Eastern Railroad Discussion > Railfest in Steamtown and NS H61 Binghamton to Scranton

I met up with my son in Scranton for the Railfest on Sunday and had a great day.  The weather couldn't have been any better.

1) Getting to see EL 2452 in the Erie Lackawanna paint scheme was definitely the highlist of the day for me.   My dad and I got into railfanning in 1983 and EL was already gone by then.  Once in a great while we would see a stored EL unit in Selkirk or Altoona, but by 1983 and knowing nothing about the rail industry a lot of what we shot back then was pot luck. 

2) I had seen D&H 4068 about two weeks ago when I was in Scranton running my rail speeder over the D-L main from Scranton to Portland, PA but both days were kind of cloudy.  I am glad to have seen that in the sun on Sunday.   Both units look great.   My dad and I first got introduced to the D&H in 1985.  He worked for the company that rebuilt the Belden Hill Tunnel and we would come up from NJ on weekends to shoot the D&H (at this time Guilford) running under Starucca Viaduct and into Binghamton.  I did see D&H lightening striped EMDs and Alcos at that time along with all the other stuff Guilford was runnning.   But I did not see any RS-3s as I think they were off the roster by then.   They did have some RS-3ms though.

3) There were strong rumors that NS was going to have their new D&H heritage unit at the event, but it became clear by the middle of last week the unit wasn't going to make it as it was down in Florida.   NS did send #4659.   I thought it would make a neat shot with the three different Alcos and the NS unit. 

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We finished up at Railfest by noon and knew there was a D-L train that had run to Gravel Place, but we decided to drive up to Binghamton, NY because it was actually a sunny day in Binghamton.   That city has more cloudy days than clear, at least when I have railfanned it.

Its much different now than 1985.  In '85 you had Conrail, Guilford, and the NYS&W.  The Southern Tier route into NJ was the only route with clearances high enough to route double stacks and Conrail had at least two pairs to stacks that ran this route, in addition to other through trains and long distance locals that ran from Oak Island (Newark NJ) to Elkhart, IN, and between Oak Island and Buffalo, NY.   The NYS&W was using haulage rights over the Southern Tier from Binghamton to Passaic Junction, on Conrail to haul freight between their Northern and Southern Divisions this morphed into trackage rights when the NYS&W landed some stack train traffic.   I didn't know the schedule for D&H but they were still using Alcos at that time and ran pushers on most trains once the tunnel reopened.   Three were easily more than a dozen train pairs a day and always activity.

Now NS and the NYS&W are the only players in town.   The NYS&W lost stack trains around 2000 when the last of their contracts ran out after the Conrail split.   They run local freight to Syracuse and to NJ.  But the line to NJ is mostly run in dark.   Other lines had their clearances raised so the stacks of Conrail moved to those lines.   But I have a nostalgic pull to go back to Binghamton when I can and I decided Sunday was a good day, marking 40 years of going to Binghamton to catch trains.

Of course, not much was going on.   An NS local was swtiching between control points BD and QD grabbing cars the NYS&W brought down from Syracuse earlier in the day.   We stuck around until about 3pm when we heard on the scanner NS H61, a run from Binghamton to Harrisburg was doubling their train prior to departure.   This would be good as it would bring us back to Scranton before the sun set. 

4)   NS 4727 leading H61 south at Shaw Road.   The train was mix of general freight with a large block of garbage cars about mid way back.

5) H61 crossing the Martins Creek Viaduct in Kingsley, PA.  There is an excellent parking area here with information about the bridge construction.  Built by the property owner.

6) Tunkhannock Viaduct in Nicholson, PA.   This is a fairly easy chase as you can stay ahead of the train and have time to set up. 

After seeing the train in Nicholson we had dinner in Clark's Summit by the time our food arrived the train was just started coming down the hill heading into Scranton. 

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Nice commentary and photos.

I like Pics 1 and 3!!