2 Pa. Amtrak Stations Being Renovated

Two Amtrak stations in Pennsylvania are being renovated.

The station project in Latrobe includes installation of a new covered ramp from the parking lot level up to the elevated track area.

Other work will include a new elevated platform with rehabilitated canopy, restored passenger shelter building, replacement of existing stairs and pathways, and new pavement and lighting in the parking lot.

The work will begin in September and is expected to take at least 18 months to complete.

The Latrobe station complex was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1903 and last renovated in 1990 when a restaurant began using the depot.

The Greensburg station is slated to receive a new heating and cooling system.

The former PRR station opened in Greensburg in 1910 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was last renovated in the late 1990s.

Greensburg and Latrobe are served by the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian.

Amtrak Pennsylvanian Two for Tuesday

It is Feb. 8, 2003, a Saturday, at the Cleveland Amtrak station, the last full day of service by the Chicago-Philadelphia Pennsylvanian. It was just over four years ago that Amtrak extended the then New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian to Chicago and rescheduled it operate during daylight hours through Northeast Ohio.

At the time, Amtrak expected increased mail and express revenue to pay for the extension. But then a new Amtrak president decided that the head-end revenue gambit wasn’t working and Amtrak was pulling back expansions it had undertaken as part of it.

In the top image the penultimate eastbound Pennsylvanian to serve Cleveland is arriving in the station on time. I would ride it as far as Pittsburgh, spend a few hours there, and catch the last westbound Pennsylvanian to run through Northeast Ohio.

The last eastbound Pennsylvanian to stop in Cleveland would do so on Sunday morning. The Pennsylvanian would then revert to New York-Pittsburgh operation, which continues to be the case today.

A handful of railroad enthusiasts were on hand to to see and/or ride the Pennsylvanian in Northeast Ohio one final time. Nonetheless, the train was lightly patronized, which underscored another reason why Amtrak ceased operating it west of Pittsburgh.

We would arrive early into Alliance, which gave me time to disembark and make some photographs. Also on board on this day was current Akron Railroad Club newsletter editor Ron McElrath, who made video for his Railroad Video Quarterly series.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Report Details Infrastructure Projects Needed on NS Pittsburgh Line for Added Amtrak Service

The infrastructure improvements that will be made to the Pittsburgh Line of Norfolk Southern to accommodate a second New York-Pittsburgh Amtrak train include new tracks and interlockings.

NS and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation have released the results of a traffic study that contains the planned infrastructure projects.

The costs of those projects range from $147 million to $171 million with much of the funding expected to come from federal money provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

The projects include a new third track on the Rockville Bridge over the Susquehanna River near Harrisburg, a new 5-mile-long main line track through Rose Yard in Altoona, the addition of three new interlockings (crossovers), and expansion of nine existing interlocking plants.

A new track would also be built through the Pittsburgh Amtrak station to enable freight trains to bypass it.

The report projects that Amtrak departure times from Pittsburgh will be 7 a.m. and noon with trains arriving in Pittsburgh from New York at 3:11 p.m. and 9:01 p.m.

The current schedule of the New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian is to depart Pittsburgh at 7:30 a.m. and arrive at 7:59 p.m.

The NS Pittsburgh Line is among the nation’s most heavily used rail freight lines and has handled as much as 100 million gross ton-miles in recent years.

The route has a top speed for passenger trains of 79 miles per hour but operations are complicated by a 40-mile helper district with 1.8 percent grades over the Allegheny Mountains west of Altoona.

NS currently operates 45 trains a day on the mostly double-track line excluding helper moves.

The Pennsylvanian is the sole Amtrak operation between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg although in the passenger carrier’s early years the route saw three daily roundtrips between those points.

As recently as 2004 the line had two pairs of New York-Pittsburgh Amtrak trains.

An analysis of the report published on the website of Trains magazine noted that the report fails to explain how up until that point NS managed to accommodate twice-daily Amtrak service without unduly hindering its freight operations.

