A Short Glimpse into Railroads Past

While searching on my computer for some pictures I had taken many years ago in West Virginia, I came across a file containing a small batch of black and white railroad pictures. They were all taken on film, before I discovered the joys and wonders of digital cameras. The pictures were all taken in the Pittsburgh area, mostly in the late 80’s. 

    Trains have always been a part of my life. I think my first memories of trains, after the picture books I had and the train set-up under the Christmas tree, was listening to them pass below the house when we first moved into Shaler. There were two sets of tracks there along with a couple crossings and the trains seemed to go past every 15 minutes or so. As a young boy, my friends and I would walk down to the tracks and watch the trains go by, hoping that the engineer would wave to us and counting the cars. I’d listen to the whistles at night and imagine where the trains were. The love of trains is still with me all these years later.

    This is just to take a short stroll through some of the railroading in the past. A mere 35 years ago the lines often had more than one set of tracks, steam engines still ran excursions through Pittsburgh, and the trains ran more frequently, back in the “good old days!”

    I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I did!

Early morning in McKeesport. (1988)

The Pat Train, taken on the morning of its last run. (April 1989)

A Conrail train going through Alleghany Commons Park on the North Side. (1990)

Changing tracks in Sharpsburg. (1988) 

Pittsburgh Railroad Station (1989)

    Back in those days we had a variety of steam excursions come into and through the city. Due to insurance and maintenance costs, they rarely come through anymore. There is nothing like hearing a steam whistle echoing through the valleys as the train thunders past. 

The Nickel Plate 765 crossing the Alleghany River to the Northside

Nickel Plate 765 in Emsworth (1989)

Taken in the Southside

Southside (1993)

Taken from the West End

    Then there were the cabooses. I can remember watching for them as a kid sitting in the back of the car. Slowly they got fewer and fewer until they were almost all gone. I still see one every once in a while, but sadly most of them have been recycled... scrapped. In the town of Sharpsburg there was a scrap yard that did the evil deed; most of them there were Conrail cars.

Taken from the Highland Park Bridge (1988)

Taken from the Aspinwall side of the bridge (1988)

They were lined up all the way down to Millvale at times, like this one. It is a fitting end to this short batch of pictures, the end of the line. 

Wondering

 

Sitting beside the stream watching leaves fall from the trees on a comfortable 77 degree day, I stared at the clear sky and wondered. Both windows were open in the car and the slight breeze that came through was refreshing. Leaves skid past leaving the dried sounds of fall behind them. The surrounding trees are a combination of green, yellow and brown. The high grasses alongside the stream are wheat colored, bent over and dying. Scattered between them are the high dark brown remnants of once green and flowering stalks.

    The stream is low and the reflections on it are mirror like. This is where I come to relax and to forget about the turmoil of the world. It is a place that is quiet and soothing. The just barely audible sounds of the steam hide the other noises of society; airplanes, cars and trucks to name just a few. It is a perfect spot to sit, read and contemplate.

    Sitting here I can hear the leaves falling through the trees and occasionally I hear a branch join them on their way to the ground. Insects buzz around but the birds are all silent today. Stalks of Goldenrod bounce back and forth when the breeze increases. It’s a wonderful spot! Occasionally I see others here, fishermen standing in the stream attempting to lure a fish onto their hooks or walkers on the paths beside the stream. Dog and their owners enjoy the area also.

    The reason I am wondering is that when I pulled into the spot this morning I saw that there had been some other visitors since I was there last.  Brown paper bags were scattered around filled with landscaping debris. Some logs had been dropped off also. I counted 23 of these large bags tossed in piles and thrown over the hillside by the stream. Trash, left behind by… I don’t want to print the words that come to my mind.

    I have never understood why people would toss trash along the roads, parks and overlooks. Why would they destroy this beauty?  I’ve seen it so many times and I’m sure you have also. It is nothing new, it is a continuation of destruction, ruining the beauty that most of us have come to love. It is especially bad when it happens to a place you are familiar with, a place you frequent, a place you cherish!

