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.