19-12-22 PHOTOS: Nostalgia 145th St

No matter how many times I try to step back from the crowded frenzy of the NYCTA Holiday Nostalgia Train, the more they end up dragging me back with some new route or destination that makes the ride a "must attend" as a means to gather what has become otherwise impossible to obtain railfan window video. After years of the same old 2nd Ave to Queens Plaza run, the Holiday Nostalgia Train was first diverted up the new Second Ave Subway, followed the next year by an express run up the 8th Ave line to 125th St. For 2019 the trip was going to stick to 8th Ave, but travel an additional express stop to 145th St. It was for this extra mileage that I bought my NJT tickets and set sail for the Windy Apple yet again.

You can find all the still photos here ( mirror ) and next week I'll be posting all of the video.

To get up to 2nd Ave for the 10am departure I had to change at Newark Penn to take The PATH to lower Manhattan. Power for my NEC Line train was NJT ADP-45 #4503. These dual modes are increasingly used as straight electrics as opposed to something that might eliminate passengers changing trains.

The train was led by split level cab car #7001, seen here facing an Approach Medium indication on the 60L suspended signal signal at DOCK interlocking.

Of course the PATH train had left just minutes before the NJT arrival and Sunday morning headways were abysmal so after freezing my ass off for 20 minutes I was on my way. With PATH's front window no more, I had to settle for some side sides of DOCK tower, HUDSON tower and the HACK movable bridge.

Arriving downtown I found that the hyper expensive PATH train hall had become a glorified popup holiday mall.

R32's like #3470 here on a C service, were still rolling at W4th St.

Also at W4th was R68 #2446 on a D routing.

A Cuomo striped R160 on the F transported me to 2nd Ave where the Nostalgia Train was waiting, along with the Baseball Furies.

17-12-24 PHOTOS: Second Ave Nostalgia

This holiday photo set has a little bit of everything! Of course the headline content, continued from last week's video post, covers my trip to NYC to ride the Holiday Nostalgia Train on it's new (and long delayed) routing up the 2nd Ave Subway to 96th St. From there I take a holiday road trip to the Easton, PA area where I was alas too late to photograph some former Lehigh Valley searchlight signals on the former Conrail Lehigh Line. Instead of grabbed some photos of the new signals at some area interlockings. Finally I grabbed a few more holiday photos from the Baltimore Streetcar Museum.

You can find the full set of still content right here!

I took NJT to NYC, but earlier in the month I was in 30th St station on other business where I caught a snow covered Metroliner Cab Car #9644 in Keystone service.

NJT ALP-46 #4606 at Newark Penn Station. Catching the Nostalgia Trains at the 2nd Ave terminal is best accomplished through taking the PATH and then catching an (A) train at World Trade Center.

The new World Train Center PATH station is quite pretty, but not at all worth the cost. I dearly miss the old rabbit warren mall as it gave an advantage to savvy commuters over the tourists in terms of speedy navication.

The Nostalgia Train parked on the 2nd Ave center stub tracks that I believe were built to support the original Second Ave Subway plan, which today only runs between 63rd St and 96th St. The leading and training R1/9 cars were #1802 and #381.

With interest from the 1950's vintage cosplay set, the Holiday Nostalgia trains are more popular than ever, even on the "early" morning 10am run. A GoPro window mount or selfie stick are easy ways to avoid the crush of kids at the Railfan Window.

#381 at 96th St.

09-12-27 PHOTOS: Nostalgia PATH

Hello, I'm the Nostalgia Railfan, I ride it so you don't have to!

While the fate of the 2010 Nostalgia Train is still in flux I thought I might usher in the holiday season with a few photos from last years Nostalgia Train. After I had so much fun riding the 2008 train I returned in 2009 partly to complete a full set of videos of the shortened V route in the Southbound direction. I was also lucky enough to draw a set of the older cars on PATH both in and out of the city and yaddie yaddie yadda I have stills and video of the above ground segments.

Anyway, without further McAdoo you can find all of the Nostalgic photos here.

We begin on a classic PA-1/3 pulling out of Newark Penn Station. Early on a Sunday morning there were hardly any riders in the rear car who could might be in a position to object to someone taking photos out the back. Also, sitting in the real railfan seat there was, and I kid you not, a dude dressed in Wahhabi Islam garb (white robe, red checked head thinggie) with a long beard and reading a Koran. I figured that next to him even a railfan taking photos wouldn't look suspicious XD

Anyway, as we pulled out onto DOCK draw an inbound PA-1/3 trainset was pulling in.

Departing Harrison I noticed Amtrak has installed a brand new signal gantry for westbound trains into DOCK interlocking. It was not yet in service and it seems that Amtrak still can't gets its act together on the proper shape of the lower head backings for PRR type signals.

Caught an AEM-7 hauled regional passing under the signals for the newish REA interlocking.

A single unit PA-1/3 car was trundling around the Harrison yard under the care of a hostler.

The diamonds on the PATH main line that are interlocked as part of Amtrak's HUDSON interlocking. NJT #4303 sits patiently in Hudson Yard.

Moving onto the old PRR branch to Exchange Place we pass one of the PATH substations and the Karny pocket track with the NEC flyover in the background.

A CSX lashup was hanging out in the intermodal yard.

PATH is probably one of the last railroads to employ smashboards at its movable bridges. Here are the eastbound pair at the HACK movable bridge. 