    In the past I have hiked for miles to visit an overlook or a waterfall and found empty cans of beer lying in the woods along with snack wrappers and cigarette butts. They carried them in, why can’t they carry them out? People clean up after their pets and then leave the bags beside the trail, do they think the “rangers” will come along to pick up after them or do they just not care?

    I’ve been to pull offs near streams with nice views of the creek below and found piles of trash dropped off by someone, old TVs, bags of clothes, garbage, and pieces of construction debris. I’ve seen entire trees tossed over the hills on back roads after having been cut down. Didn’t these people’s parents explain to them about littering? How about preserving the wilderness or even more important, respect for others? I can only guess not.

    They needed a cheap place to drop off their trash and here was a deserted spot. No thoughts were given to anyone else, only that they could toss it before someone saw them.

    I find it extremely frustrating. I have seen this before at this very site. Someone always cleans it up, I don’t know who but I’m indebted to them. A large trash can sits close at hand but people still drop their water bottles and candy wrappers on the ground beside it. The carcasses of “out of season” deer slowly dissolve, adding a foul smell to the air until only bones mark their final resting spot, just another of the many things discarded near-by.

    Nothing can be done unless someone sees them doing it. Police can’t prosecute without solid evidence. Is it a sign of the times, “I don’t need to follow the rules”? I just believe it is people with no care for others, people who have never been told about respecting other people’s property. People with no empathy, people that needed to get a stern talking to by their parents!

    We can only hope that eventually they realize what asses they are, and clean up their act, for both us and even more importantly, the wildlife that live here!

Lunch and a Movie

Leaving a little after twelve this past Sunday, Ann Marie and I drove over to the town of Sewickley. A friend had told us about a movie that was playing there, and we had purchased some tickets for it. Our plan was to get some lunch and then stroll around the borough for a bit before the movie started.

    Arriving we saw signs advertising the Library Book Sale. We both had the same thought, another place to visit while we were in town. We found a parking spot close to the theater and started our walk from there. The day was perfect for walking, the sun felt good and lots of others were enjoying the day along with us.

    A few blocks from the car, we stopped at the Mediterra Café. We have been to this establishment before, along with the one located in Lawrenceville and had enjoyed both places. Being a Sunday afternoon, the place was rather crowded but as we ate our lunches the crowd dwindled down, Sunday was the first Steelers game of the season. Once the game started, most of the stores and restaurants in the Pittsburgh area would be empty. The fans will have moved to sports bars and their homes to watch the game. (I find this a great time to do my weekly food shopping; the grocery stores are almost empty! Don’t make the mistake of going before the game, you’ll get stuck in the pregame rush!)

    We sat and talked about books and people watched, both favorite activities of ours. Finishing our coffees and after getting some “to-go” boxes, we returned to the sidewalk. About a block away sits a gazebo where we stopped for a minute or two to look for a geocache hidden near-by. After a short search, it was Ann Marie who found the small container. The library sat about a block away, that would be our next stop.

    We were afraid that it might be closed but luck was with us. This was the third day of their sale, so we were browsing through rather slim pickings. Even so, Ann Marie found a book by an author she liked and I found two for myself.

    The walk continued eventually bringing us back to the car. We put our “to-go” boxes in the car and went across the street to the plaza in front of the Lindsay Theater. There we sat in the sunshine, reading our new books. There were lots of people walking on the sidewalks and biking in the streets.  More than a few dogs were getting their afternoon constitutionals. We shared the patio with another couple. The sunlight felt good on my back.

        The movie we had come to see was called Rebel with a Clause, starring Ellen Jovin who had written a book by the same name. She is a “grammar nerd” and she, along with her husband Brandt Johnson, who filmed the project, visited all fifty states. She sets up a small folding table and then invites people who pass by to ask her grammar questions. The movie is a compilation of the people she met and their questions.

    Now I am far from being an expert on grammar or English. PLEASE, never ask me to diagram a sentence! I tend to speak and write in a way that I feel “sounds” correct. Sadly, my teachers would never accept that reasoning when I explained why I had written something the way I did. Still, the movie sounded like it would be fun to watch and Ann Marie, whose skills at grammar are so much higher than my own, was excited to see it also.

