Conrail's Legacy
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The roundhouse at Conrail’s Conway Yard is mostly empty, but the outside turntable tracks are teeming with six-axle Alco Centuries assigned to drag freight service. Colors of the Lehigh Valley, Reading, Penn Central, and Conrail are present in the congregation.
For switcher Sunday we see 2 former PRR SW's (a 7 and a 9) leading a westbound local on what was PRR's 4 track main through Canton, Ohio in December 1981. It's about to be overtaken by one of the many trailer trains on the 4 track main that was still in place through town. The building to the left was a Fisher Foods warehouse that clearly still provided some box car business. The freight cars are as cool as the power is blue.
Conrail’s Conway Yard was one of the hubs for its six-axle Alco Centuries assigned to drag freight service. Multiple C628’s, C630’s and C636’s can be seen in this overview of the outdoor turntable tracks at the engine terminal. Also present are two GP9’s, a C425, an RS27, and a U33B
A set of new Conrail SD40-2 helpers roll by "Acre" tower near Broadacre, Ohio along the former PRR panhandle mainline which ran from Pittsburgh to St. Louis. This line soon would be single tracked then later outright shutdown as a through route by Conrail - April 7, 1979.
A Conrail eastbound drops downgrade around the famed Horseshoe curve lead by a former Penn Central C628 6309 on June 20, 1976.
There are GM automobiles as far as the eye can see in the open racks of a train approaching Tunnelhill, Pennsylvania at Bennington Curve. On the next track, Santa Fe trailers promote a term that hasn’t been commonly used in railroading since containers and then stack trains appeared. The piggyback train is being pushed up the mountain by two more GM products.
In what looks like a much more recent scene from the Reading & Northern, two of Conrail’s ex-Reading MP15’s spend the weekend in West Cressona, Pennsylvania.
Side-by-side Conrail Trailer Van trains work westward from Altoona at Bennington Curve, Pennsylvania. The GP38/GP38-2 power has a U25B trailing for added “atmosphere”.
In the early years of Conrai, before they started rationalizing more tracks and changing operations, they continued to run a turn from the former Pennsy South Akron Yard to Motor Yard southeast of Cleveland. It was called AMA and typically returned in the afternoon and usually had a quartet of F's. Here it is at the local hangout, South St, where the EL was tied into the PC (B&O) to bypass the west end of the EL. today, the track they're on which ws originally the CA&C is gone, and the EL mains are gone, Motor Yard is gone. Just the 2 CSX mains remain.
A pair of Conrail GP15-1’s lead an Abrams-based local across the Schuylkill River from Norristown to Bridgeport, Pennsylvania.
Conrail "FRSE-01' thunders through CP-148 off the grade at Pittsfield Mass on a beautiful autumn afternoon. 10-01-96.
As was the case more often than not, Conrail Alcos seemed to trail a non-Alco leader. Here the massive Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel mill at Mingo Junction, Ohio provides the backdrop for a going-away shot of two C430's trailing a GP38 disguised as a turd.
This freshly repainted Conrail N20 caboose made its long-awaited debut on ME-2 after being repainted in Metuchen Yard. CR 22137 had been a tagged, rusting eyesore for a decade or more. For years there was talk of restoring it to some form of Conrail blue paint. What was accomplished has exceeded my expectations! 22137 is assigned to Conrail's Metuchen Yard and is a regular feature on ME-2 as it serves customers along the Northeast Corridor between Metuchen and North Brunswick. It's worth noting that 22137 is an actual caboose and not a "shove platform". Its presence is appreciated by crews for the frequent reverse moves that this job makes. 22137 was built for the Reading Company in 1970 by International Car Corporation in Kenton, OH.
Conrail’s Office Car Special traverses the former Reading bridge at West Falls, Pennsylvania. The train has left Philadelphia, and is entering the West Trenton line as it heads to North Jersey.
The sun breaks through heavy clouds to light a pair of Conrail GP10’s. The rebuilt EMD’s are the local power serving Lewistown, Pennsylvania.
DL #959 (Ex. CR 5460) drags DL #3642 (EX. CR 6792) out of the newly built Von Storch Shop to be switched onto another track.
Skirting the Juniata River, a westbound Conrail TV train approaches the community of Newport, Pennsylvania. The presence of two SD40-2’s on an intermodal train was somewhat unusual, as four-axle units were the predominate power on these trains.
One of Conrail’s “Mingo Monsters”, C636 6781, is in the Mingo Junction, Ohio roundhouse for a little attention on August 21, 1978.
