Railroaders' Nostalgia > My Dumb Luck: the AFT years 29

29 Pittsburgh PA July 7-10/ Brackenridge PA July 11-12

I'd barely recovered from my Harrisburg adventures and we were off to Pittsburgh. Of course the big attraction on this move was the Pennsylvania's Horseshoe Curve. We left Harrisburg at the usual 2 a.m. and I slept through to Altoona. Here we took on coal and water and two of PC, no wait ... two of Conrail's finest diesels as helpers on the head end. We reached The Curve around 10 a.m. Ross wanted to put on a show and have the T-1 'round Horseshoe unassisted. Conrail was game, so we stopped and the helpers cut off and pulled clear. But the grade and curve were too much for the T-1. Ross had about three goes before the conductor put a stop to it. I was back in the 201 car and the slack action was pretty violent – nobody wanted a repeat of Odessa! So the diesels dropped back down, and we were quickly underway.
Sigh.

Photo 1. Winding our way up to the Horseshoe.
Photo 2. That's Dale (Night Operations) in the 111 Car shooting Super 8 movies. He made a camera mount that fit into the marker lamp bracket on the 201 Car, but it only worked on the engineer's side, and seeing as Horseshoe was to be a curve to the left...
Photo 3. Finally 'rounding “The Curve”. I was trying to cut the helpers out of the frame and cut out some of the T-1. Oops! And, of course, this was back in the days when PRR K-4 1361 still lived up on Horseshoe.

Along the way, I spotted a bright blue caboose – the first Conrail blue anything I'd seen. Arriving in Pittsburgh, we were spotted by Conrail's Bicentennial GP-38 7776. As I understand it, this color scheme didn't last long. Funny, now that I think about it, this was the first locomotive I'd seen in Conrail paint – I still hadn't seen a blue one yet!
At Pittsburgh we displayed right in the old Pennsylvania station.

Photo 4. The first Conrail blue anything I spotted.
Photo 5. Conrail 7776 doing the switching in Pittsburgh. That's Wild Bill (My fellow curator) on the rear steps of the 205 Car- check this out:
Photo 6. AFT Trouser Cam.
Photo 7. Arrival in Pittsburgh.
Photo 8. One more.

A few notes and photos on things around town:

PATrain ran Budd Cars down to Versailles on the B&O, so I took in a round trip – my only RDC ride ever. I later learned one of the ex-ATSF Budds was part of their small fleet, but it wasn't part of the set I rode. Wish I'd known at the time – I'd have tracked it down. I'm pretty sure this service is gone now.

Pittsburgh offered PCC cars in rude colors.

I wandered over to the P&LE station. It seemed closed and abandoned, but peering in through the windows the interior looked spectacularly well preserved. Out back were 1920-ish looking heavyweight commute cars, again looking ready to go!? Someone out there is going to have to tell me what the status of this place was in July '76. What I saw made no sense to me. I know it's a restaurant now.

Photo 9. Budd RDC's on PATrain. The American flags were a nice touch!
Photo 10. My “only ever” Budd ride.
Photo 11. Holy Moly!
Photo 12. The cars behind the P&LE depot. Ex-Reading?

Late one night, I was sitting in the 203 Car chatting with Ed, who did all the advance legwork making sure the proposed display sites were more reality than fantasy. Alongside, an F-40 with a long string of Amfleet cars rolled to a stop. There were no passengers aboard and the cars looked to be brand new. Remember the time frame: Amfleet cars were not yet a full year in service, and Superliners were still three years in the future. We decided to investigate. Sure enough, these cars were on their way from Red Lion (PA) to Los Angeles to replace all the Heritage cars (a term not yet invented) on the San Diegans. The Budd rep gave us a quick tour. In eight years, I would work these same cars as a new-hire LSA out of the LA Crew base – sure didn't see that one coming!!

From Pittsburgh we went to Brackenridge, PA ... Say where?
When NYC pulled the plug on a full month's stay and blew open the AFT calendar, holes got filled with smaller towns like Brackenridge. These short two-day stops were a lot of work (back-to-back nights setting up and tearing down the train) but they were kind of nice too because people were friendly and enthusiastic.

Actually, we always did quite well in small towns.

SR Bush
Dutch Flat

Bonus period shot:
Photo 13. Coming into Pittsburgh I shot this because of the two tenders- but look closer: Factory Fresh Matadors & Gremlins!



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/10/14 17:36 by BoilingMan.

