The Last Part

“Friday”

A noun. “The day of the week before Saturday and following Thursday.”

A day that is sacred anywhere in the working world.

To my friends back in New Haven: “Happy Friday!!!!”:

Day Six began with sunny blue skies when I woke up this morning at 8:30am. About 2 hours later, the clouds were rolling in and slightly cooler air could be felt. Seems my good luck string of 80 degree days is coming to an end as a cold front rumbles east and Indian Summer is going away.

Trying to get a good night’s sleep in an inn about 125 feet from the CSX main line was kinda hard to do. Not that I am complaining. Having been here before, it kinda brought back fond memories of October 1999 when I was last here. On this trip at one point, maybe about 1 in the morning, I was awakened by the sound of a northbound freight train. "Maybe if you count the cars, you might fall asleep faster”, I said to myself. What roared by was 3 big CSX locomotives and 145, yes count ‘em, 145 cars on that their train. After saying, “Wow, that was a long one”, I was soon out and sound asleep….until the next freight train an hour and a half later. No big deal. I feel quite fine on this TGIF morning. The fun begins later after noon time when I begin my northern trek up I-95 to get around our nation’s capital and our layover stop in Perryville, Maryland tonight.

Walking around this part of town and on the east sides of the CSX main line is the campus of Randolph-Macon College. From our friends at Wikipedia.Org:

“Randolph–Macon College is a private, co-educational liberal arts college located in Ashland, Virginia, United States, near the capital city of Richmond. Founded in 1830, the school has an enrollment of more than 1,400 students. The college offers bachelor's degrees in 38 major disciplines in the liberal arts, including political science, business, psychology, biology, international studies, and computer science, as well as 34 minors, including education.[6] Randolph–Macon College is a member of the Annapolis Group of colleges in the United States, as well as the Virginia Foundation for Independent Colleges.”

As you can see by the pics below, the campus is quite nice:

After what was a comfortable morning, it was time to start heading home, with an overnight stop in Perryville, Maryland. But today was without some excitement weather-wise.

Indian Summer was coming to a close. And even though I could not see it as I started my drive north on I-95 from Ashland, I was in for quite the ride.

About 35 miles south of Washington, D.C., the skies to the northwest were getting really dark. I could start to see the leading edge of the rain and before you know it, the heavens started to open up. Road speed went down to 45 MPH and there was bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-95 southbound. I began to wonder where were all these people going?!

Once in Washington, I made the turn to take the I-495 Beltway to the east. And as much as all of us drivers tried, that rain front just kept up with. Back on I-95 and taking that right into Baltimore, the heavens opened up even more. And trying to reads the overhead signs was a treat, especially when yours truly does not own an E-Z Pass. Into bore number 4 of the Fort McHenry Tunnel I go and under Baltimore Harbor we go. Out of the bore, E-Z Pass/Cash comes into view. $4.00 to the toll collector and on we go. Again, 4 lanes of northbound traffic with the density of a NASCAR race and LO, we are pulling ahead of the rain but as much as we all do, the front looks awfully ominous in the rearview mirror. And soon the Susquehanna, the Suzie-Q River, is ahead. You make this descending 60 degrees curve to the left and you are now one of the scariest bridges around. Jersey barriers in the center to divide northbound and southbound. Jersey barriers as the guardrails on the sides and the river over 200 feet below. CSX’s railroad bridge is to the south and south of that is Amtrak’s bridge between Harve de Grace and Perryville. $8.00 to the toll collector one mile east of the bridge and my hotel is in sight. I had figured 3 hours and 30 minutes travel time. No stops. And arriving on the advertised. Well done. And the rain arrives about an hour later Safe!!

Tomorrow is the last leg of this trip as I depart Perryville at 9am with arrival back home in Niantic early Saturday afternoon. 

And on that note, this brings to an end my retrospective trip to Altoona and Ashland. Beautiful Indian Summer weather. A comfortable king bed at each location and full-flow showers. YES!!

I hope you had fun reading as I did writing. If all goes well, it will be back to Nebraska this time next year.

Thanks for coming along. Have a safe ride wherever the train may take you….when you do. And I’ll see you later.

And we end with 2 parting shots from Ashland; a northbound CSX freight and the beautiful Henry Clay Inn:

And a look at Amtrak Train number 91, the southbound Silver Star that runs between New York City and Miami, as it rolls thru Ashland.

https://youtu.be/ZpyZ5TQkCYU

I’m Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Perryville, Maryland.