    We watched the movie with 27 other people. (No one came in wearing a Steelers jersey.) I would have to guess that the average age of the audience was probably 60 or 70.

    Wherever Ellen set up her table, she always met a wide variety of people. All ages were represented and along with your "average" people, she was also visited by a few eccentric ones. They added to the humor of the film. All most everyone had a question for her. There were questions about which word is correct, who or whom. Questions included proper use of semicolons, apostrophes and commas. The questions often branched out to other topics such as how words are pronounced in different sections of the country. Ellen is the type of person who is able to turn difficult things into positive experiences, her interactions with the visitors almost always ended with everyone smiling, including the audience. I am pretty sure that everyone enjoyed the movie as much as we did.

    I thought it was interesting that the book I had bought at the library, and that I was reading before the movie was called Lapsing into a Comma. The book was written by Bill Walsh who was the Copy Desk Editor of the Washington Post. It tells about the various mistakes that can occur during writing and printing and how to avoid those, many of which were mentioned in this film!

    Walking out of the movie we were saying how interesting it would be to meet Ellen. Someone mentioned that she had been here at this theater last week. Oh well, you win some and you lose some!

    Returning home, we shared a couple beers and caught up on some late-night TV shows. The day turned into a great afternoon date; lunch and a movie, what a wonderful way to spend a September afternoon.

Like Watching Paint Dry

 It’s quiet in the observatory. Two dim red lights illuminate the room; all the other lights have been extinguished to help preserve my dark-adapted eyes. The telescope rising from the center of the room appears as a large silhouette against the slight light of the sky. The brass pieces on it reflect the red lights.

    Crickets can be heard, they give the observatory a nice atmosphere. After a short while the noise disappears, fading into the background, becoming a sort of “white noise”. It is there but un-noticed. Listening carefully, far away I can hear a faint whine of some type of machinery, hardly noticed, hardly there.

     Looking through the telescope, the planet Saturn and three of its moons can be seen. Unlike the picture above, the rings are close to edge on and so, appear as only light bars coming off of each side of the planets disc. Occasionally a thin dark line can be seen crossing the planet a slight bit higher than the rings, the rings shadow! A slight bit of shading can be seen at either pole giving the planet a small bit of a 3-dimentional look.

    It is the morning of the 19^th of August, and I am here to watch the shadow of Saturn’s moon, Titan, cross the planet. This is an event that can only be seen when the planets rings are near edge on. The next time these occurrences will be visible will be in about 15 years, so I want to try to see them if possible. There will be five times it can be seen within the next couple months, one has already passed.

    Walking outside the observatory, the crickets are much louder, unmuffled by any walls. The trees and hills are all black against the dim band of light that goes around the horizon, allowing only the brightest stars to be seen there. In the east, the Pleiades can easily be seen, a nice grouping of stars. Orion will be coming along soon, a sure sign that winter is approaching. Below the hill a car slowly drives by and high in the sky, the faint sound of a jet engine announces the presence of a plane passing overhead.

    Back inside, the shadow of Titan can now be seen through the telescope. The moon appears to have moved closer to the planet, it sits above the rings on the right side. The shadow is close to the upper edge of the planets disc. It is difficult to see, I struggle at first to determine if it is the shadow or my imagination playing games with me. With no one else here, there is no one to verify it for me. I increase the magnification and put a filter on the eyepiece and suddenly the shadow and details on the planet’s surface sharpen up. I jot notes in my journal along with poor drawings in an attempt to make sure I remember these things.

    I sit and watch. Nothing seems to be moving but I know that's not true. Some might compare this to watching paint dry. The seeing has a tendency to improve at times, the view gets crisper, sharper, it is these periods I watch for. Slowly the shadow moves across the planet. I occasionally look up at the stars and they quietly gaze back down. Millions of other worlds hang above me. Sitting alone under them helps give me perspective, I’m not as important as I’d like to think I am.

    Sitting at this telescope I can’t help but wonder if somewhere up there, is there another life form looking at the stars above their world and wondering if I exist.

