Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Passing back by Nesquehoning Campus. Frustratingly, someone in a big Chevy Express van decided to pace the train, taking video out of the side door. Of course, since they were matching train speed, no one could get ahead. There was easily a mile of cars behind them. I had hoped to catch it at Panther Creek bu couldn't get there in time.

Climbing up off of Hometown High Bridge at Marian Ave. You can hear exactly when the crew really opens up the throttle on her.

I had hoped to get them coming by Tamaqua station, but there was an accident on Route 309 that jammed traffic up, and they got ahead of me. I caught them again at New Ringgold.

And the last time I caught it was going back by Molino. The light was fading fast, and the #2102 would be cut off at Port Clinton for SD50s to take it the rest of the way to Reading.

I did overhear that originally Andy Muller, owner of the R&N, had spoken to the steam crew about wanting to run the #2102 on a hopper train from Reading to Jim Thorpe and back on Sunday. Right from the mouth of engineer Shane Frederickson. But then the Philadelphia Eagles made it into the Super Bowl and "that was the end of that." Bummer. Not my photo, but that's Mr. Muller on the center of the platform of his heavyweight observation car Black Diamond. The story is that that car was a wedding figt by Jay Gould to his daughter.

And a phenomenal video from a Youtube channel that I really like.

NickD said:

I'm headed down to Reading this Friday night to chase Reading #2102 from Reading to Jim Thorpe and back on Saturday. The weather looks decent Sunday (better than Saturday, actually) and I don't have to be home until that night, so I was looking at other operations to go photograph. And I'm kind of striking out.

• A lot of operations are still on that Christmas-Easter shut downs. Allentown & Auburn, Steamtown NHS, Wanamaker, Kempton & Southern, etc. all have not resumed operation.
• Strasburg is operating, but they're still on their light schedule (weekends only, 12:00, 1:00. 2:00) and it's in the wrong direction of home. Might be convinced if #89 is running.
• Colebrookdale is operating, but I've ridden that (it's okay), and that operation is impossible to photograph. 

So, the options are:

• Hang around, since Reading & Northern is running a bunch of stuff on Sunday. There's the regular diesel/passenger car train from Pittston to Jim Thorpe, RDCs from Reading to Jim Thorpe, and QASD and PNGS and NRFF freights. 
• Go north to Scranton and see if Delaware-Lackawanna is running. Unlike GVT's other operations, D-L does run 7 days a week, but it's a bit of a crap shoot on what they're actually going to run. Could be SC7 from Scranton to Carbondale, or PO-74 from Scranton to Cresco. Or it could just be BR1 Scranton Yard switch or DL3 Taylor Yard transfer. Basically you have to show up at the Bridge Sixty Tower around 8am and see what they're up to. No guarantee.

Part of me thinks I should just go with the guaranteed action on the R&N, maybe catch the PNGS that I missed last spring. But the siren song of the big D-L Alcos is tempting. 

So, I ended up staying in Reading and chasing the R&N on Sunday. To make it up to D-L's Bridge Sixty Tower by 8am would have required being on the road before 6am. I decided, I could chase the RDCs from Reading to Jim Thorpe, and by the time they arrived in JT and I drove back to Leesport, I could chase NRFF north to Pittston and then head home.

Arriving at Reading Outer Station, two of the Budd cars were idling away. The #9166, which is the heavy smoker, is a pretty rare beast, an RDC-3 that originally had a baggage compartment and an RPO, as well as 48 passenger seats. The #9168 is the more common 90-seat RDC-1. The #9167, another RDC-1 they've had for a while, and the #9164, also an RDC-1, were sitting cold in the distance. And GP38-2 #2015 was there as well, after having brought the Ramble consist down on Friday night. The Rambles consist was nowhere to be seen, presumably taken back to Port Clinton by SD50-2s #5018 and #5020 the night before.

R&N's third steam locomotive, the #225, sits on display at Reading Outer Station. This was Canadian Pacific 4-6-0 #1098, and has never run in R&N ownership, nor do I believe there is any intent to operate it. They inherited it from George Hart after Jim Thorpe kicked his Rail Tours Inc. excursion operation out of town in 2004. She is mechanically really tired. Hart had another CPR D-10 4-6-0, the #972 that sits dismantled at Strasburg, and after he determined that the #972 needed too much work to keep running, he purchased the #1098 from Steamtown. I remember reading an account of a Steamtown volunteer who said they were preparing the #1098 for the move and they were amazed anyone would want the engine, let alone try and operate it. He started work on #1098 in the late 1980s using labor provided by Bill, Chad and Shane Frederickson and the #1098 returned to steam in September 1994 and only ran a series of "Fall Foliage" trips out of Jim Thorpe the following month. When the Fredericksons departed, Hart did not have a competent steam mechanic to repair the engine. Bill Sherwood, a former Strasburg RR mechanic, was hired by Hart in late 1995 and performed extensive repairs on the engine until about 1998. It was test-fired on about a half-dozen occasions in 1996 and 1998 but did not see service on any Rail Tours excursion trains since 1994. R&N eventually painted it blue and numbered it #225, but I don't think it has an operational future there. It's in really poor condition (the tires are bolted to the wheels, for example, which is a big no-no) and it doesn't really fill any gaps in the R&N fleet. The #425 is pretty light and can go anywhere on the system, and the #2102 is big mainline power, so where does the #225 fall? They don't really need an even lighter and smaller engine.