Part Five

“Progress”

A noun. “Forward or onward movement toward a destination.”

More on that in a moment.

Day Five is unexpected warm and 88 degrees at my next stop in Ashland, Virginia, 4 hours and 253 miles due south of Altoona, Pennsylvania where my morning began. From our friends at Wikipedia.Org:

“Ashland is a town located 15 miles north of Richmond along Interstate-95 and historic Route 1 (and its bicycle version) in Hanover County, Virginia, United States. Ashland is named after the Lexington, Kentucky estate of Hanover County native and statesman Henry Clay. It is the only incorporated town in Hanover County chartered by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Although comprising only one square mile when originally incorporated in 1858, today Ashland has grown through several annexations to a size of 7.12 square miles, one of the Virginia's larger towns in terms of land area. The entire town was declared a historic district by Virginia and federally recognized in 1983.”

My accommodations are at the Henry Clay Inn, right on North Center Street and along the railroad tracks.  From their website:

“We invite you to step into the warmth, charm and hospitality of The Henry Clay Inn®. Our Georgian-style Inn is a centerpiece in historic Ashland, VA, “The Center of the Universe!” Enjoy the warm welcome of our lobby with a gorgeous fireplace and sitting area and our Drawing Room with its own fireplace, perfect for your next event or meeting. The Drawing Room opens onto our spacious porch for sitting back and enjoying the sights and sounds of Ashland and is particularly popular with our train fans. Our cozy breakfast area provides the perfect spot to enjoy our newly re-opened kitchen for full breakfast or just sip a cup of tea or coffee and read the morning paper. The majority of our guest rooms are on our second floor, which also features a parlor with fireplace and is the ideal gathering spot for good conversation or to curl up with a good book and opens onto a lovely second-floor porch. Our selection of 13 rooms offer a variety of choices for your overnight stay and all feature private baths:

And let us not forget the TRAINS. We are just across the street from the Ashland/Hanover Visitors Center, which is the historic train depot built in 1923 and is the hop on/off point for Amtrak. You can step off the porch of The Henry Clay Inn and onto the train to head east to DC, NY, Boston and all the destinations in-between. Or, head south for all the splendor of the southeast on your way to Florida! We’re a favorite for train buffs from all over, and you can often find them rocking on our front porch watching the CSX and Amtrak trains fly by.” (Been there. Done that!!)

I first came to Ashland back in October 1999. I had gone down to Wilmington, North Carolina to meet up with some fellow “Creekers” who were fans of the old WB television show “Dawson’s Creek”, which was filmed in and around Wilmington with interior scenes shot at the Screen Gems Studios located in Wilmington. The little airport in that city can and at the time was quite busy with visitors and some of the show’s stars passing thru. Had a Brush-wit-Greatness with co-star Joshua Jackson aka ‘Pacey Witter”, but I digress.

As I have been doing this blog, I have been trying to remember how I first discovered these places that I have been visiting. Twenty years ago, I was just discovering computers and didn’t have all of the money to buy the fancy machines of that time. With the help of my younger brother and a friend at News 8, I got my first Windows machine and I got a second phone line for the dial-up connection to the Internet. Google was yet to rise on the horizon and a search engine named Web Crawler was the one that helped me put these trips together. Phone calls were made to secure reservations. A long distance dialing card from now defunct MCI gave me the opportunity to make long distance phones while on the road and getting them charged to home. Maps were the way to go thanks to AAA as was a mapping program called Street Atlas from a company called Delorme Maps based in Yarmouth, Maine with headquarters just south of the outdoorsy L.L Bean on U.S. Route 1.

When I came to Altoona twenty years ago in 1996, it was my fourth trip back since 1989. Now having a home computer to work with (my first laptop was 3 years away), I remember getting this daisy wheel printer from my younger brother the computer guy and buying a box of computer paper that had the rip-away rings on each side to feed the printer. I made a whole bunch of maps that followed Conrail’s main line from Harrisburg to Altoona to Cresson. That was a LOT of paper. Filled a one inch thick binder. As I type this part of my story, a CSX container/piggy back train rumbles thru at 35 MPH. The second floor of my “office” is vibrating just a bit, which is just fine by me. 

Again, I digress.

