Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Climbing up Hometown Hill. I was surprised at how sure-footed the #2102 was here, considering the slip-fest she had just put on at East Mahanoy Junction.

The #2102 drops down through Nesquehoning Junction on final approach to Jim Thorpe.

A Lehigh Gorge Scenic train heads up over the Lehigh River on it's way to Penn Haven behind GP38-2 #2013

Not long after, the #2102 made the reverse move and shoved her entire train back up into Nesquehoning Junction, then swung out over the river towards the line up through the gorge, and then reversed back down past PQ Tower into Jim Thorpe to position itself to leave. By this point the rain had really picked up, and the #2102 was really fighting for traction making that reverse move. I made a comment to someone about I didn't know why R&N didn't hook the MP15 that's usually kicking around the Jim Thorpe yard to the back and help pull the train up (I know they had done that with the "Fast Freight" SD50s last year) and apparently the rumor is that "Andy Muller wants the #2102 do it herself."

This time of year, around 3:30pm, there's a shooting gallery of activity headed out of Jim Thorpe, between the Reading-Jim Thorpe fall trips, the Pottsville-Jim Thorpe RDC trips, the Lehigh Gorge Scenic trains, and even some freight activity with the North Reading Fast Freight (although not on Saturdays.)

So, what is this oddity here? Apparently one of the RDCs conked out on the trip from Pottsville to Jim Thorpe, and so R&N scrambled SD40-2 #3062 and GP38-2 #2012, hooked them up on either end and towed the RDCs down to Jim Thorpe and then back up to Pottsville. Definitely a weird sight.

And then PITJ (Pittston-Jim Thorpe) headed north, with 40th anniversary unit R&N #2023 in the lead.

Then #2102 came slogging up the grade. She made it through Nesquehoning Junction just fine, but I hear that she stalled somewhere between the junction and the Route 93 underpass and took a couple tries to get moving again.

The old Pennsylvania Power & Light fireless 0-6-0 at Tamaqua seems to have gotten some love recently.

The old Reading station at Tamaqua, which was recently immortalized on postage stamps.

The #2102 rolls in under the signal bridge at Port Clinton, slowing to make a stop and let off some of the passengers.

As darkness sets in, #2102 heads out of Port Clinton for the final stretch back to Port Clinton.

In reply to NickD :

That last series is very atmospheric. Hope you don't mind, but I did a quick edit on one of them to make it feel a little more period (if you do mind, just let me know and I'll take it down). I particularly liked that you caught the reflection in the windows.

NickD said:

So, today it was down to Hollidaysburg. 

First: more cabooses (cabeese? cabii?). This is Everett Railroad's gorgeous ex-Central Railroad of New Jersey caboose.

Also, Everett Railroad #126 was down there coupled to the string of passenger cars. This was a Lehigh Valley Railroad NW1 built in 1938 that was rebuilt to SW900 specs by EMD in '56. It was passed down to Conrail, then was sold off to Rosebud Mining, and then the now-defunct Kiski Junction Railroad in 2011, who restored it to Lehigh Valley colors. Kiski Junction halted operations in 2016, and then filed for abandonment in 2021 and Everett Railroad scooped up the #126 and moved it to Hollidaysburg, and uses it on passenger trains when they aren't using the #11. Gorgeous little machine.

I swung down to Hollidaysburg very early, and then pre-drove the route to see what sites that I'd picked out on Google Maps would and wouldn't work.

I recently obtained a HO scale version of this locomotive but number 124.  I intend to change it to 130 since that loco eventually became the one on the RR I intend to model.  I want to get 5 bodies, so I can have the original LV scheme, this paint scheme, the Conrail scheme, 2 schemes including the one I remember from HS and the one as it is painted now. 

So, today Reading & Northern was running another Reading-Jim Thorpe (symbol OSJT/JTOS depending on direction) excursion behind their set of EMD F-Units. They do not run #2102 back to back due to the logistics of turning the big T-1 after the end of the excursion, so it's #2102 on Saturdays and #270/#275 on Sunday. The F-Units were formerly of the NS executive fleet, bought and built by NS after Wick Moorman rode behind E. Bennett Levin's PRR E8s on one of his excursion, were upgraded by NS with GP38-2 innards and some other modifications like the frenched in ditchlights. After Moorman departed from NS, new management sold them off and Andy Muller purchased one A-B set, while the other set went to Aberdeen, Carolina & Western. I've seen the F-Units around on display, but I've never seen them operate before, so I was pretty excited for this. Interestingly, despite the much better weather today, there were relatively few people chasing it.

This is at the Cross Keys Road grade crossing just outside of Reading. They have one of the "Fast Freight" SD50s, the #5019, tucked in behind them as well.

Arriving at Port Clinton. They do allow passengers to board at Port Clinton, so there is a secondary stop there to pick up passengers.

And then departing from Port Clinton. 

The diesels certainly have a much less dramatic departure from Port Clinton than what I am used to from the #425 and #2102.

I tried out a new location of Hawk Mountain Road, and the curve lends for some neat photos, but the parking is not great. Also, if you catch it at Port Clinton, you barely have time to get to this crossing, get parked and get to the tracks before they're on you.

