While in Jim Thorpe for a long weekend I had one major photographic goal that did not involve the Reading and Northern. Norfolk Southern still has a limited presence in the area continuing to own their upper Lehigh Line from Allentown to Leighton then sharing the RofW and owning one of two mains from there to Jim Thorpe and on up through the Lehigh Gorge to Penn Haven. At that point the Lehigh Line continues north, under the sole ownership and operation of RBMN, while the NS' Ashmore Secondary climbs the grade to Weatherly and Hazleton.

For the last five years the upper Lehigh Line has seen nothing but local freights, and north of Lehighton they have operated almost exclusively at night. However a recent schedule change has seen NS running local H66 in daylight on Sundays making a late morning turn north from Allentown to Hazleton and back. After dropping off five tank cars in the yard the pair of SD60Es now have four covered hoppers as they start back east, seen again here on the Hazleton Running Track (the westward other than main track continuation of the Ashmore Secondary) at about MP 143.5 on rails of the former Lehigh Valley Railroad's Wyoming Divison. This area was once laced with a mind boggling maze of trackage and at one time this particular line which was built by the LV in 1871 was double tracked to support the flood of anthracite coal flowing out of area mines. While vastly diminished, there is still a limited market for anthracite and several mines remain active though today they are nearly all open pit strip mines with I believe only four active underground mines left operating.

The edge of one such open pit mine is seen in the background and has expanded such that the railroad used to run straight through where it is and had to be relocated creating the dog leg seen in this photo and the one posted earlier. This is the Atlantic Carbon Group's Stockton Mine located here on the eastern portion of the Hazleton Coal basin which primarily extracts coal from the Mammoth seam, which reaches thickness of over 20ft in the bottom of the basin, with additional reserves in the Primrose, Diamond, and Orchard seams. Atlantic Carbon is the second largest Ultra High Grade (UHG) anthracite producer in the United States. In June of this year the company was purchased by Delta Dunia, an Indonesian based holding company and you can learn more in this press release: deltadunia.com/post/737/delta-dunia-group-completes-acqui...

And here's a nice local news piece on the modern day market for anthracite coal: www.standardspeaker.com/2024/01/20/anthracite-and-coal-th...

And lastly, if the name Stockton Mine rings a bell you might be a history buff as the original underground mine located nearby was site of a freakish disaster in 1869 which you can learn a bit more about here: wynninghistory.com/2019/12/18/remembering-stockton/

Hazle Township, Pennsylvania
Sunday October 6, 2024

© All Rights Reserved

After wrapping up my chase of the Union Pacific at Itasca then catching CN L564 I headed off in search of BNSF action for the afternoon and boy did they deliver flushing 4 westbound trains out of Superior on the Lakes Sub in the span of an hour. Throw in a work train and an opposing westbound coal train and I just couldn't get them all!

The BNSF is the other behemoth in the Twin Ports owing to it's Great Northern and Northern Pacific legacy. In addition to countless unit coal and grain trains and a healthy manifest business the BNSF also serves the Iron Ore trade through its ex GN ore dock at Allouez. They generally run 2 to 3 trains in a 24 hr period serving Cleveland-Cliffs Hibbing Taconite plant (Hibtac) and US Steel's Keewatin Taconite plant (Keetac) each of which ship out around 6 million tons of iron ore pellets a year.

Not as busy and nowhere near as popular as CN's ex Missabe ore operations, most visiting fans eschew BNSF's ore trains. Though they use run of the mill power they are still a unique operation by Class 1 standards with their captive fleet of ore gons many of which are still adorned with large Burlington Northern logos. Here is one such train, UALLBRM2 25T with 180 empties for Hibtac holding on Main 1 at the end of double track at MP 15.9 on the Lakes Sub just east of the Irondale Road crossing. Sharp eyes will note a headlight in the distance which is the UALLKEE2 03T (another 180 empties from Allouez to Keetac) pulled up right behind them. Once the work train clears up in Carlton Yard these two will fleet west to Brookston then hang a right onto the Casco Sub to head up to Kelly Lake Yard in the Iron Range.

Historically the trackage through here was former Great Northern dating to 1890 when the Duluth and Winnipeg first spiked it down. In days of old the Soo Line's 4th Sub mainline west toward Moose Lake and Bemidji was immediately parallel to the left. At Moose Lake the 5th Sub continued toward Brooten and by the mid 1980s this was the Brooten Sub mainline from Glenwood Yard to Stinson yard and per a 1987 timetable was still a 40 MPH railroad. But it qas shuttered through here around 1990 and by 1996 all the rails and ties were removed leaving the ex GN to stand alone.