Fast forward now to present day. I have a very nice Sager laptop, thanks to the suggestion from my son Chris, to write my blog. An iPhone 6+ keeps me in touch with the world and family back home. I can surf the Web with the iPhone!! This is part of Progress that I like. Technology moving forward. This is good progress. Computers have revolutionized so many aspects of life.

Then there is the part of Progress that does not make sense to me.

Back home in Connecticut, especially on the shoreline from Old Saybrook thru and past New London, Amtrak is trying to float this idea of not rebuilding the old New Haven Shoreline Route but wanting to build a new high speed line right thru the historic district of Old Lyme, thru part of where I live in East Lyme, and thru other places that I can’t even begin to wonder HOW they would do it. Mind you Amtrak has held a very loud town hall meeting in Old Lyme about this new main line.

And when I got here to Ashland, I decide to take a walk along North Center street thru which the old Richmond, Potomac and Fredericksburg Railroad, now CSX, main line goes right thru the middle of the town. From my vantage point here at the Henry Clay Inn, I can watch the trains go by up here on the second floor porch, outside my rail facing, second story room, number 204:

Or trackside at the Ashland Tourist Information Center. 

You are literally right next to the action. 

All trains, freight and passenger, come thru at 35 MPH during the day; 45 MPH during the night. This is one very cool place to see trains! You can even watch the trains here on the Internet at www.virtualrailfan.com for only $9.95 per month. The cameras are on top of Hometown Realty and sponsored by Tom's Toys & Trains:

And yes, I am a member.

And then I saw the signs that are on the front yards of some of the beautiful homes along North Center Street. They are from an organization called Save-Ashland.Org with the slogan NO THIRD RAIL. Apparently there is a drive to get a third set of railroad tracks built thru the heart of Ashland. As you can see from the pictures below, this is what currently exists in Ashland:

The project would effectively take out one side of North Center Street and really make things quite tight for the CSX and Amtrak. And, they want to build a new train station. All of this in anticipation of future shipping growth for CSX and the need for high speed rail between Richmond and Washington, D.C. for Amtrak.

What is here right now looks fine to me. And speaking of Amtrak, they have a train called the Cardinal that runs from New York City to Washington, DC and does a leisurely pace thru Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana to Chicago. It runs three days a week and near capacity. Amtrak would like to make it a daily train.

And in Ashland, Amtrak’s daily Auto Train runs thru from just outside Washington, D.C  in Lorton, Virginia to Sanford, Florida just outside of Orlando and Disney World. Put your car on the train, grab a roomette, and be at your destination in about 19-20 hours.

And one more thing about Ashland: the town does love its trains as indicated on a banner at the train station for Ashland Train Days next month:

Progress needs to take a step back and review. I am all for getting from one place to another in a speedily and orderly fashion. Speed you get from the airlines but what a pain in the alpha-sierra-sierra it is to get to the airport and go thru all of the bravo-sierra there. Trains are downtown to downtown. Speed is a factor if you prefer to ride the Acela Express on the Northeast corridor or take the Regional service for a slightly slower pace. People love to ride the rails. On a trip I made recently from New London to New Haven and back, I took the Shoreline East commuter train. Three cars not filled to capacity but there were people taking the train to get to New Haven and avoiding the drive on Interstate 95. On Amtrak train 86 which I took back to New London and eventually Providence and Boston, the train was near capacity. People on their smart phones or doing business on their laptops with in-coach wireless. Progress getting done at 80 to 125 MPH. Not too shabby. Nobody seemed to be in a rush.

Progress can be good. Progress can be bad. The almighty dollar gets in there and gums up the works. Who knows what will happen here in Ashland or back home in Connecticut? I have always loved enjoying life at a snail’s pace. A comfortable crawl, if you will. Oh yes, I do want a well maintained Interstate so I can get to my destinations in a timely matter. But that comfortable crawl. It’s a good thing.

Today we finish up by just walking around town and getting some pictures in. Dinner will be at the Iron Horse Café just down the street from the Henry Clay Inn. And please make that a sidewalk table....trackside, please.

I’m Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Ashland, Virginia.

Part Four

“Weight”

A noun.  A body's relative mass or the quantity of matter contained by it, giving rise to a downward force; the heaviness of a person or thing.

Ten years ago on CBS Sunday morning, they did an interview of railfans at the Folkston Funnel in Folkston, Georgia, 40 miles north northwest of Jacksonville, Florida. One of the railfans interviewed said it best about railroads:

“Massive amounts of power moving massive amounts of weight.”