Tried out a new location, Belleman's Church Road in Leesport, didn't love it. But at least I didn't throw away a shot with #425 or #2102.

I was thinking of calling these "Ghost of the Crusader" (the Reading Crusader vest pocket streamliner ended its life demoted to two RDCs running Philadelphia-Newark) but someone on Facebook called it "Coal Country Metroliners" which is pretty funny. 

I stood at the far end of this section of track in Hamburon Saturday, waiting for #5018 and #5020 to come by with the last leg of the Ramble, and was talking with another pair of railfans and the older gentleman said, "I remember this in Conrail days, one train a week, if you were lucky, at 10mph." Now, it's heavy rail, excellent ballast, 45mph territory, passenger service, daily freights with six-axle power, steam excursions, you name it. Conrail said there was no money, no traffic, no future, Andy Muller said otherwise. .He also mentioned how they called the line up to Tremont "The Dusty Road" because every day they were on the dirt.

The shanty at Molino. This was an actual Reading station, and I'm guessing it was flag stop service. It had been moved elsewhere, but was located, restored and returned to it's location.

Again, at New Ringgold. I usually won't stop here if I want to get something at East Mahanoy Junction, but the RDCs make stops in Port Clinton and Tamaqua, so I hoped that if they stopped in Tamaqua, I could get ahead of them.

Passing through East Mahanoy Junction. This was unfortunately the last that I saw of the RDCs. I tried to get ahead of them at Marian Ave, and I waited there a while, assuming I was ahead of them. Realizing they had likely gone by, I tried to leapfrog them to the Route 93 underpass above Jim Thorpe Junction, but they were already through there as well. Later in the day, I would bump into another railfan and we were talking about it and he was like, "Oh, yeah, the RDCs fly on the line from Hometown to Jim Thorpe. It's 45mph territory, and they do all of that." I'm used to chasing the Rambles and Fall Foliage excursions, which still do 30mph there, mostly for people to enjoy the scenery and experience and feel like they're getting their money's worth. But th Budd cars are just a conveyancee for a lot of people, and so they do track speed.

So I doubled back to Leesport and went to my usual spot in Leesport. I had seen on Facebook that two of the three "Fast Freight" SD50-2s had run light through Leesport earlier in the day, likely as NRFF power. Now, almost every time I have chased NRFF, it's been like two SD40-2s and 15 cars. Well, not today, as a lashup of two SD50-2s, #5018 and #5020, two SD50Ms, #5014 and #5017, and an SD40-2, #3059, came pounding through Leesport with 68 cars in tow. Now, that's more like it!

An SD50-2 is not an official EMD model, but a CSX designation for SD50s that they downrated to SD40-spec, 3000hp. Confusingly, an SD50M is not a wide cab model, like an SD60M, but UP term for an SD50 that retains it's 3500hp but run through UP's homebrew reliability upgrade program. And an SD40-2 is normally an SD40-2, but the #3059 is noteworthy for having beegun life as a high-nose Southern unit that now wears one of NS's Admiral Cabs.

Roaring under the old Pennsy bridge at Hamburg. 

Molino, again with the shanty in the foreground. I have no clue why everyone always stands on the other side of the shanty, rather than working it into their photos.

I went up to East Mahanoy Junction, and caught SDQA (Shenandoah-Tamaqua), with SD40-2s #3064 and #3053 for power, idling on the Mt. Carmel line, waiting for NRFF to clear the line down to Tamaqua so that they could return to the yard.

16,000hp, 80 cylinders, 51,600 cubic inches, 30 traction motors, 5 turbochargers, all hard at work as they lug 68 cars up a grade and through the sharp curve at East Mahanoy Junction. Interesting to see that the large majority of the cars are boxcars.

And, with the way clear, SDQA heads for home.

Swinging across the Lehigh River, which is the shot that I wanted with #2102 the day before. It was good to see the two old gray and green SD50Ms out and about, since I have to imagine their running out their last miles. While the ex-CSX SD50-2s seem to be safe, since they're basically an SD40-2 with newer electrical gear, the ranks of the SD50Ms have slowly been dwindling, especially with the ex-NS SD40-2s that have arrived. A lot of them are sitting up at Mountain Top, awaiting their fates. As of right now, the wide cab and the EMD 710 engine and microprocessor controls have yet to make an appearance on the R&N. All the road power is pure Spartan Cab 645-powered. 

White Haven Tunnel.

And NRFF emerging from the tunnel. By this point, I was rapidly running out of light. I always seem to end up chasing NRFF in the early spring and late fall, and with the 2:20pm departure from Reading and the early sunsets, I'm not able to get many shots on the Lehigh Line. I need to get down there in the summer, I guess.

The last shot I could get, in Mountain Top.