Last Ride on the Three Rivers

Ed Ribinskas sent me this photograph yesterday. It was made in Pittsburgh on Feb. 19, 2005.

All four guys you see were Akron Railroad Club members and two of them are now deceased. They are (from left) Al Philmore, Richard Jacobs, Craig Sanders and Edward Ribinskas.

I remember this trip well. It had started in the wee hours of the morning in Cleveland the day before when Ed and I boarded the westbound Lake Shore Limited to ride to Chicago.

I had strained my back in the Cleveland Amtrak station and sitting in a coach seat or any other seat was somewhat painful. The strain had stemmed from shoveling snow a day or two before.

We spent all day in Chicago, at one point riding a Metra commuter train to Antioch, Illinois, and back, and having dinner at the Berghoff in downtown Chicago. The Three Rivers left Chicago around 9:30 p.m. so it was a long day.

I managed to doze off a few times riding across Indiana and in part of western Ohio. But from about Fostoria eastward I was awake. I wanted to see, even if in the dark, some areas that I had only seen from next to the tracks.

As the train sat in the Akron station, I heard this familiar booming voice coming from the rear of our Amfleet coach. It sound like Jake.

All of us were aboard this train for the same reason. It was running on borrowed time.

The Three Rivers had begin in September 1995 as a replacement between Pittsburgh and New York for the discontinued Broadway Limited.

It was extended west of Pittsburgh in November 1996. The primary reason for that was because of the heavy mail and express business that Amtrak was carrying at the time.

Transferring those cars in Pittsburgh between the Three Rivers and the Capitol Limited was hindering the performance of the latter train.

But a change in philosophy at Amtrak resulted in the carrier deciding to exit the head end business. The Three Rivers proved to be expendable.

Ed got up to check out that familiar voice and it was indeed Jake. He and Al had boarded in Akron for one last trip aboard the last intercity passenger train to serve the Rubber City.

After we disembarked in Pittsburgh we were able to talk someone into making this photograph of us standing in front of the P42DC puling Train No. 40.

I took a Greyhound bus to Akron where a friend picked me up. We had plans to watch a University of Akron basketball game that afternoon. Ed took Greyhound back to Cleveland.

An interesting footnote to this trip is that we had reached Pittsburgh before the Capitol Limited did even though No. 30 had left hours earlier.

A locomotive breakdown en route severely delayed the Capitol and I was able to photograph it coming into the Pittsburgh station.

The Three Rivers were be discontinued west of Pittsburgh just over two weeks later, making its last runs through Northeast Ohio on March 7.

Article by Craig Sanders

Pa. Rail Plan Calls for 2nd New York-Pittsburgh Amtrak Train

The draft version of the Pennsylvania state rail plan calls for a second Amtrak train between Pittsburgh and New York City in the 2023-24 fiscal year.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is currently conducting a feasibility plan for the train that will include projected costs.

The train would use the current route of the Pennsylvanian, which travels the tracks of Norfolk Southern between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

Projected ridership of the route would increase from 215,000 in the 2018-19 fiscal year to 378,000 by 2025 if the second train is launched.

Levin Wants Pennsylvania to Divorce Amtrak

The Pennsylvania House of Representatives Transportation Committee held a hearing last week that drew one witness and he suggested the state take over from Amtrak operation of the passenger service in the Keystone Corridor.

Bennett Levin, who oversees the short line Juniata Terminal in Philadelphia and is the owner of private railroad cars, suggested the Philadelphia commuter operator SEPTA operate Amtrak’s Keystone Service between Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

He contended that this would lower the state’s costs of providing the service, which is now 13 weekday Keystone Service trains and the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian.

Some Keystone Service trains operate between New York and Harrisburg.

Levin also contended that state operation would lead to increased train service between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh.

The 103-mile Harrisburg-Philadelphia line is owned by the federal government and it would have to agree to transfer ownership of it to the state.