Up here on the Horseshoe Curve, weight is everything. It is pretty much a balancing act with what the Norfolk Southern Railroad does each day. Moving freight trains on level ground, like the Union Pacific does on the prairies of Nebraska is one thing. Here on the curve, it’s a whole different ballgame.

On Tuesday, a very special unit train came down the Curve.

It was a 101 car unit tank car train. Three GE Locomotives on the head end. Two EMD locomotives on the rear end; all running in dynamic braking.

According to the HazMat placards on each car, they carried the number 1987. According to the HazMat numbering system, this train was carrying alcohol. How much alcohol this train was carrying will amaze you.

Take a look at the picture below:

This is tank car TILX 351202. The car is leased from Trinity Industries, Inc., based in Dallas, Texas. The car can hold up to 31,000 gallons. On the car, you will see 2 weight indications. LT WT stands for LighT WeighT and it is 74,600 pounds or 37.3 tons. That is the weight of the tank car when empty. It is also known as the Tare Weight. LD LMT is the LoaD LiMiT: the amount of weight the car can safely carry. On this tank car, it is 211,600 pounds or 105.8 tons. Fully loaded out, this tank car weighs in at 286,200 pounds or 143.10 tons. Take the combined loads of these 101 cars and you have 21,371,600 pounds or 10,685.80 tons. Add the tare weight of the tank cars combined and you have 7,534,600 pounds or 3,767.30 tons. Add it all together and you have a train consist weight of 28,906,200 pounds or 14,453.10 tons. Obviously, liquids have all sorts of densities and what a particular liquid weighs per gallon.

For this particular unit train, the DOT Placard on each car has the number 1987 which stands for ALCOHOLS or DENATURED ALCOHOL, Class 3. For this example, we will say the cars are filled with denatured alcohol, used for industrial cleaning and for fuel. With a weight of 6.79 pounds per gallon and the car made to carry 31,000 gallons, the load of this one car would have a load of 210,490 pounds or 105.245 tons which is just under the LoaD LimiT of the car.  The total weight of the car would be 285,090 pounds or 142.545 tons. Doing the math for 101 total cars, the total weight of the train consist would be 28,794,090 pounds or 14,397.045 tons. Again, weight is everything when it comes to putting trains together, figuring out how many locomotives will be needed to move the train, and making sure the total weight can be moved safely.

Meanwhile, back at  the Curve, there are 2 ways to get to the visitors area at the top of the curve. One is the funicular, a cable-driven incline which has 2 cars fashioned after the Pennsylvania Railroad’s color scheme for its passenger cars from the 1930’s and 40’s.

The other way is the 194 steps that are built into the hill.

Back when I first got here, the steps were not the kind made with concrete. If memory serves me correctly, they were made of stone and there were fewer steps and they were slightly steeper. I have an old VHS tape somewhere in my archives of climbing the old steps and tracking my steps with my Cousin Marie’s old VHS camera. Pretty much ran out of breath when I reached the top. I remember at the time playing this tape back for my son and daughter and they got quite the laugh out of it.

And speaking of my son and daughter, we were here back in the early 1990’s; 1992 if memory serves me correctly. Chris was 9 and Caty was 6 when I took them here in June of that year. While we were here and they were going up and down the steps, a big motor coach pulled into the parking lot. Out come thirty-one lovely ladies all dressed in beautiful dresses and high heels and each were sporting some kind of sash. They came up on the funicular and one-by-one, they were lined up on the running board on the curve side of the GP-9 locomotive that is on display at the top of the visitors area:

Come to find out that these young ladies were contestants of the Miss Pennsylvania Beauty Pageant  and the then current Miss Pennsylvania was along also. We were watching a press junket. And Miss Pennsylvania took a liking to my daughter and next thing you know, my kids and I are talking to Miss PA all by ourselves. A very nice Brush-with-Greatness, to quote David Letterman. Next thing you know, they were on their way back to their next stop. Suffice it to say many of the railfans that day got pictures with Miss Pennsylvania and her entourage. Very cool, indeed!!

And speaking of that GP-9, some info from the park:

And one more thing for today. Below are pictures of a very interesting and protective device on the railroad.