Unincorporated Borea
Town of Superior, Wisconsin
Thursday September 12, 2024

© All Rights Reserved

CSXT's Troy Industrial Track is a six mile long branch line that connects with the Amtrak controlled Hudson Line just north of the Albany-Rensselaer station at the east end of the Livingston Avenue bridge. The former New York Central route is the last active rail line into the Collar City which at one point in the early 20th century was the fourth wealthiest city in the nation. The city once had lines radiating in four directions serving a grand Union Station downtown.

The four railroads that originally formed the Troy Union Railroad were the Rensselaer and Saratoga (D&H), Troy and Boston (B&M), Troy and Greenbush (NYC) and Schenectady and Troy (NYC). That's how the NYC ended up with half ownership of the TURR, and the others each had one quarter.

This surviving spur began as the Troy and Greenbush Railroad which was chartered in 1845 and opened later that year, connecting Troy south to East Albany (now Rensselaer) on the east side of the Hudson River. It was the last link in an all-rail line between Boston and Buffalo and until bridges were built between Albany and Rensselaer, passengers crossed on ferries while the train went up to Troy, crossed the Hudson River, and came back down to Albany.

The Hudson River Railroad was chartered in 1846 to extend this line south to New York City and the full line opened in 1851. Prior to completion, the Hudson River leased the Troy and Greenbush and all would come into the hands of Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1864 who then three years later combined it with his New York Central Railroad to have the entire New York City to Buffalo route under his control. A decade after that Vanderbilt would gain control over the lines to Chicago uniting the famed 'water level route' under one banner that would grow to be one of the worlds greatest rail systems in the first half of the 20th Century.

The above information is courtesy of this site where you can learn more:

penneyvanderbilt.wordpress.com/2017/04/14/troy-greenbush-...

CSXT is the direct corporate successor of the New York Central by way of Penn Central in 1968, then Conrail in 1976, and CSXT in 1999. Despite occasional fear of the line's demise they continue to serve it three days a week with a local out of South Schenectady that travels via the Carmen Branch and the Hudson Line via West Albany hill and LAB to get to this branch.

CSXT local L020 has 17 cars trailing two ACSES equipped ex Chessie GP40-2s seen paused in South Troy just north of the Main Street crossing at MP 4.8 while the conductor walks over to Troy Pizza and Gyro to pick up a pie for the ride back home. I just love this scene with the tracks hugging the edge of South River Street along a block lined with ivy bedecked brick buildings...it's truly a throwback to railroading of another era and so vastly different than the sterility of modern class 1 mainlines.

Troy, New York
Friday October 25, 2024

© All Rights Reserved

Having made a trip 26 miles to the present end of the line in South Barre, Massachusetts Central Railroad train PA-2 is now back at Ware Yard with MCER GP9 1749 (ex CO 6199 blt. Dec. 1956) and GP38-2 1751 (ex PC 7997 blt. Jun. 1972) both dressed in a sharp scheme that mirrors the original Boston and Maine bluebird colors debuted on their GP9 order of 1957.

I’ve always long been fascinated with the Central Massachusetts Branch of the Boston & Maine. In fact, the modern day Mass Central pays homage to that line in both name and in locomotive paint…despite the fact that their mainline is all ex Boston & Albany.

So a bit of history. The Central Mass was a 100 mile route that ran in almost a straight line from Boston to the Connecticut River at Northampton. There is little argument among rail historians that it was truly a line that should never have been built. Originally chartered as the Massachusetts Central Railroad, it was enacted into law by the Massachusetts legislature on the auspicious date of May 10, 1869. The railroad wouldn’t actually open for business for another 11 years when the first 28 miles to Hudson were finally put in service on October 1, 1881. Completed to Oakdale and Jefferson’s (48 miles from Boston) the following year. Due to financial problems the line ceased operation in May 1883 and it would be two more years before the line would open for business again. Finally by the end of 1887 the line reached Northampton completed under the auspices of the Boston and Maine who had leased the Boston & Lowell in August of 1887, the B&L having leased the Central Mass 6 months prior. The B&M would control the Mass Central for the remainder of its life.

For a time in the early 1900s the Central Mass looked like it might give the other east west trunk lines (the Fitchburg to the north and the Boston & Albany to the south) a run for its money as a major east-west mainline. That is too long a tale to tell here, but one very much worth reading. If you’re interested the B&M Railroad Historical Society has published a fabulous book on the road that I highly recommend.

