Nostalgia & History > Conrail freight under wire at ZOO tower

Blue Conrail EMD's with train coming off of the freight high line in Philadelphia and swing in front of the tower heading east towards Trenton and other parts of North Jersey. Date on photo.

RWJ

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terrific scene!

Wonderful artistic scene.
Bob

Great photo!  I used to walk all over Zoo interlocking back in the 60's and 70's taking photos from every possible angle of all the diverging junctions.  I remember taking a photo of a PRR Brunswick Green GG1 pulling a passenger train past the same spot where Richard Jahn was standing as it went into the subway to head west with two yellow Union Pacific passenger cars immediately behind the GG1 followed by about 15 PRR passenger cars.  I have no idea what train it was but I remember that I saw it at about 4:30 in the afternoon on a weekday.  I'll have to dig out that slide and have a look at it.  I remember seeing lots of passenger cars from other railroads (New Haven, Southern, etc.) on trains to and from the South or to New England but it was the only time I ever saw Union Pacific cars on a PRR train.  Back in those days, I also liked seeing the E44 motors with the heavy freight trains passing Zoo Tower going to and from the high line.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/23/20 15:37 by birdman.

I think there were a few Pullman cars with PRR sub-lettering done in UP armour yellow for western connections.  The Pennsy also had some Pullmans in matching Frisco colors for the Penn-Texas to Dallas, I believe, and a couple Missouri Pacific colored Pullmans for connection to their trains at St Louis.  Some RF&P cars were done in Tuscan to match the PRR passenger fleet and I think the Pennsy even had some cars with purple letterboards spelling Pennsylvania to match Atlantic Coast Line Florida service.  Probably many more examples of such arrangements.
This could be an interesting thread with photos to supplement.  It then becomes a question of "Eastern"/"Western" or "Passenger" boards on T.O.

Unbelievable that with all of the places I went, I never went to Zoo tower! I sure knew about it, but it seemed I was always going somewhere else. Sorry I missed it when I see shots like this. Nicely done! It captures the essence of the area.

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

That's a great picture. Many, many switch moves.

Big building, how many operators, lever men, etc worked there?

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