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They must have wyed the train in Pittsburgh in order to face eastward as shown. Amtrak wyes the Pennsylvanian in Homewood a couple of miles to the east, or else the track over the Monongahela River was still in service and there might have been a wye across the river (Monon Jct.).

The Conrail GP did all the switching, so there's no AFT paperwork describing the moves involved. I just remember it took forever! We left Pittsburg the way we came in (came in WB, left EB) so the train had to be turned either upon arrival or before leaving- sounds like it was the former.
SR

Thanks for posting these wonderful pictures!

BoilingMan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> A few notes and photos on things around town:
>
> PATrain ran Budd Cars down to Versailles on the
> B&O, so I took in a round trip – my only RDC
> ride ever. I later learned one of the ex-ATSF
> Budds was part of their small fleet, but it wasn't
> part of the set I rode. Wish I'd known at the time
> – I'd have tracked it down. I'm pretty sure
> this service is gone now.

The PATrain was discontinued in April 1989. At the time, the rolling stock consisted of rebuilt F7s (originally SP) and rebuilt passenger cars configured to operate in the push-pull configuration.

>
> Pittsburgh offered PCC cars in rude colors.

I respectfully disagree. The 1970s were a "wild and crazy" time for schemes on transit vehicles in the area. I have an unpowered Corgi model of that PCC.
>
> I wandered over to the P&LE station. It seemed
> closed and abandoned, but peering in through the
> windows the interior looked spectacularly well
> preserved. Out back were 1920-ish looking
> heavyweight commute cars, again looking ready to
> go!? Someone out there is going to have to tell me
> what the status of this place was in July '76.
> What I saw made no sense to me. I know it's a
> restaurant now.

Prior to moving to Pittsburgh in 1989, I stopped over to change buses and trains on trips to the West and Midwest. On a 1976 trip, I had enough time to wander over to the P & LE Terminal. I remember it being open and being able to walk into the wonderful waiting room which is now the Grand Concourse restaurant. I don't know what, if anything the space was used for, but the P & LE used the station for its once-per day commuter train service between Pittsburgh and College (32 miles west of Pittsburgh). In 1976, the train was comprised of a GP7 painted in Bicentennial colors and olive green passenger cars. In 1978 or 1979, the Grand Concourse restaurant opened in the station.
>

Cool-thank you for shedding a little light on the P&LE situation.
So was that P&LE GP pulling the cars I photographed? If was only the one train a day, then maybe they weren't using the depot building? It sounds like the lobby was being kept so nice because the real estate people were marketing it for a new use.
SR

I was mostly teasing about the PCC car. It was very Heinz Edelman/Milton Glaser/Peter Max. It would be fun to have one of the PCC's in the San Francisco Muni fleet done this way. No one would believe it!

Thanks for posting these pics. I was born and raised in Pittsburgh so they brought back a lot of memories . I was in high school at the time the AFT came to Pitt and I went to see the the AFT that Saturday down at the former PRR station. That was the first and only time I'd been inside that station and remember being impressed at how beautiful it was on the inside. The outside looked black and grimy at that time and needed a good sandblasting to get rid of the decades worth of accumulating pollution that was coating it. I remember it rained pretty hard that day, and the lines were long to get on board, but the train sheds kept us dry. Unfortunately, I didn't get to go see that Reading steam loco up close because (IIRC) it was out beyond the end of the sheds and I didn't go there because of either the rain or maybe because the platforms didn't extend out past the sheds. I was disappointed in not being able to get up close to the loco.

They sure did have a ton of wild colored PCC's in Pittsburgh then, in a vast array of colors. I remember that one in your picture, because it was the "loudest" colored of the bunch. I also especially remember one that done up in the black and gold colors of the Steelers (also the colors of the Pirates and later still the Penguins) along with their logo and "Steelers" in their special Steeler font written along the sides of the car. Everybody in Pittsburgh really loved the Steelers because they were starting to dominate the league that decade, after many prior decades of futility. At the time of the AFT they had already won two of the four Super Bowls that they would win in the 70's. So the PCC done up in black and gold just made sense. I did get to ride the PCC/trolly once from downtown to south Pittsburgh/Mt Lebanon and back. I regret not riding them more (I did ride the PAT busses a ton of times). In fact, I rode a PAT bus that morning to go downtown to see the AFT. I also rode the bus home afterwards (but only after I visited Bill and Walt's hobby shop).

I got to ride on the predecessor of the PAT train, when the B&O ran the train, out to McKeesport back in the 1960's. I don't think the one I rode was RDC's (in the mid/late 60's). I now wished I would have ridden the RDC's like you did (in the mid 70's).

Thanks for the memories!

Greg