Eastern Railroad Discussion > 239 years old

Happy Birthday, America!  239 years of freedom. We've come a long way as a Nation, however, we still have a long way to go.  As one may guess, lots of railroads have an abbreviated operational day this holiday. Not Norfolk Southern this afternoon! The Pittsburgh line was pretty busy. For about one hour, NS kept sending westbounds through Wilmerding, PA, just east of Pittsburgh. Here are some of them.Enjoy! C44-9W #9782 and company about to split the position-light signals in front of Westinghouse Air Brake (Wabtec) and crossover to go across the Port Perry bridge to head northwest up the Mon Line. Also, an empty coal train headed by SD70M-2 #2710 is waiting it's turn to go across the Port Perry Bridge and south down the Mon Line. The intermodal has one of the ex Union Pacific SD90MAC locos in the consist.

SantaFeRuss

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Before NS 9782 completely clears, along comes NS 9489, another C44-9w lead pig/stack train down the second main right next to 2710. 9489 stops at the signal waiting for the previous pig/stacker to clear. As Norfolk Southern 9489 holds, yet one more westbound freight shows up.

SantaFeRuss

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The next freight turns out to be an empty crude oil train headed back to the Dakota oil fields via the Burlington Northern Santa Fe. This time, SD70M #2601 takes the lead on this tankcar train.

SantaFeRuss

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I catch the end of the empty oil train's buffer car. As the crude oil train heads west via the mainline through central Pittsburgh, Norfolk Southern 9489 is on the move after about 15-20 minutes. With just two units, 9489 is pretty darn long!  Here are some of the cars in the train.

SantaFeRuss

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Lastly, along comes Amtrak train 43 ,The Pennsylvanian. The coal train was crewed, but was still sitting there when I left. For the 4th of July, this was not a bad day for action on the Norfolk Southern Pittsburgh line!

SantaFeRuss.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/15 20:47 by SantaFeRuss.

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Photos # 5 & 13 are my favorites. 
John

GREAT stuff...!! I was listening to all the action on RR radio.......was quite busy.

Wilmerding and Westinghouse / WABTEC go back for much of those 239 years.  WABTEC is also a significant part of America's engineering history. Westinghouse's air brake made longer trains and better control possible