EVERYWHERE EAST OF ARIZONA
There is no way I could see but a fraction of the rest of the country's railroads. But over the years, we have been fortunate to see several wonderful locations, so let me share with you some of my favorites from around the rest of the country.
Colorado
is probably in the heart and soul of every railfan. In addition to the
Durango and Silverton, some smaller but equally delightful railroads are shown
here. On top is the Georgetown Loop, built by the Colorado and Southern
in order to gain elevation as the railroad threaded up the canyon towards Silver
Plume. Today, the two towns are again connected by rail and our train
was pulled by a Shea.
On the bottom is the Pikes Peak cog railway taking you from Manitou Springs to the top of the mountain at 14,000 feet - and yes, you really do feel the elevation and thin air. On the right is a ride on the train through Royal Gorge from Canyon City. The equipment is nice and the views spectacular as we ride almost at the edge of the river and through the Gorge.
Two
of the most famous excursion locomotives were the Norfolk and Western class
A and J steamers. Sadly the NS railroad retired them ten years ago.
But they at least are beautifully restored and now reside in the Virginia Museum
of Transportation in Roanoke. I wasn't terribly impressed with the rest
of the displays, but seeing these two made the trip worthwhile. Now if
someone would just make a model of them for our railroads! Newly opened
in the N&W passenger station in Roanoke is a museum devoted to O Winston
Link. This is a spectacular museum, telling the story of his life, but
also containing rooms and rooms of his photographs, all well displayed and explained.
I'd love to go back and just spend a day digesting each of the many photos displayed.
The Cass Railroad is another icon of the tourist railroads in this country. We had never made it until recently and the trip was worth the wait. In addition to the railroad, the town of Cass has been preserved in a West Virginia state park and you can rent one of the company houses to stay in (you must drive to the next town to buy your groceries, however). And the restaurant in town closes at 5:30pm. The trip to the top of Bald Mountain is an exercise in steam relaxation. The furious sound of the Shea locomotive churning away, green trees and water everywhere, and a constant feeling of going "up" makes for a wonderful trip. On the day of our visit four Shea's were steamed up, even though only two were in use the next day. The Hostler explained they keep the maximum steamed since it is easier that way than to have to start the fire for each weekend's runs.
Horseshoe
Curve; even giving the Tehachapi Loop its full due, it is still probably the
most famous spot in railroading. I have been there three times so far
and its is still a thrill to stand on this hallowed ground. Seeing the
constant stream of trains grinding uphill - or easing carefully down - doesn't
hurt either. To complete the experience, there is a nice gift shop/museum
also.
In my mind, the most underrated railroad museum in the country is the Railroader's Museum in Altoona. This museum is located in one of the Pennsy shop buildings and lies along the old main line, across from downtown Altoona. Not only are the displays beautifully executed, they have some of the best interactive displays, full scale displays, models, etc. that I have ever seen. The only problem is that they are constantly in a financial bind and have never been able to develop their outside grounds or displays. Here is Mary Jane trying to find out from the porter when dinner is served in the diner on today's Broadway Limited, except he isn't talking.
Nighttime
in a big city railroad station for me is as thrilling now as was my first memory
of traveling from Grand Central Station to Arizona as a four year old.
The nighttime sounds, lights and smells cannot be duplicated anywhere else.
It didn't matter that Mary Jane and I had to wait here in Pittsburgh for three
hours for a two hour late train in an uncomfortable waiting room chair.
I could still get upstairs for the arrival of the Amtrak Three Rivers and experience
a small part of its nocturnal run.
Steamtown
is big and ambitious, and in my mind a bit disappointing. Maybe it is
because the government, when they designed it, had to dumb down the displays
and information a bit. It is still nice to be able to walk through the
roundhouse and see steamers being actually worked on, and I do love the excursion
trip at 50 mph up the hill to Moscow, PA. But, otherwise, I felt I already
had seen everything else they had there.
In a way, the old location in Bellows Falls, VT was more fun. Another great excursion run up the Connecticut River and equipment that you could wander around that seemed never to end. Or maybe I was just younger and more innocent in those days.
Hands
down, my favorite railroad museum is the Pennsylvania State Railroad Museum
in Strasburg. The California Railroad museum is beautifully executed,
while the Illinois museum and National Railroad Museum in St. Louis probably
have more actual pieces of equipment. But, nothing can beat the Pennsy
museum for its recreation of the feeling, sounds, setting and even the smell
of trains. The great hall is reminiscent of a railroad terminal and all
the equipment is easily accessible. And they do have an amazing array
of the greats of the Standard Railroad of the World - from the earliest days
to the day of the diesel, as well as representations from the Reading and a
couple of other examples of Pennsylvania railroads. Not only are real
trains well represented, but they probably have the most interesting model railroad
displays of a major museum and a neat upstairs art gallery. We have seen
exhibits of Gif Teller original calendar art paintings as well as one of my
favorite painters Ranulph Bye. And it doesn't hurt that the Strasburg
Railroad is just across the street from the museum and the TCA museum is a mile
down the road.
