Railfanning Harrisburg, PA - 8/6/2016

Hi, On Saturday, August 6, I was accompanied by next door neighbor Jacob Patterson, age 14, on a trip to Harrisburg, PA to show him some mainline railroading. This was his first railfan trip.

We arrived at Enola Yard about 9:00 AM and after some exploration at the east end of the yard and a stop to overlook the center of the yard we headed to the west end where a pair of switch crews were working (above and below).

While we were there a coal train arrived on the run through track led by an SD71Ace.

Next we staked out the west end of the Rockville Bridge but, although we could hear what sounded like westbound trains ready to depart Harrisburg, nothing happened for almost an hour so we relocated to Cove.  Of course there were now westbound trains (one shown above) but nothing running east until

the eastbound Pennsylvanian came through.  We did note an eastbound auto rack train sitting east of us.  It turned out the area seemed to be having some problems including the signals at CP Banks.

Trailing the Pennsylvanian was this private car.  While at Cove I learned from another railfan that he had spotted the NS Veterans Commemorative locomotive in the yard.

We went searching for it and found it leading train 14R at the west end of the yard.  Just as it began to pull a yard job came out on an adjacent track (above and below).

After learning that the train would cross the Rockville Bridge and head up the Buffalo Line we set up on the Rockville side of the river and photographed the train as it slowly pulled across the bridge (above and two below).

The train was moving slow enough that we had time to photograph it from the PA 453 overpass.

Our final location of the trip was along the Buffalo line.  We went back into Harrisburg to look around the Harrisburg Amtrak Station but there was no free parking in the area.  As the weather had been mostly cloudy to cloudy all day we decided on an early quit and headed for home.  Thanks for looking.