However, one change since the discontinuance of the Three Rivers in 2004 has been NS plans to increase clearances on the Pittsburg Line through the city between the Amtrak station and CP Wing in Wilmerding.

That will add more potential for traffic conflicts with Amtrak trains in downtown Pittsburgh.

Because of clearance restrictions on the Pittsburgh Line, NS routes its approximately 16 double-stacked container trains along the south shore of Monongahela River through Pittsburgh over the Ohio Connecting Bridge, Mon Line and Port Perry Branch.

The report used computer modeling to simulate passenger and freight traffic and assumed that by 2020 NS would be operating six additional manifest freights and one additional westbound intermodal train beyond today’s operations.

 “Norfolk Southern does not have adequate capacity to operate the proposed new and modified Amtrak schedules without degradation to both Amtrak and NS operations,” the report concluded. “To mitigate the added delay to both Amtrak and NS trains, and to protect NS priority (expedited) traffic, additional infrastructure is needed.”

Specific projects and their estimated costs are: Add mainline track at Pittsburgh station, $12.5 million to $18.5 million; add universal three-track interlocking at Milepost 276 west of the Johnstown Amtrak station, $9.5 million to $11.5 million; install universal three-track interlocking at Milepost 257 in Portage, $7.8 million to $9.8 million; add new main track between CP Altoona (Milepost 236.8) to CP Antis (Milepost 232.5), $51.5 million to $61.5 million; upgrading 9 miles of an existing controlled siding between CP Antis and CP Gray in Tyrone, $11.5 million to $14.5 million;  and added 8 miles of new mainline track between the Amtrak station in Harrisburg and CP Banks at Marysville, $50 million to $55 million.

The traffic study and report can be read at https://www.penndot.pa.gov/Documents/Amtrak-Pennsylvanian_Final-Report.pdf

Federal Grant Awarded to Improve Keystone Line

Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation have received a $15.9 million federal State of Good Repair grant that will be used on the Keystone Line.

The project involves signal upgrades on the Amtrak-owned line that is used by the intercity passenger carrier’s Keystone Service and Pennsylvanian trains.

Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority trains also use the line.

The work will occur between Paoli and Overbrook and allow for bidirectional train movement on all tracks and higher operating speeds.

The line is owned by Amtrak.

Ed’s Pennsylvania Adventure: Part 1

Last week Ursula and I did a six-day trip to Pennsylvania that focused on Altoona and Hershey.

Our first stop was Horseshoe Curve. During our time at the curve from 1:30  p.m. to 6:15 p.m. we saw 21 movements, including 18 trains and three helper movements. Several times there were two trains at the same time.

In the top photograph, the Penn Central heritage locomotive of Norfolk Southern paces from Track No. 2 another train on Track No. 3 in late afternoon.

In the top photo below, a stack train eastbound on Track 2 passes a train on track 1. In the next image an eastbound meets a westbound late in the day.

That’s the back of Ursula’s head in the next image of her making a video of the westbound Amtrak Pennsylvanian.

Most of the time the crews are friendly when Amtrak goes around the curve as was evident today from the Amdinette.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

A Matter of Scale

Would you have made this photograph let alone posted it? Some railfan photographers would answer “no” on both counts. Some might even say they don’t like this image.

They wouldn say the the lead locomotive is too small. You can’t read the roster number or see any of the detail.

And that, of course, is the point of this image of Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian.

We’ve all stood next to a locomotive and noticed how big they are. Most of us have stood next to an Amtrak P42DC and had the same feeling.

Yes, the locomotive seems small because of it distance from my camera, but I also like how the mountains in the background dwarf the train and remind of us that no matter how large a locomotive it, there is always something bigger.

Aside from that, I made this image because of its sense of place. It screams eastern mountains and is, in fact, a location in the Allegheny Mountains at Summerhill, Pennsylvania.

I am far from being the first photograph to make such an image. I’ve seen photographs made in the west and the east in which the mountains are swallowing the train.

