Saturday, October 14, 2017

Railfanning Central Pennsylvania - 1

Hi, Friend Jim Kleeman and I spent some time in Central Pennsylvania last week. Our objective was to photograph the SEDA-COG railroads Juniata Valley, Nittany & Bald Eagle, Lycoming Valley, and North Shore. As you will see in this and the next post weather was a problem

Our first stop for photography was at Mexico, PA on the way to Lewistown, home of the Juniata Valley. There still are New York Central style signals here and I hoped to photograph them with an eastbound. Fortunately, there were 3 eastbound trains in the offing. First up was #20 K.

We heard coal train #408 leaving the scales west of us a bit and expected it would be next up. However, it was not to be. Instead #21V arrived first and blocked the westbound signals to frame the eastbound coal train.

So we waited for the next eastbound, #12G.

After #12G passed we headed for Lewistown to look for the Juniata Valley. We found North Shore SW9 #446 working the yard there. It would cut out a car and head for Maitland with it.

Unfortunately, the locomotive painted for the Juniata Valley was in the engine house and would not be used.

We were able to shoot the train on its way to Maitland at two different locations in Lewistown (above and two below).



We easily beat the train to Maitland (above and three below).

The gondola was destined for the Joe Krentzman & Son scrap yard north of town. Just south of the scrap yard the crew ran around the gondola and

pushed it into the scrap yard (above and below).


The engine returned to Lewistown light.


It still made a nice photo running down the street in Lewistown (above and below).


The crew did some more yard switching before quitting for the day.

Heading west we stopped at Matewan for a westbound stack train.

Two more westbounds were photographed at Union Furnace (above and below).


Our day ended in Tyrone with an eastbound stack train,

the westbound Pennsylvanian making a station stop, and

another eastbound stack train.

Thanks for looking.