    Outside, the crescent moon, Jupiter and Venus have risen. To the right sits Orion, having just climbed over the horizon. I look through the scope for a bit longer and then close things up. Locking the door I hear some coyotes howling, a couple farm dogs bark back at them. I take a final look at the sky and then get in the car and start my engine. A small herd of deer standing by the edge of the road watch me drive past.

    I have one more thing to do before I go home. I want to watch the International Space Station make a pass overhead. Driving to a favorite viewing spot, I get out of the car and orientate myself. In the east, across a deep valley sits the moon, Jupiter and Venus. To the right is Orion, now much higher than when I saw him last. Right on time, as predicted, the ISS appears. I watch it as it soundlessly touches the upper shoulder of Orion and then slides over towards Venus, passing just underneath the bright planet.

    The horizon is getting brighter; sunrise isn’t far away. I have only another mile or two till I’m home again. It’s been another memorable, peaceful and quiet morning, the type of mornings I yearn for!

Beat, Tattered and Torn

It often happens that certain possessions become “dear” to us. . We become attached to them sometimes because of how long we’ve had them and often, because of sentimental reasoning. I have items that are important to me because of who previously owned them and the fact that these items were important to them also.

    I have statues in my house that are important because my aunt used to own them. Being a “collector” (some might say “packrat") I have a lot of items that used to belong to my parents and because of that, they will remain in the house for years to come. Some items are just cool in my opinion and that is another reason that they will stick around.  “Oh, it is so difficult to get rid of excess when you’re a “collector”!

    I’d like to tell you about an item that has finally come to the end of its time with me. It has been with me for at least twenty years and my heart aches knowing that its time has come.

    It was picked it up at a book sale at the Shaler North Hills Library. I only paid a couple dollars for it but those dollars were well spent! It is a Delorme Pennsylvania Atlas and Gazetteer. Published in 2003, it has been in my car ever since I bought it.

    Back in 1976, Frank Delorme put together an atlas out of highway, town and county maps. He was dissatisfied with the maps of the Maine woods and wanted something better. His first volume was of Maine and he sold it out of his car. By 1986, his company had risen to 75 employees. The company is now owned by Garmin and it sells electronic maps and devices, but it still produces gazetteers of all the states.

    An interesting fact, the headquarters of the company which use to be in Yarmouth, Maine, has the largest rotating world globe in existence. Called Eartha, it is a little over 41 feet in diameter and completes a turn every 18 minutes.

    Having been in my car for such a long time, the atlas is showing its age. Its pages are pulled apart, only the thicker cover remains whole. After trips, time is always spent returning all the pages back to their proper order. It hurts me to see this volume in such a bad condition but I know that it has served me well!

    I don’t remember what car I had when I first got this. The cars came and went but the Gazetteer remained. I have other gazetteers in the house; there is a pile of them from all the different states I’ve visited. If I’ve been there, chances are there is a Gazetteer for that state in the pile. Though I haven’t been to either Alaska or Hawaii, I have copies of these also, just because they’re fun to look at!

    My relationship with maps goes back into childhood. I can remember looking at the maps printed in my books such as Treasure Island and when reading the encyclopedias we had sitting in the living room.  (Remember those?) I would take my father’s gas station maps and spread them out and follow the roads. I was amazed that I could find places that we had traveled to and the roads we had used to get there.

    When I was a Boy Scout, maps became even more important. Imagine being able to find your way through the woods with only a thin dirt path leading you on. My maps helped me stay on the correct paths using only streams, mountains, cliffs and my trusty compass to guide me. Oh, the possibilities were endless. I used to imagine going from one side of the country to the other, using only hiking trails.

    Maps became even more important once I had a drivers license and the ability to travel extreme distances in hardly any time at all.

    Electronic devices, GPSs are great but in my own opinion, I would much rather use a map to get from place to place. There is no doubt that GPSs can be quite useful, I’ve used them at times, BUT, I still prefer a paper map. I use my GPS for geocaching, it is a handheld unit, it isn’t mounted to my car windshield or dashboard. Having researched the caches, I usually don’t use it until I’m in the near vicinity.