It is called a hot box/dragging equipment detector, located next to the Brickyards grade crossing in Altoona. As you look at the pics, you will see a white box with a glass eye looking up. That is an infrared eye that looks for abnormal amounts of heat from the ball bearing journals. The blue boards that stick up between the rails look for dragging equipment, such as loose air brake hoses or parts of the trains’ undercarriage. If something is found, the detector’s radio in the brown bungalow will send a message on the road channel radio frequency and tell the engineer what type of defect it is, what axle the defect is near and what side, or rail, the defect is on. As always, safety is priority one on the railroad.

Anyway, a good day up here on the Curve. A few less trains than yesterday but still enough to boost the excitement of the railfans present. and before we leave for one last time, a couple of items. First, take note of the graffiti that I saw on some of the 100 plus auto carrier cars on a very long westbound going up the Curve:

Second, we were entertained by Rich and Gretchen of Tucson, Arizona. Or to be more specific, the train crews were entertained by Gretchen. Traveling in their RV with Jeep in tow:

They are on a cross country trip at several weeks in. Rich is originally from Altoona. Gretchen from Maine. Both retired Air Force. Every time the head end or rear end of any train went rolling by, she was out there dancing up a storm and trying to get the engineers to toot their horn. And they did!!

Thursday is a travel day. We head south past our nation’s capitol and head for the town of Ashland, Virginia, 20 miles north of Richmond. See you there.

And we end the day with westbound Amtrak train 43, The Pennsylvanian, as it climbs around the Curve. And that brief moment of the jumping lady? Well, that's Gretchen.

https://youtu.be/KCreok71j2Y

I’m Philip J Zocco. On The Road. In Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Part Three

“Peek-A-Boo”

What is an old game to be played with any infant is the type of weather day today. Big puffy clouds up on the Curve this afternoon as Day Three rambles on. When that sun does pop out, it sure does feel quite comfy. And there is a pretty good breeze about 10, maybe 15 MPH with the gusts. Still, it is a beautiful day.

Breakfast this morning was at one of the Sheetz Convenience stores that dot Altoona. There are no 7-Elevens around here. Sheetz, with a Z, was here when I first arrived back in 1989. But man have they changed!! What were once small 300 square foot at-best stores with maybe 4 fuel pumps are now like these large multi-purpose convenience stores.

At least a dozen fuel pumps for cars, 4 more for the diesel variety, and just about every kind of snack under the sun. I think I counted about 24 different types of coffee, freshly ground and brewed every morning. At least a dozen frozen Slurpee type drinks, lots of sandwiches, pastries, potato chips, you name it. The powers-that-be behind these stores have truly out done themselves. Friendly, smiling faces behind the counter. So if you are in Pennsylvania and travels thru cities like Altoona, search for them on Google Maps on your iPhone and get the directions to the store nearest you.

Once out of Sheetz with a cinnamon bun and 12 ounces of whole chocolate milk, it was time to head downtown to where the Norfolk Southern mainline slices thru Altoona. One of my discoveries with Altoona is that the Station Shopping Mall is no more. It has been taken over and repurposed as part of the Blair County Medical Center. Back in the days of the mall, there were a few places where you could sit back in your car or on a bench and watch the action roll by. Well, there are 3 small overhangs where you can sit down and watch the trains roll by, provided you don’t mine looking thru the wild grass.

There are 2 overhead walkways that will allow you to cross over the tracks. One behind the medical center that takes you to the Altoona Amtrak train station and one near a parking garage which connects with the back yard of the Pennsylvanian Memorial Railroad Museum. 

I managed to snag a few pics of an eastbound freight that was slowly rolling into town after it had its helper locomotives cut off just west of me.

And while walking back to my car, I met a gentleman who was recording a pair of helper locomotives speeding west out of town to head back to Cresson near the Gallitzin Tunnels to help another eastbound down the Curve. His name was Hans and he came from a town just north of Buffalo, NY in the province of Ontario. He had a broadcast quality Panasonic camera complete with the fluffy cover boom mic on top. I waited patiently for him to hit the stop button as professionals usually do. We spoke of our railfanning efforts and Hans was getting ready to head back north. As a parting shot, he spoke of how we and he pronounce certain words and place names. DuBois is said differently. HE also mentions the mountains known as the Grand Tetons. How we say it in English is one thing; how the French Canadians say it is another. And the French definition of Grand Tetons should not be said in mixed company. Other than that, I bid Hand ado and headed over to the east side of Altoona.