And another set of old cars heading down the ramp to cross the Jersey flats.

That blue bridge cabin in HACK tower which controls not only this drawbridge, but the one next to it and several other nearby interlockings.

Rounding the curve through the west end of the Bergen Hill cut we pass yet another train of old cars.

08-06-20 PHOTOS: Video Path (and Other Touristy Stuff)

This set of photos is a bit hard to classify as I went to an O's game and took photos of MARC and later went to NYC and took pictures of DOCK intelrocking and other touristy things as part of a visit to the Museum of Natural History and the photos ended up on the same roll together.

Not much more to say than that except I now have two backlogs, one of the photos I need to process and another of the processed photos I need to write up. You can blame the free UK Railway signaling simulator SimSig for taking up a lot of my time recently d.d b.b

As usual you can find the photos here:

http://acm.jhu.edu/~sthurmovik/Railpics/08-06-20_VIDEO_PATH/-Thumbnails.html

And now on with the show.

Let's start things off with run of the mill CSX GE C44-10W #5244 rounding the curve at Bailey's Wye. That B&O CPL signal it is passing is a brand new in kind replacement for one that was demolished in a derailment a few months earlier.

Same train moving past the southbound CPL to HB TOWER interlocking next to the Hamburg St light rail station with C40-10W #5451. 

Here's a view of the MARC tracks and people arriving for the game.

MARC's GP39H-2s #72 was in Camden station preparing to depart south for the evening.



And I was indeed able to catch its departure led by single level cab car #7757.

The O's had paid to wrap half of a MTA-M light rail car. I guess wrapping the whole thing was out of reach for a sub-500 team :-D

On my way up to NYC I got some good photos of DOCK intelrocking in Newark. These photos were well timed because many of the all amber PL's have since been replaced and colourized.

For example this gantry with the 148R, 150R, 150L and 152R signals was still all amber, but has now been colorized.

The 141E and 143W points with pneumatic A-5 machines.

 The compact type 126R signal.

The compact type 122R and 124R signals, 122R has bee replaced by a full size colourized unit.

Speaking of new signals I got photos of the new 472 signal at Princeton, relocated so that stopping trains weren't in the signal block allowing following trains to maintain speed. Looks like Amtrak has finally stopped using full round lower heads when there is only a single row.

In addition to the natural history museum that had way too much stuff from the 70's in it, I took a side trip to RESTAURANT!

And when are they going to finish St John the Divine?

The main reason for my trip was to get some RFW videos from the front of a PATH train in the tunnels. I was mostly successful with a few that turned out too blurry, but I was able to capture Grove to Newport and then 9th to 33rd. 
 

 
Lastly I got a shot of the westbound Hudson tube from Christopher to Newport, and we had a competent engineer so it times at over a minute faster of my later video with the Christmas tree, however i didn't set things right and the video is terribly dark, worse with the low res. Sorry.



Anyway, hope you enjoyed them. You'll see more in the near future I swear.

03-07-19 CLASSIC PHOTOS: Port Jervis Trip

Before the age of formal Informal Railfan Trips, trips still happened, they were just fewer in number and not as well organized. Even the old Subtalk was known to get into the action and one such that trip organized in the summer of 2003 had the ambitious plan to go to Port Jervis and back on a weekend.

Port Jervis is always a tempting target for a railfan trip, but with 2_ hour travel times in each direction combined with spotty service frequencies, it is easy to get in over one's head. In this case everything was fine until the return trip where the brakes locked on an old CNJ vintage GP40P, which had to be set out and delayed us by an hour or more. Even returning express via the main line didn't do much to aid in our timelyness and we arrived at Hoboken well past the portal arrival and also well after the sun had set.

Because all of the "adventure" took place after daylight hours and before digital cameras had large memory capacity or native video, this photo set will cover all of the more "typical" railfan stuff that took place earlier that day.

We begin with a pair of Arrow III MU trains headed inbound and outbound at Hamilton, NJ with #1412 and #1377. Remember when NJT used to use MU's on it's electrified services? Crazy right?!

Amtrak left the lights on at MIDWAY interlocking. It also looks like I got lucky with a forward railfan view on an NJT train. Unfortunately with only 96 shots available on each card and a paltry 3x zoom, I couldn't take advantage of it.

Transfer to PATH at Newark and head out across the DOCK drawbridge. This was only 2 years after 9/11, but you can see what I thought of PATH's photo ban. 

SRS Doodlebug #149 was hanging out in Hudson yard. I believe that HUDSON Tower was still open.

PATH was still recovering from a land slide that had taken place the previous June.

PATH Journal Square yard complex.

 Arriving at Hoboken I found NJT and MNRR GP40PH-2's #4137 and 4190 sitting side by side.

The interior of Hoboken Terminal had just been renovated.

Hanging out on one of the outdoor tracks was an Arrow III Gladstone train with #1314.

Under the train shed the aluminum body of Comet I cab car #5128 was showing through the white paint.

#5000 Class car of the currently stored Comet III fleet was also waiting quietly at Hoboken.

Here Comet 1 cab car #5110 sits next to Metro North Comet IA cab car #919. This would be the car that the group would eventually ride to Port Jervis in.

#5000 wasn't the only special car at Hoboken. The lead car of the entire Comet coach family, #5100, was also there posing for photographs. #5100 was built by Pullman in 1970.