Eastern Rare-Mileage Trip
"The Pacific Express"

Meadville-Pittsburgh
Aug. 7th

Photos by Dave Ingles

First on  the agenda at Meadville on Sunday morning was a side trip on the Oil City branch of the old Erie; Oil City is the south end of tourist line and freight-hauler Oil City and Titusville. This is the area where oil was first drilled for in the U.S. Norfolk Southern recently leased the branch to WNY&P, but we could go only to Franklin, 25 miles, because track curvature beyond there was too tight for 6-wheel-truck passenger cars. Departure was at 707 am, arrival in Frankliln 843, and departure at 851. Two WYNP Alcos rode with us out of Meadville to lead us back on the return. The first three photos, made on the return leg, are at a plant that turns old railroad rails into fence posts and sign posts. The line follows French Creek.

Buchanan is the junction with the NS (ex-Erie) main, 3 miles south of the Meadville  yard office. We returned into town to await an NS trainmaster to show up, and the interlude allowed for off-train photography.

The Belt Railway of Chicago lineage of this C424 is obvious.

The engines that had brought us back from  Franklin uncoupled and split up. The 421, a C424, was left by itself to do yard work, while the other engine, ex-NYC C430 No. 430, coupled to the ex-BRC engine to work a road freight later in the day. I stayed with the Alcos and passed up a hike to the front for another routine shot of the E8's. What would you have done?

Bennett Levin's Warrior Ridge, lettered for his Juniata Terminal Co., is a great car, with ex-New Haven parlor car swivel seats, a lounge, and a galley serving area, but it has no vestibule, which I prefer for photography purposes, so I've ridden in it only once, in 2002 on its maiden voyage long trip, which was from Philadelphia to Clearfield, Pa., and Pittsburgh.

The yard crew's engineer's daughter (green shirt) was riding with her Dad during switching. Only in remote places like this, on short lines, is that probably possible in this day and age.

We left Meadville at 11:17 a.m., and approached Greenville at 12:15 (below). This view is east of town where Bessemer & Lake Erie's Greenville bypass main line bridges over the former Erie main line; to the right out of the photo is the right of way of an abandoned NYC branch that made this a triangle, a place I visited briefly with my Dad in 1960 when he had a business trip to Greenville Steel Car Co. for his employer, DT&I. As I recall, we saw only Erie trains out here, powered by FA's. This photo was made just after we crossed where the NYC diamond had been.

Curving in toward the city of Greenville.

We have just passed the Greenville depot, former Erie, at 12:23.

When I rode the "Northern Express" private-car charter train down the B&LE (it was part of a Philadelphia-based round trip that included the ex-PRR Buffalo line and some ex-BR&P), it hardly seemed as if we'd seen it, as we passed only two trains, one an NS coal train and one with B&LE "Tunnel Motor" units as pictured here. In today's economy, the Bessemer, now a CN property, is not very active. So on the south end of Greenville, I was ready as we passed the old B&LE roundhouse and shop area, which was totally dead but did have two trios of the Tunnel Motors parked as if on display. Time here was 12:27 p.m.

Approaching Ferrona, PA, yard, we were to meet NS's daily freight to Greenville, which turned out to be making a set-out at Ferrona. Time: 1:15 p.m.

The rear two (of four) units on the freight were newly rebuilt (at Altoona) SD60E's, with some sort of new cab, perhaps for visibility and/or containing an air-conditioner.

We left the former Erie at its current west end, at CP Hubbard on the outskirts of Youngstown, Ohio, briefly using 1 mile of an ex-NYC secondary line before joining the ex-NYC Youngstown-Ashtabula line, ridden on the Farewall to Conrail-1 trip in the late 1990s. In Youngstown we went from ex-NYC to ex-PRR track, on which we'd stay the remainder of the trip. South of the New Castle, PA, area, we were to use the Koppel Secondary for 6 miles to Wood (Homewood) on the Pittsburgh-Canton main line (Amtrak route), but the signal you see here at CP Wampum had the DS keeping us on the main, via Thompson Run and Beaver Falls, to Rochester, at the west throat of Conway Yard.

We have just passed over CSX, the former P&LE also used by B&O, about 3 p.m.

This is Rochester, at 3:27.

We are passing Conway Yard on a "passenger main" on its south extremity. Toward the yard's east end, we stopped from 3:36 to 3:47 to change crews for the last leg into the Pittsburgh Amtrak station, where we'd park for the night.

Between East Conway and CP Penn in the city, we passed three or four westbounds, including this one at 3:53.

Google Maps labels this Allegheny Commons Park as we approach the central city north of the Allegheny River just north of its confluence with the Monongahela ("Mon") River to form the Ohio.

The light towers of the Pirates' PNC Park are visible here. The team was in a 12-game losing streak at this point that eliminated it from the NL Central race, leaving it to the Brewers and Cardinals.

Approaching the Amtrak station; the tall building is the old PRR office building, part and parcel of the depot structure, out of sight to the left around the curve. We had passed CP Penn at 4:19 p.m., crossed the Allegheny, passed West Pitt at 4:26, and would stop and back into Track 4, tying up for the day at 4:45. I joined the Warrior Ridge crowd in spending a night off-train with them, at the Marriott, and six of us went to dinner in Chuck Weinstock's car, at Station Square (old P&LE station area). He would be home on this overnight.

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