    Looking at my beat up Delorme Atlas, paging through its torn pages, I am taken back in time. There are notes written on the margins, routes that had been highlighted, attractions that had been circled, these all take me back to pleasant memories. Coffee stains share the pages with iron furnaces that I’ve photographed and geocaches that have been found. There are parks and overlooks I’ve visited, these maps are like photographs, bringing back memories. The roads inked on the pages have the ability to remind me of the sights I saw while traveling on them, I’m lucky in the fact that I can picture the roadways my finger is tracing. I hate to think about tossing this book and all its memories, but a new one has been ordered.  There are lots of good atlases available, but the Delorme Gazetteer is one of my favorites.

    These atlases not only show me the past, they also show me the future, the possibilities, the places that we haven’t seen yet, but will someday soon. They offer you immense areas where you can lose yourself. (Even though the basic purpose of a map is to avoid getting lost) Some of the best trips have been to go out and just make turns at random. Our state is filled with neat things to see and hopefully I will continue my explorations for a long while to come. I'm happy to say, my new atlas has just been delivered, and you can be sure I’ll have it along to help me find my way!

     Happy Travels!

Some of the Joys and Sights While Traveling Through Pennsylvania

 It has been six years since my first grandson, Mateo was born. Wow, doesn’t time fly? His birthday was rapidly approaching and Ann Marie and I were going across the state for the party.

    This would provide us with the opportunity to do some exploring. We had a long drive and so, we may as well enjoy the sights and scenery as we went. The planning started a couple weeks beforehand. I looked for accommodations, places to eat and interesting places to stop along the way.

    We left Pittsburgh on Thursday morning. I loaded the car as the sun rose above the trees. We headed east on rt.22. The sky was hazy and the sun soon disappeared from sight. This may have been because of the wildfires in Canada. Still, the weather was nice and we enjoyed the breeze coming through our open windows.

    After our normal stop for coffee and a snack, we turned south on rt.53 for a visit at the Cassandra Railroad Overlook. When the highway was rerouted in 1936, this bridge was bypassed and a foot bridge was placed here for railfans. Railfans from around the country come to watch trains from this bridge. To the SW there is a long straight away of about 2.5 miles, all uphill. On the other side of the bridge, the rails curve to the left and continue on to the tunnels in Gallitzen and then down to the famous Horseshoe Curve above the city of Altoona.

    We watched a couple long freight trains laboring up the hill, seemingly at a crawl. Shortly after, we watched the Amtrak train out of Pittsburgh fly up the hill, probably doing around 60-70 MPH, of course it was pulling only seven cars behind it.

    Our next stop was at Canoe Creek State Park where we took a short hike to view the huge limestone kilns sitting in the woods. These kilns were built in the early 1900’s to provide Pittsburgh steel mills with lime; a very important ingredient in the steel making process. They were shut down around 1915.  

    Since we were in an iron/steel state of mind, our next stop was at the Huntingdon Iron Furnace. This is a beautiful furnace; it has been cleaned up and re-pointed by its owner.  Originally built in 1796 a short distance from the present site, it was rebuilt as a larger furnace in 1805. The furnace stayed in blast until the 1880’s. The area around it is a National Historic District with a variety of original structures still standing and being used.

    We stopped for lunch at Diner 22, about 9 miles west of Huntingdon. This was originally built as a Mail Car for the East Broad Top Railroad in 1919. It was moved to its present location in 1946. The outside doesn’t look like a railcar but it sure does inside. Like most diners we have visited, we were served a good meal by a nice friendly waitress. While we were there, I had a serving of scrapple, a true Pennsylvanian delicacy! We always make an effort to stop at these places when passing by.

    We checked into our motel in Huntingdon, the county seat of Huntingdon County and then went out to explore the area. We visited the library and walked through the town and then went to visit Raystown Lake, the largest lake that is entirely in Pennsylvania, the lake is about 32 miles long! We also did a couple geocaches while we were in the area, of course…  

    We drove up to an overlook to watch the sun set but the overcast skies hid most of it from us.

