NS-Altoona to Cresson to South Fork, Pa...photos

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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I took a recent railfanning trip to Pennsylvania. My family is originally from a town near Johnstown, Pa called South Fork (known historically for the location of the South Fork Dam that burst and caused the 1889 Johnstown Flood)…My parents were born and raised there at South Fork, so I spent alot of time out there visiting Grandparents as a kid…Nowadays, I visit the area several times a year to railfan…The area still hosts plenty of train action, with former Conrail SD40-2’s still predominating in mountain helper duty…Hopefully, some day I plan to move back out to the area from NY…On my way out to Cresson, I spent a couple of nights at the recently opened Rockville Bridge- Bridgeview Bed and Breakfast where .I snagged some shots of the Westbound NS OCS crossing the Rockville Bridge near Harrisburg, and caught the F’s again a few days later as they were putting their train away at Altoona…I also caught train action at Cresson and South Fork along the former PRR Broadway Mainline…24 new pictures have been added to the beginning of my Flickr page from that trip. Take a look: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30144616@N04

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Excellent quality on all those pics. [tup] The red of the RJ Corman units against that deep blue sky provides for a marvelous contrast. Jamie

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…Always enjoy your photos from that part of Pennsylvania Dave as it’s my home area {in general}, too.

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Nice pics Dave, you always do good work. By the way, we have stayed in the same room in the Station Inn. I get out that way occasionally just haven’t run into you yet.

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Nice pics, thanks for sharing…I just saw the history of Jamestown on the History Ch. about a week ago,Very interesting…

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Thanks Modelcar…I am heading back out to Cresson at the end of this week for a few days…weather as of now is supposed to be decent…Hopefully,I’ll be able to get some more decent photography in…

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Thanks…I am a frequent visitor to The Station Inn…The pics were taken a couple of weeks ago…By now, the leaves are pretty much gone…Snow is in the forecast on Wednesday in the mountains before it warms up by the weekend…I’ll be at The Station Inn again this weekend…

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Good luck with it. Always nice out there no matter what the weather.

As for Johnstown, the best way to learn about it is to go to the flood museum in the center of town, interesting place they have. What a disaster that should have been avoided.

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And they also have a flood memorial at the Dam site near South Fork with a visitors center…Each end of the original dam is still in place…and where the center of that dam washed away in 1889, railroad tracks now run through on the South Fork Secondary that splits off the mainline at South Fork and runs South through Windber to Central City…Coal is loaded at three locations along this branch…If you are an SD80MAC fan, this is where many of them can be found…