The
museum houses a tremendous variety of Pennsylvania locomotives, but in addition
to the GG-1, perhaps the defining locomotive there is the K-4 Pacific.
They have wisely displayed it coupled to a characteristic Pennsy passenger train.
Even for a Westerner who only caught glimpses of the Pennsy when it was in its
glory, this train display really hints at what a magnificent operation a Pennsylvania
Railroad hauling passengers throughout the Northeast must have been.
Everything
about the Pennsylvania Railroad seems to be a part of railroad history.
Harrisburg was the jumping off point for the Pennsy's journey over the Appalachian
Mountain and to the "west". As one left the city and passed
through the huge Enola Yards, you began your journey by crossing to the north
side of the Susquehanna River on the beautiful stone Rockville Bridge.
A hundred years old and still carrying traffic today as well as when it was
built. Here we see the same coal train on the bridge as well as in the
foreground as it leaves the Enola Yards. Classic Eastern big time railroading!
Fortunately
a lot of GG-1's were saved and some are located in the most inexplicable places.
This one, located in the trainshed of the Harrisburg station, for me is the
most appropriate display location of them all. Here is where Pennsy's
electrification ended and GG-1's were exchanged for K-4 steamers for the trip
over the Alleghenies and to the west. I felt this fellow was just waiting
for the signal from the dispatcher to back onto his train.
Toronto
is one of my favorite cities, not the least because it was the first of the
North American cities to put in a new subway system after a half century of
inactivity. By the late 1970s, there were two lines from downtown to the
uptown shopping district on Bloor Street. The trains were new, clean and
fast, in direct contrast to any other subway system in the country at that time.
Philadelphia,
on the other hand, seemed to house a museum of ancient transit equipment in
those days. No less fascinating to watch, this is the still operating
trolley line from West Philly to Norristown. Cars rolled really fast on
their own right of way through many upscale suburbs, probably still carrying
domestics out from the city to work in the great homes and the business men
into Center City for a day at the office.
This
is the end of the line at Norristown at a station perched above the downtown
on an elevated structure. I like this shot as for me, it could have been
taken any year in the fifty preceding the late 1970's when it was done.
Nelson
Blount's original Steamtown was located on the banks of the Connecticut River
in Bellows Falls, VT. The site was pretty barren, occupying the yards
of a desecrated rail facility and had literally hundreds of locomotives and
cars spread out everywhere. For me, the best part of this facility was
the excursion train running with a beautifully maintained Canadian Pacific 4-6-2
steamer. The train ran at full track speed up the river valley and into
the hills. It may have been only an hour's trip, but closing my eyes,
listening to the sound of the locomotive echoing off the hills and I could have
been on any passenger train anywhere during the last century. What a feeling.
After
moving Steamtown to Scranton, PA the excursion train ran from an old station
in the Lackawana yards, through downtown and up the valley to the Pocono Mountain
plateau. It, too, is a classic run. To make the grade, the locos
(we had a double header this day) ran full out, again with sounds that live
forever in your memory. Alas, the old station has now been replaced with
a simply canopy on the other side of the facility for boarding, but the run
up the mountain is just as good.
On
our first trip, we hit Pennsylvania at just the right time, during a spectacular,
lingering fall color season. The train terminates at the small town of
Moscow, PA at which time the locomotive runs around the train for an unglamorous
run backward down to Scranton. You are supposed to spend this time spending
some money in the little gift shop in an old freight house. In this case
it was much more important to take as many shots as possible of the train and
setting bracketed by the beautiful fall colors.
The
East Broad Top is another icon of tourist railroading, it is the only surviving
narrow gauge railroad in the East. For me, however, its attraction is
not the pathetically short tourist run, but the ability to wander about the
yards, engine terminal and shops. Everything is in place as it was a hundred
years ago. And as we had arrived an hour before the day's first train,
we were able to witness the ritual of the hostler taking the locomotive out
of the roundhouse, spin it on the turntable and position it for water and coal.
It doesn't get better than this.
The roundhouse was open to us also. And there is almost no way you can take a bad shot of steamers panting in the morning sun.
The Mount Washington Cog Railroad is one of the icons of historic railroads and we finally got to ride it during our first visit to Vermont and New Hampshire. We were lucky to ride behind one of the classic steamers (a diesel had just intruded onto the property) and rode to the top of the mountain into a thunder and lightning storm. Very typical, we understand!
We then journeyed to North Conway and rode the Conway Scenic Railroad from the clasically unique New England depot travelling 2000 feet up Crawford Notch to the station at Crawford and the base of Mt. Washington. It was neat to see mountains that would hold their own here in the west - only these were dripping with water and green everywhere.
Although the photos are not of great quality, one of the most thrilling travel experiences we have ever had was on Amtrak's Southwest Chief the summer of '08 on our way to Vermont and crossing the Mississippi River in full flood. BNSF held us for two hours while they shored up the track at Ft. Madison and then let us creep through the flood waters and over their Mississippi River bridge with the water a foot or two below the bottom of the bridge. We ran surrounded by water on both sides of the train for another ten miles after reaching the Illinois shore.