   The next morning, Friday, we continued our drive east. Whenever the opportunity presented itself we would drive through the towns and avoid the by-passes. Nearing Harrisburg, we ran into a major accident and had to turn around. Unlike the other drivers who were late for work or appointments, or possibly afraid to head out on their own, we headed north rather than follow the posted detour.  We were treated to a nice easy ride through neat, tidy farms and little communities. We enjoyed the views as the road climbed hills and twisted through the valleys.

    When we encountered the Susquehanna River we took rt.15 through Duncannon, an Appalachian Trail town and down through Marysville.  Here we watched a couple trains cross the Rockville Railroad Bridge. According to “some sources” this is the longest stone masonry arch railroad bridge in the world.

    We then stopped at Cupboard Maker Books, situated across the street from the Norfolk and Southern Enola Railroad Yards. This book store is a great place to browse, you never know what you might find here! The front is painted with the spines of various books, just to let you know what’s inside. Filled with new and used books, it also has a variety of cats which are happy to be petted while you visit. We ended up spending about an hour here…just enjoying scanning the shelves and seeing what we could find.

    Our accommodations for the next two nights were in Quakertown. A nice small town with a major highway slipping past a few mile away, the town is nice compared to the shopping centers and car dealerships that line the busy highway. We found a nice Mexican Diner for our breakfast the next morning before we went partying with the family.

    Saturday was spent with the family and friends celebrating Mateo’s birthday. I watched a couple hot air balloons taking off in the morning when I went out searching for coffee. Once again, you never know what you might run into as you’re driving through the countryside! The birthday party was loud and fun, there’s nothing like a party filled with children. Both of us slept well that night!

    After Mass on Sunday morning, we returned for a short visit with the family before leaving. This time, we headed north towards Scranton where we visited the Scranton Iron Furnaces. This group of four furnaces was built between the years of 1848 and 1857. The company produced iron here until 1902 when they dismantled the plant and moved it to Lackawanna, NY, where better ore could be found.

    We stopped for a quick look at the steam engines at the Steamtown National Historic Site. Being veracious readers, Ann Marie and I couldn’t help but like this Reading locomotive!

    We took another break on our journey in Ricketts Glen State Park where we took a short hike down to visit one of the numerous waterfalls in the park. It wasn’t quite as exciting as when we were here last, there wasn’t as much water flowing.

    Eventually we ended up in Towanda. Here we stopped at the Red Rose Diner for some dinner before checking into our motel. There are only three of these diners built by this company still standing. These diners weren’t built as rail cars; they were built to be diners. It is in beautiful shape! Our waitress, Becky was a font of information about Towanda history. We had a pleasant talk with her while our dinners were being made. The town has a quite nice collection of well kept homes along the main street.

    On Monday morning, we stopped at a local coffee house to fuel up and headed back towards the east on rt. 6. We followed the moon as it slowly dropped down to the horizon. This is a very pleasant road to drive on; we hardly encountered any traffic, we passed through lots of small communities, past farms, little businesses and lots of ponds and lakes reflecting the blue sky and the buildings beyond them. None of the haze that was present at the beginning of the trip was evident, just blue skies with puffy white clouds, perfect!

    We arrived back in Pittsburgh around 3:30. We enjoyed the trip tremendously, but we were both happy to be back at our homes. Driving through the smaller towns on the back roads, often introduce you to people who are happy to talk with a stranger. They are more than happy to tell you about their towns and histories. I feel as if we get more smiles as compared to when you stop at high flow businesses where you are “just another face”. The small diners and coffee shops are usually employed by friendly people that are happy that you stopped in, and these are the people I tend to remember.

    We had a wonderful time visiting with the family. We met a lot of nice Pennsylvanians, the weather couldn’t have been better and we found another 19 geocaches on our way. The best part of the trip was that I had such a nice companion along with me; believe me, that sure makes a difference!

    I believe I’ve said this before, no matter how fun the trip is, it is great coming back to your old familiar bed! Like so many quests and adventures go, returning home is often the best part!