Four Day Pennsylvania Trip - 4

Bill Kalkman and I began our last day, Thursday, October 15, back at the parking lot across from Delaware Lackawanna's Tower 60. When we arrived around 7:15 AM there very few cars present and no locomotives. By around 8:00 AM, with everything still quiet, we decided to head for the Humboldt Industrial Park in West Hazleton, PA, where we expected to find a yard crew working. 

In fact, we found two crews going to work just as we arrived. The first crew went west out of the small yard here and picked up a cut of cars (above and below).

                                        

On the rear of the cut was this caboose which the crew used as a shoving platform (above and below).

 

The crew pulled east of the small yard and began to switch.

Meanwhile, the second switcher sat outside the yard office as the crew prepared to go to work (above and below).

The second switcher pulled east

then backed west and around a curve in the vicinity where the first crew picked up their cut of cars.

They then switched some sidings a few hundred feet north of the yard (above and below)

before heading back to the yard.

Meanwhile I had spotted the first crew switching about a quarter of a mile east of where the second crew was working so we went to investigate (above and below).

Having done all we wanted to do in the industrial park we decided to see if we could get another shot or two of the North Reading Fast Freight (NRFF). We knew from our friend Hunter Richardson the train would probably pass through East Mahanoy Junction about 3:15 so we headed there to wait. We had enough time to clear a considerable amount of high grass (above and below).

Our final location of the trip was in Whitehaven, PA (above and below). The photos were taken from a huge pile of wood chips as there was some construction going on here. If any one knows the history of the road on the lower level I would be interested. I believe it was once the road bed for either the Central RR of NJ or the Lehigh valley. 

Thanks for looking,