There along Porta Road is what is known as the Brickyards grade crossing. Here is where the eastbounds roll slowly into town with the engineer keeping his train at a controlled speed. Once around the 70 degree bend, the train will be in downtown Altoona as it rolls east. Helpers are pulled off about a mile east in downtown. The westbounds are another story.

Once the engineer had all of the slack pulled out of this 125 car empty unit coal train, it is Run-8 (full throttle) as the train climbs as quickly as possible before the 2% ruling westward grade starts to take ahold of the train. What was a very “fast” 30MPH is slowly being cut down as the train climbs west. As the last car clears the crossing, the train is down to about half its speed as the weight of the train, the 90 degree curve to the west of this grade crossing before Horseshoe Curve and that grade take hold. Yet somehow, that train will make it run around Horseshoe Curve and continue west to Pittsburgh and beyond.

Once I make a pit stop and grab lunch, it is back to Horseshoe Curve and an afternoon of watching the trains roll by. Still a good amount of puffy clods and that peek-a-boo sunshine. Temps are somewhere between 75 and 80. A great Indian Summer Day.

One thing about being here at the Curve: it can be very quiet for minutes at a time. And then all hell breaks loose as you see in the following pics: a double stack westbound coming up the curve and at the same time, a 93 car eastbound slowly comes down the Curve. A “meet” if you will.

The westbound had a pair of 4400 horsepower GE (General Electric) locomotives running Run-8 with a pair of EMD (Electro Motive Division of General Motors) locomotives to keep the train moving and slack action to a minimum. Eastbound was a foursome of 4400 horsepower GE’s (with an out-of-towner from the Union Pacific) running in full dynamic braking and a pair of EMD’s on the rear to keep the braking in check.

A word on how trains stop. When running on flat terrain, the brakes on a train will usually do the job. The brake shoes are kept off of the wheels with compressed air which comes from the locomotives and runs the full length of the train: what we call the “train line”. If by chance there would be a separating of the train, the escaping airs causes the brake shows to clamp down on the wheels and effectively stop the train. Once the culprit of the separation is found, the air is pumped back up and the train is on its way.

Coming down the hill is another story. In a locomotive, the engine, known as the prime mover, spins a generator which supplies DC voltage to the traction motors on the axles to provide the pulling power. As a comparison, the voltage to light a 100 watt light bulb is 120 volts AC with a current of about 1 amp. In the EMD helper locomotives, the generator there provides 600 volts DC with a maximum long term running of 1500 amps with a short term running of 2200 amps maximum. When it comes time to go downhill, dynamic braking comes into use. This is where the traction motors on the locomotive are turned into generators. The voltage generated by the motors is fed into large resistor grids usually located bind the cab or midway on the top of the locomotive. The heat that is created by this braking is dissipated as heat and large cooling fans keep the heat from burning out the resistive grid. On certain days, you can actually see and feel the heat from these grids. Add a little light brake shoe braking and done. Quite impressive.

The day carries on under sunny skies. And it seems we have more visitors. There was an Amish family of 10 that came up with their picnic baskets and set out their spread under one of the trees picnic tables. And it seems a bus came thru with a bunch of senior citizens. All quite chatty and taking pictures of the trains rolling by and getting a picture taken by old GP-9 Pennsylvania locomotive 7048, which sits here on the Curve for those past and present who make the Curve work every day. Safe to say I saw maybe over 150 visitors to the Curve while I was here this afternoon.

And for added excitement, we had a mile and a quarter long eastbound double stack train literally stop on the Curve. Seems in downtown Altoona, the Norfolk Southern dispatcher out of Pittsburgh reported that there was a broken rail on the track that this train was supposed to use. The train was stopped at the Brickyards crossing while the track maintenance folks did their thing. It was then decided to run the train around the affected area. When the engineer was given the OK to roll east and he took the brakes off, you could hear the brakes release in order from front to back. As the train groaned to life, it rolled very slowly until it reached its normal downhill speed. Very rare to see a train stop going downhill. Even more amazing to see how it was safely stopped and then started again.

Anyway, so ends Day Three. We have one more day here at the Curve before we head to our next stop on Thursday afternoon in the railroad town of Ashland, Virginia. Tomorrow we’ll talk about train weight. You’ll be surprised what train cars can hold. And we’ll show you pictures of one very special unit train that came thru here. Later later.

I’m Philip J Zocco. On the Road. In Altoona, Pennsylvania.