“SEPTA is one of the best managed commuter rail operators in the nation and there is no reason why their franchise cannot be modified to allow them to run west of Thorndale to Harrisburg,” Levin said. “Therefore the initial step in crafting a solution in the Pittsburgh region is to divorce Amtrak by having the U.S. Department of Transportation gift the Harrisburg Line to Pennsylvania and let SEPTA provide the existing Keystone Service.

SEPTA has 81 weekday trains on the Harrisburg Line that carry 20,000 passengers.

Amtrak’s  26 weekday Keystone trains carry 4,130 people, and the Pennsylvanian carries more than 560 passengers a day.

Levin said his plan would remove Amtrak as a middleman. “We have already paid for the Harrisburg Line; we should own it,” he said.

Levin noted that the state and SEPTA collectively pay Amtrak $1 million a week to operate intercity and commuter rail service on the Harrisburg line.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and SEPTA have paid more than $250 million for infrastructure improvements to the route including new or renovated stations at Paoli, Exton, Downingtown, Mount Joy, Elizabethtown, and Middletown.

Levin acknowledged that under his plan passengers traveling from within Pennsylvania to New York would have to change trains in Philadelphia at 30^th Street Station.

“Those folks going to New York, let them walk downstairs,” he said in reference to the upper level and lower level platforms.

Levin was critical of the schedule of the westbound Pennsylvanian, which he said is oriented to passengers connecting to Amtrak’s westbound Capitol Limited to Chicago in Pittsburgh.

But fewer than 10 percent of Pennsylvanian passengers are connecting to Amtrak train No. 29.

With an earlier schedule westbound, the equipment used on the Pennsylvanian could be turned at Pittsburgh to create a new Pittsburgh-Johnstown commuter train.

PennDOT, Amtrak and Norfolk Southern have discussed expanding service between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh but thus far those talks have not produced any agreements.

Levin told Trains magazine that all of the parties seem to be talking past each others. “It’s my belief that Norfolk Southern is a perfectly rational partner, once you get Amtrak out of the picture,” Levin said.

2nd Amtrak Train to Pittsburgh Hinges on NS Study

Norfolk Southern is conducting a study that it expects to complete in the second half of 2020 of capital improvements it wants to see before agreeing to host a second Amtrak train between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Amtrak currently operates the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian over the route and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation along with local officials have been pressing for several years for additional service.

Communities along the route want the option of being able to travel to Pittsburgh on day trips.

The Pennsylvanian is scheduled to depart Pittsburgh in early morning and arrive in the evening.

Jennie Granger, PennDOT’s deputy secretary for multimodal transportation said this week that her agency has asked Amtrak to consider adding a second train between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.

“What would it take?” she said PennDOT asked the national passenger carrier. “What would a second round-trip train a day look like? Give us a timetable. Ideally, how would this work with the Keystone trains on the eastern part of the state? How would we make it work with Penn Station, going into New York?”

In response Amtrak gave PennDOT a proposed timetable that it presented to Norfolk Southern.

Granger said NS responded that it would need to do a study that the state would need to fund. “The study itself is a lot like a traffic study,” Granger said. “It takes into account their freight movements, both historically and what they’re projecting going forward … and then, how does that interact with our proposed two trains a day?”

Granger told a luncheon meeting of the Cambria Regional Chamber of Commerce in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, that because NS owns the track, it can say who does or does not run on it.

“If they don’t want Amtrak on it, they don’t have to let them run another train a day. That’s all there is to it,” she said.

Once the NS study had been completed and presented to PennDOT, Granger said the agency will “have a better-educated idea of how to proceed with that service.”

Baggage Car Now Operating on the Pennsylvanian

Amtrak has added a baggage car and checked luggage service to the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian.

The service, which began on Oct. 1, provides checked luggage service at Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Altoona, Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Newark and New York.

The baggage car also has space to carry up to six bicycles, which can be checked for a $20 fee to any of the aforementioned stations.

Checking of bikes and luggage is only available at stations that still have a station agent.

An online reported indicated that the baggage car was added at the insistence of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, which helps to fund the Pennsylvanian.