stretch at night after the game. In my short two there I caught three NJT light equipment movements on the NEC, one in daylight and two at night, which I later found out are due to the wheel mill at Morrisville yard being the only one left in operation after Hurricane Sandy so NJT was being forced to run any equipment needing wheel work light down the NEC.

The daylight move was headed westbound and consisted of GP40PH-2A 4147 running long hood forward with ALP-45 #4504 behind it and PL42 #4006 in the rear. The second move went by in the eastbound direction at 8:13 PM and consisted of 3 or 4 single level cars with a C5 in cab car in the lead and at least 1 or 2 more in the consist. Providing power were 2 or 3(!) Geeps. I can't be sure of the exact number as I mistook it for a Regional and opted to get a 4 second timed exposure instead of video. The final train was also headed east at 8:29 and consisted of a C5 cab, 2 C2M;s, a C4, 2 more C2M's, 1 more C4, one more C2M, an ALP-46, 2 Split levels, a PL42 and finally a Metro North F40PH in the new livery. Due to the darkness I was unable to get any numbers in the video of that last train.

Anyway, aside from the cool equipment moves was the usual parade of NJT commuter trains and Amtrak Regionals/Keystones/Acelas. I also made sure to stop by the Princeton dinky station and take some pictures before the town relocates the station and turns the building into a student centre (although this won't be the first time the line has been cut back). If you are interested in the whole set of photos you can find them all right here.

I am going to start things off with the first equipment move consisting of GP40PH-2A #4147, ALP-45 #4504 and PL42 #4006 in the rear. After they passed I kept rolling and caught a eastbound train of NJT Arrow III MU cars with 1380 on point departing Princeton Jct.



At Princeton a pair of consecutive Arrow III singles were laying over at the short station platform. Here is #1315.

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Wow, its only March and I am already posting photos of the M-W-T. It seems that my year long effort to reign in my photo backlog is finally starting to pay off :-) Anyway unlike the previous two M-WT's which were marred by first snow then rain, this one was a non-qualified success with around 18 participants showing up despite the rather cloudy weather. I want to start by thanking everyone who attended because if you didn't show up I'd have no real reasons to put these trips on.

This years event was to make up for the focus on Silverliner II's and III's over the last couple of M-W-T's so and consisted of an M-W-T first ever trip to the airport and back, followed by an MFL run out to 69th St, then a Rt 101 trip to Media, R3 back to 30th St then Rt 10 to the Rt 15 junction at Girard, then Rt 15 to the new casino loop, then MFL again back to 8th, BRS to Fern Rock and finally a BSS express run to Walnut-Locust. Here is a google Map of this year's route/

Now I don't tend to take a lot of photos on these trips as I am actually busy trying to make sure that everyone is where they need to be and not dawdling in some restaurant, but you can see all the photos I did end up taking right here.

While the trip officially starts in Center City I make it a happy to kick things off early with those who decide to take PATCO into the city. For years I have been trying to get head end video of an express run being thwarted first by self-important operators and then by PATCO's elimination of such service during the post-Christmas week. Well for the past two years the service has returned and using the "newspaper" method to shield my videography from the operator I got this video of an express ride from Lindenwold all the way to 8th and Market. The video comes with a bonus commentary by Phil Nasadowski discussing how hard it is to get film for his 16mm motion picture camera. The footage was hindered slightly by a light rain, but features an operator not afraid to use his horn through the express stations.



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You might remember how in 2011 I stopped by the Baltimore Streetcar Museum during the month of December when it was running its special holiday service with Santa, you know, for the kids. Well all those free cookies and hot chocolate could not be resisted and I gathered some friends together and made the trip again this past holiday season. Not much more to say except you can see the whole set of photos here.

I got there early enough to catch the volunteers shuffling cars around in order to get ready for that day's service. Here car #6119 is making a backup move with the motorman at the special rear control stand.

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