Eastern Rare-Mileage Trip
"The Pacific Express"

Serendipity at Cassandra
Aug 8th

Photos by Dave Ingles

In Altoona, Hertz came to pick us up to return to their office a mile to the south, and they gave us a Toyota Sienna mini-van. The total rate including gas would be about $55 each for us, which we considered absolutely worth it giving us freedom of schedule and locations. After lunch in town an at Eat n Park, we drove to Gallitzin, skipping Horseshoe Curve as we had both been there recently, it was off and on drizzle, and we didn't want to pay to ride up to trackside where the foliage limits photo views now. Rick Moser and I prowled around here a year ago en route home from NRHS at Scranton, and once again I got skunked on trains at Gallitzin, as one track had M/W crews at work and the other had no westbounds close. We stayed a little while, then went on to Cresson, where only one set of pushers was present. After we picked up beverages and snacks at a Sheet's c-store to have something in the car, we went on to find Cassandra, where there is a railfan overlook bridge I had not visited. Time here at Gallitzin is 2:30 pm. We heard one eastbound go through on the south track, a half mile away with no obvious good photo angles here.

The Tunnel Inn on the south side of the two tracks is "the" place to stay here. Cresson has the trackside Station Inn.

Chuck's GPS got us over myriad back roads to Cassandra and the old narrow road bridge that now is just a railfan overlook. We were unaware of any trains we had missed, but got here about 3:30, just in time for an eastbound that wound up being the first of 8 trains we'd see in 1 hour and 15 minutes! This view lookos south; Chuck is over the tracks and about to yell to me to get over there quick! To the west, you can see a mile or more thru a cut on straight track; there is also a detector not too far away, and trains of course are coming upgrade. To the east, there is a curve, no detector and not much warning of downgrade westbounds.

The train has pushers 6306/6309 up front ahead of road units 2668/2727, with pushers 6321/6336 on the rear, passing from 3:36 to 3:41 p.m. I worked both digital and slide cameras on each train, have not cropped any digitals here.

Three other fans were present when we arrived: a couple from Greenville, SC, and a man from Lynchburg, VA. One of the men is pointing east in this view looking north across the bridge.

South of the bridge, you can hear traffic on Route 63, but the bridge is not easily accessible from this direction, vs. having a parking lot at its north end. We look south here at the "seating area," although there is another bench to the left, also in the shade.

After a westbound goes by with NS and BNSF power (NS 8415/BNSF 1104/8296), on which my digital camera fails, of course (presumably the slides will come out), this eastbound stack train shows up about 15 minutes later at 4:03, led by 9206/6685/7533. The sun will come out, to our right, shielded by the trees.

As it is passing, another westbound appears at 4:07 behind 7647/9556/9497. Focus is acting up again.

A Lehigh Valley fan obviously has been here!

The sun comes out for another eastbound in the cut at 4:16, behind 9691/9457/8408.

Second-best consist is on this westbound coal train at 4:25, 7716/UP 9164/7521.

This is another eastbound intermodal at 4:29, a short one behind 8340/8910.

The middle track has seen no action, and at 4:35 we see why, as M/W machines move east.

Our 8th and last train shows up at 4:46, taking 5 minutes to pass behind front-end pushers 6329/6301, road units 834?/8749, and with pushers 6323/6312 on the end, passing us at 4:51. We have a 2-hour drive to Chuck's Pittsburgh home via Route 22 ahead of us, intending to be there by about 7 pm, which we do. We pick up his wife Barb, go to dinner, then go fetch Chuck's car from the Amtrak station parking lot, caravan to a Hertz office near his workplace at Carnegie Mellon Univ., and return to his home for an evening's visit before he takes me to the Amtrak station to catch Capitol Limited #29 at midnight for Chicago.

I have yet to check out this group.

We forgot to stop here and sign in as we left town, but I plan to go back sometime.

BONUS COVERAGE: I boarded the Capitol Limited in Pittsburgh right about midnight, just a few minutes off schedule. We left at 12:28 a.m., 29 minutes late. I awoke next morning at Waterloo, IN, briefly at 740 a.m. EDT, where we were 1:05 late, so drew the curtain and didn't arise until Elkhart an hour later, at 8:39, 1:10 late. We left South Bend at 9:11, 1:20 late, and were doing well until we passed CP 482 at Porter and fell into Norfolk Southern's Chicago Line's usual "Bermuda triangle" of congestion. Having freshened up and eaten my take-along continental breakfast in my lower-level roomette, when we stopped at CP 487 near Burns Harbor an hour later at 9:08 Central Time and stayed there 16 minutes, I knew I would not make the 10:20 a.m. Hiawatha and so relaxed and got out the digital camera to make a few snaps as we crawled on toward Chicago. At South Shore Line's Ogden Dunes station across the way, Chicago-bound train 14 paused at 912 to pick up passengers. Turns out we were following NS intermodal 21-M, and we did so all the way to Park Manor Yard at Englewood. An eastbound train had stopped just west of CP 487 to inspect its train, trapping a few other trains including Amtrak Wolverine #352 behind it. It's a typical morning on a two-track main line that should still have 3 or 4!

A westbound CSX on the old B&O was halted at Pine, west of Gary.

Another westbound was ahead of him. I confess to having "itchy shutter finger syndrome" with all this action taking place -- that's what digital is for, because no one needs slides of this stuff anymore :-)

This is a westbound empty ethanol train at Indiana Harbor.

In Whiting, an eastbound NS local ambled past.

This westbound stretched all the way thru Colehour Yard.

The Skyway bridge from a different angle.

Power in 59th St. yard. We sat at Englewood for 14 minutes until 10:30 to let two Rock Island Metra trains across. Late trains get later.

Piggy-Packers at work at 59th St.

An eastbound waits on the Englewood Connecting at CP518.

I usually sit on the left side on a northbound Hiawatha, to get our engine number crossing Canal St. if nothing else, but have never taken pictures! It's 1:10 and we're on #335, which was an on-time operation arriving Milwaukee 4 minutes early.

It's engine 24, by the way. We're going under the UP (CNW) throat to the Ogilvie Terminal (aka Chicago Passenger Terminal), which hosts 3 UP Metra routes.

An inbound Milwaukee District Metra train has just stopped at Western Avenue as we round the curve past Tower A-2 and notch it out.

Milwaukee is a comfortable 78 degrees, 10 degrees cooler than when I left a week before.

The Florida Street S-curve is a half mile south of the Amtrak station; the track at left goes into Muskego Yard, CP's main facility (ex-MILW). Those are recently converted condos overlooking the tracks ahead.

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