The first portions of the line were abandoned in 1931 & 1932 when trackage rights were acquired over parts of the parallel Central Vermont & B&A Ware River branch (today’s modern day Mass Central) respectively although thru trains still ran. But in a half dozen years the middle portion of the line was removed from service and formally abandoned between Oakdale and Barre in 1939. That effectively turned the Central Mass into two long branches from Boston to Clinton on the east and Northampton to Wheelwright on the west. Note that segments of the original main remained as spurs including around Ware and from Creamery (on the old B&A Ware River branch) to Wheelwright. They would remain as such into the early 1970s when change would come quickly.

The last train to Wheelwright would run in 1973 and the branch was cut back to Bondsville. Six years later even that much would be done and dismantled by 1983 including the Wheelwright spur out of service for a decade. What remained on the west end of the old Central Mass was a three mile spur from the Forest Lake Jct. (on the old B&A) to Bondsville and yard trackage around Ware including a half mile of the old mainline west from Ware.

Enter the modern Massachusetts Central Railroad. In the first railroad charter granted in the state since 1910 the new Mass Central was established as a common carrier in 1975. The new iteration of the road had big dreams of saving the remnants of the original road but it wasn’t to be. While they did take over the three mile spur to Bondsville and the yard trackage in Ware they only operated the former for a about a year (though 40 years later the rails and ties remain amidst the forest).

Meanwhile the former Boston & Albany Ware River Branch had been cropped back from Winchendon to South Barre by the Penn Central in 1968 when the northern 25 miles were abandoned. Eight years later the remaining 25 miles were not included in the USRA’s Final System Plan for Conrail. The Commonwealth picked up the trackage and contracted with Conrail to operate it for the first three years. In December 1979 the new Mass Central was named designated operator of the state trackage and has operated it ever since. The modern day Ware River Line has been a success, and in 2024 they operate 5 days a week serving 5 busy locations. But ghosts of the original Mass Central remain if you know were to look and what you’re looking at.

Here we see the crew working in Ware yard switching hoppers at Quantix (formerly A&R Packaging). The tracks in the foreground curving off toward the right background are the mainline toward Barre (original B&A) at about MP 12.2 while the loco is working on ex B&M Central Mass branch trackage that was part of the old B&M yard. East of the yard was the original route that was abandoned in 1932 when the trackage rights described above were acquired from the B&A. The rails end about 1100 ft east dead ending the woods on the causeway that once crossed the edge of the Ware River Reservoir.

Ware, Massachusetts
Friday October 11, 2024

© All Rights Reserved

On a quiet Sunday afternoon a pair of geeps rest tied down in Norfolk Southern's small stub ended Hazleton Yard. These units are for local H98 that serves industries in the area. Rebuilt GP38-2 5633 was blt. Aug. 1969 as a straight GP38 orignally Penn Central 7739 while 5608 was rebuilt from a high nose GP38AC originally blt. Jun. 1971 as Norfolk and Western 4127.

This small former Lehigh Valley yard is reached by the winding Ashmore Secondary climbing up from the upper Lehigh Line at Penn Haven Junction deep in the Lehigh River Gorge. This is the last Class 1 railroad presence in the Hazleton area that was once served by the LV, RDG, PRR and CNJ. The small locomotive shop dates from LV days and was once home to the famed four packs of MUed LV pups that ruled on the 'Hazleton Man.'

Hazleton is the heart of the eastern middle coal fields of the Pennsylvania anthracite region and became fabulously wealthy in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1818, anthracite coal deposits were discovered in nearby Beaver Meadows. Less than two decades later some of the earliest railroads in the country were built to connect the coal fields to the canal system. What would later become this LV line up from Penn Haven was part of the first steam powered (as opposed to incline plane and gravity) railroad in the area. Hazleton would ride the wave of coal mining and see its population bloom to 14,000 in 1891 the year it incorporated as a city to a peak of 38,000 in 1940. When anthracite fell out of favor as a fuel in the post WWII era Hazleton suffered a deep decline with it and today the population is around 23,000.

The large building looming in the background downtown to the left of the unita harkens back to Hazelton's glory days. The 11 story concrete Markle Bank and Trust building dates from 1910 and the brick building partially visible to the right dating from 1880 is the 10 story Altamont Hotel.

Hazleton, Pennsylvania
Sunday October 6, 2024

© All Rights Reserved