I mentioned that the amount of people chasing the F-Units was much less than the #2102, and as an example, I was the only person at East Mahanoy Junction, which is usually a pretty popular site. I discovered a route yesterday to EMJ that avoided Tamaqua entirely, and while 3 minutes slower on paper, was actually faster because you didn't get jammed up in Tamaqua traffic. The downside is that, while going through Tamaqua is slower, you are parallel to the tracks the entire way and can keep tabs on the train's progress. The route I was taking went completely off in it's own direction, and so you can't track the progress. So when I got to EMJ, and there was no one there, my first thought was that they had already passed through. But then I checked the time, and the timestamp of my photos there the day before, and realized, no, I wasn't late, it's just no one else was there.

Another new location that I tried, this was the road headed to the Panther Creek Power Plant. You can see a spur that goes back in to the power plant itself, which used to be a customer of the R&N. The power plant burns anthracite culm, and R&N was hauling it down from Hazelton to the plant, but the traffic was moved to trucks (people allege that there was some political corruption at work there). There are people that complain about that, since it's non-stop dump trucks up Route 54 tearing up the roads. To add to the weirdness, Panther Creek was bought by Stronghold Digital Mining back in '21 to be used strictly to mine bitcoin, and Stronghold has been trying to get permission to burn old used tires to generate electricity. Locals are not happy, to say the least.

You can also see some brake smoke rolling off the train, since it's pretty much downgrade from Hometown through Nesquehoning and into Jim Thorpe. The F-Units are not equipped with dynamic brakes, and while the #5019 is, you can't control the SD50's dynamic brakes from the cab of the #270. I've heard that they may grab the dynamic brake parts out of one of the other F7 hulks they have (ex-B&LE, #250 and #251) and put them in the #270, as well as getting another A-unit rebuilt and running to let them run A-B-A or A-A. 

I indentified this location as Nesquehoning Junction yesterday, but I'm mistaken, this is Jim Thorpe Junction. Rather confusing in that Jim Thorpe Junction is closer to Nesquehoning, while Nesquehoning Junction is closer to Jim Thorpe.

As you can see, more brake smoke here, although I also think they had a coach that either had a dragging shoe or a journal box that was running hot. When they made the shove move back up later to wye the train, one of the coaches was still smoking, and by that point, the brake shoes should have cooled off.

That rear car, #30 Glen Onoko Falls, is a former DL&W/Pullman suburban "subscription club car" (in order to ride in the car, an individual had to be sponsored and voted in by the other members, so the membership would have an air of exclusivity. Members paid an extra fare each month, which was turned over to the railroad to pay the expenses of operating the car.) and then became a club EMU trailer in a 1930 rebuild. R&N acquired the car from NJT in 1984-85, added the observation deck, and the car became #5 Queen of the Valley, before a later renumber and rename.

A Lehigh Gorge train headed up to Penn Haven, running push-pull with a pair of freshly-painted GP38-2s

Making the shove move up the hill

Now I've seen photos where they used to wye this the other direction; back up into the gorge, pull across the bridge towards where I am standing and up towards Nesquehoning, then back down the near track. Seems this year they changed that, which is unfortunate, because I'd really liked to have gotten photos of the train pulling across the bridge in my direction. I think this is why though: they can do the first two moves, then sit and wait on the bridge for the Gorge train to go through and then make the last move, with less chance of snarling traffic.

This one's kind of neat because you have the freshly painted Super Dome in the foreground and the power in the background. Also kinda curious how R&N still uses the full Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern name on their passenger equipment (and indeed that is actually still the railroad's full name) but just uses Reading & Northern on all their motive power and most publications and advertising.

After the OSJT/JTOS train was turned, I hung around for a little while, expecting NRFF to be dropping through on it's way to Pittston. Last year, they were running NRFF earlier, and sending it through Jim Thorpe Junction before the Pottsville RDCs and Reading foliage excursions headed south. Well, apparently this year, since there is also hourly Lehigh Gorge trains and the Pittston-Jim Thorpe (PIJT/JTPI) passenger run, they decided to instead send the NRFF out basically 5 hours later to avoid all of this.

So, I swung over to Glen Onoko to catch JTPI headed north to Pittston. But first, a Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway train headed back down to Jim Thorpe.

I walked up to get a photo of JTPI heading through, hoping that 40th Anniversary unit #2023 would be assigned to it again. As I'm standing there, the group of people visible in the distance to the left were behind me, walking that direction, and I happen to look over and the one gal is strolling up the middle of the gauge. I go "Hey, you might not want to be walking on the tracks, this is pretty active". They get off the tracks, walk about that far, and JTPI comes pounding around the curve doing 30mph.

At the tail end is round-end observation car King Coal. Pretty wild is that this car used to be a plain heavyweight standard coach before Illinois Central took the car into its shops, stripped the car to the frame, and built a round-end observation car out of. Though the IC actually used all-new trucks on these cars, the weight of the old heavyweight frame required that they still use 3-axle trucks, and so they had new trucks made for it. Why go through all that effort? Well, post-war, passenger car manufacturers were absolutely slammed with orders, and if you wanted fancy new streamlined cars in an expedient manner, this was the way to get them.

Passing under Route 94 as it heads towards Nesquehoning and back towards Reading.

Drifting south through East Mahanoy Junction, and again, nobody else there.