I wouldn’t want to make all of my images look like that, but this view is just one of many that can be used to tell a story with photographs.

Six Minutes Down in Summerhill

 

Amtrak’s eastbound Pennsylvanian is six minutes off the advertised as it rushes down Track No. 2 of the Pittsburgh Line of Norfolk Southern through Summerhill, Pennsylvania.

Track work to cut in new signals going on in the area probably accounted for most or all of the delay.

Pulling the train today is P42DC No. 160 with a consist of Amfleet coaches and a cafe car.

That is U.S. 219 crossing over the tracks in the distance in the top photograph.

On the other side of the street bridge on which I’m standing is a signal bridge with Pennsylvania Railroad style position light signal heads that are living on borrowed time.

As for No. 42, it could continue to lose time as it proceeded eastward. It arrived in New York Penn Station a half-hour late.

Some Quality Time on Horseshoe Curve

 

In this second installment of the trip that Akron Railroad Club member Ed Ribinskas took to Pennsylvania last month, we join him at Horseshoe Curve on the Pittsburgh Line of Norfolk Southern.

Ed was there along with his brother in law Karl and his son Owen. They made a day trip to the curve and the Everett Railroad.

While on the curve, Ed photographed Amtrak westbound train No. 43, the Pennsylvanian. It had its standard Amfleet consist pulled by a single P42DC locomotive.

No. 43 passed on the curve an NS manifest freight had had the Savannah & Atlanta heritage unit (No. 1065) in the motive power consist.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian in Altoona

Amtrak’s New York-Pittsburgh Pennsylvanian passes through Altoona, Pennsylvania, in late morning eastbound and late afternoon westbound.

The usual consist of Nos. 42 and 43 is a single P42DC locomotive and six Amfleet cars, one of them a food service car that offers business class service.

The westbound Pennsylvanian is shown on Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona and passing the former Alto Tower in downtown Altoona.

In mid-October the train was running with one of Amtrak’s Phase III livery heritage units.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

Pittsburgh Group Pushing Added Amtrak Service

The Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership is supporting efforts to increase the level of Amtrak service between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Lucinda Beattie, vice president of transportation for the group, plans to meet with Gov. Tom Wolf to push the service expansion, which she said would cost $10 million to $13 million a year.

“This is a very affordable transportation project,” Beattie said. “This is not an extravagant project. It’s very doable.”

Pittsburgh officials are seeking to increase service from one roundtrip a day to three roundtrips.

Currently, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation underwrites most of the costs of the Pittsburgh-New York Pennsylvanian.

PennDOT spokesman Rich Kirkpatrick said the agency has asked Amtrak how much it would cost to add one train a day and whether it has the needed equipment and track access.

Under a law approved in 2013, the state has about $8 million a year earmarked for rail service but Kirkpatrick said those funds are already allocated.

Amtrak spokesman Mike Tolbert said the passenger carrier is working on a comprehensive study for the state but he wouldn’t discuss any specifics.

“We are working as fast as we can to put together the information,” Tolbert said. “At this point, I do not have a time frame for when that will be done.”

Jeremy Waldrup, president and CEO of the Downtown Partnership, said additional Amtrak service would also benefit such communities as Greensburg, Latrobe, Johnstown, Altoona, Tyrone, Huntingdon and Lewistown because they have few public transportation options.

Beattie said that the Pittsburgh-to-Harrisburg route has the second highest percentage of filled seats among Amtrak’s top 17 routes with patronage having increased every year since 2005 when the service fell from two roundstrips to one with the discontinuance of the Three Rivers.

“We think there’s an unmet demand for more service,” she said. “It can only grow so far with one train.”

Beattie also noted that Pennsylvania helps to fund 14 daily trips on the Harrisburg-to-Philadelphia segment of the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia route.

“I’m really looking forward to hearing what the governor has to say about rail, especially service to the western part of the state. [Additional service] would connect parts of the state that aren’t connected now,” she said.