Trains on November 25, 2008

I started by scouting some new locations

After I finished an in-service at work I headed down to Pawlings Road. There is a water treatment plant along the Harrisburg line near mile 14.5. I question the legitimacy of the milepost based on the fact that Phoenixville near Black Rock tunnel is mile 28. There appears to be some sort of cellular tower about to be put in place there. The old Readling line passenger station at Pawlings is still there. Neat little building, looks like it is being used commercially now. I will do an old station day and shoot the old stations along the line or remnants there of at some point.

The photo in the third row is for the people at work. Check out the not about the 911 operators knowing about the help locations.

The it was off to Pottstown

I heard some chatter on the radio while heading to Pottstown. So I abandoned my original plan of heading to Wyomissing and stopped at Wawa grabbed a hoagie and a sode and went to the Pottstown station. (Yeah, same boring hangout but a safe place where the shots turn out reasonably well considering the trains are moving upwards of 40MPH as they go by) (Video of H48 in action)

Saw a couple of younger fans from Boyertown who were chasing the 38G. They told me that there was an old Southern GP-38 working in the Stowe yard with a couple of Dash 9's. Not impressive until I heard the sweet sound of the GP's air horns blasting. (Sounded awesome) I kept waiting for the GP to appear in front of us and realized it was behind us long hood forward on the siding running into the Pottstown Industrial Park. I told the guys to follow me, but evidently they were really set on seeing that 38G.  I can understand why, there was a Conrail engine pulling third on the consist, but I see that train almost every day I sit out there. I headed down Industrial Highway for the brief chase (which would become the rest of my day) of H48 pulling a single carload into Chapel Steel.

Westbound freight - possibly 17G or 39G?

I was in such glory over catching the GP move in town I really wasn't listening to the radio. Remember that Wawa italian hoagie with sweet peppers? I was trying to enjoy it and a cold coke. Plus I don't worry about symbols all the time as much as relaxing by the rails.

Back to that H48...working local between CG and Bird

I tried shooting this one at the old Douglassville station at a relatively new found spot but got impatient and left. It was a little windy this afternoon to be standing so far from the car. I knew the RT-82 bridge has a great sight line and wanted to give it a try. With the switch for the Bridsboro Industrial and Turkey Path being there I knew H48 would have to slow to a good speed for photos and decided to brave the elements for the purpose of art. Underneath the bridge is some sort of old siding which I am not quite sure what it would goto but I snapped a photo of it. I also found a set of stairs with a rotted out power pole laying on it.

Lucky find on the Brown's Feed siding provided inspiration for night shots

I had become very complacent when it comes to observations. I never knew that there was a business called Brown's Feed in Birdsboro or where it even was. It sounded like there may be an eastbound train coming which I was going to shoot at least on video in the fast fading daylight. I was trying to keep an eye on the signal tower but was getting lazy so I would just drive over the bridge and look for green signals. I went into Birdsboro and stumbled upon two Dash 9's idling on the siding. There had been traffic on the radio about moving two engines but I had no clue to where or that it would be so accessible.

I ended my day with a night shot of the Pottstown station. I shot this a couple weeks ago at 3200 ISO and the noise in the photo was horrendous. This time I pleyed around a little bit with 100 and 400 ISO with much nicer results. For those that don't know this station is now a Harleysville National Bank branch and a District Court office.