Conrail’s North Penn local works a siding in Hatfield, Pennsylvania. Because of limited passing sidings on this line, the train has a GP15-1 on each end, to serve facing- and trailing-point sidings.
A friend and I heard Conrail local WJAL-18 on the scanner and decided to follow it on an unusual Saturday run. WJAL-18 was a turn from Allentown, Pennsylvania, serving the former Lackawanna Phillipsburg Branch, going as far as Dover, New Jersey. The train had a GP30 leader, and was about the only train that used the former Jersey Central bridge over the Delaware River. We waited at an elevated vantage point to shoot the local, only to receive a big disappointment. The crew dropped a car and ran around it in Easton, and then pushed it to set out at a facing-point switch on the DL&W. The power eventually uncoupled from the trailing cars at the end of the bridge to deliver the car, but we never had the opportunity to get a clean shot on the bridge.
Today, the Lehigh Valley bridge in the foreground is abandoned due t structural issues, and Norfolk Southern trains between Allentown and Oak Island use the CNJ bridge.
An early Conrail repaint, SD40 6317, leads a Jersey Central GP9 and a patched Erie-Lackawanna SD45 westbound out of Allentown yard. This location is now known as CP Ham.
Crossing the Wysox Creek, Conrail train ALCG approaches the town of the same name in north central Pennsylvania.
Four Conrail four-axle EMD’s lead westbound empty hoppers past the steel mill in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Lehigh Valley’s four GP38AC’s became the only examples of that model on Conrail’s roster. Although I never saw one leading a train after the Conrail takeover, they did show up from time to time in trailing positions, as seen here.
Every weekend, Conrail gathered locomotives along the former Reading tracks serving Pennsylvania’s anthracite regions (now R&N), and sent them to Enola for servicing. The westbound move is seen here at Rockville, just minutes from its destination. At the other end, Conrail GP10 7580 is pulling eight ex-Reading SW900’s and the GP15-1 seen here.
Conrail’s Cement Secondary local works at the Hercules Cement Mill in Stockertown, Pennsylvania. Veteran engineer Sherwood Singer, who hired out on the Lehigh & New England, invited us up into the cab while he was running the two RS11’s around the mill.
Arguably the best looking train to travel the PRR main line west of Philadelphia since the more prosperous days of the Pennsy was Conrail’s office car train. Its E8’s glisten as they rumble past the tower at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania at 4:19 PM on June 16, 1992.
After working the former PRR Pottstown Industrial Track in Pottstown, Conrail local WHRE-99 heads west on the former Reading main line at Stowe, Pennsylvania. Stanley Flagg Company, founded in 1854, manufactured pipe fittings and castings until it closed in 1997.
Conrail’s American Presidential Lines stack train TV-301 rolls west at Chemung, New York. The Southern Tier Line was the only route that had clearances that would allow the additional height of the double stacks.
A GP38 and two C430’s lead an empty ore train into Conrail’s yard in Mingo Junction Ohio. In the background, an eastbound Norfolk & Western train is passing in front of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel mill on the former Pittsburgh & West Virginia.
Conrail GP8 #5454 on job RO12 is pulling a cut of covered hoppers from Cereal Food Processing on 2/28/1988. Cereal Food Processing became Grain Craft in 2014 and is now closing in 2020. They are the last rail customer in this part of Cleveland's Industrial Flats that has had rail service since the late 1800's. Since 1996, this has been served by the Flats Industrial RR which is ceasing operation. CR #5454 was built as a GP7 for the Erie RR and rebuilt by Conrail in 1978.
Two month-old Conrail B36-7’s are leading an eastbound TV train under the former Lehigh Valley signal bridge at Phillipsburg, New Jersey. Behind them are two of the GP40-2’s that they are bumping off of Conrail’s hottest trains.
Conway Yard was as good a spot as any to see Alco road power during Conrail’s early days. On six adjacent house tracks are C636 6792, RS27 2412, C628 6737, C425 2438, C630 6762, and C628 6724. C630 6780, a few GE’s and a few EMD’s round out the view on a day when the steel mill haze in the valleys around Pittsburgh was in full force. That auto rack is a rolling showroom for 1978 Buicks.
The winter of 1985 saw an unusually high amount of ice on the Susquehanna River. Here a westbound Conrail train works its way into Enola Yard as it traverses the partially-frozen waterway on the Rockville Bridge.
Back in 1996 Conrail was testing Electronically Controlled Pneumatic Brakes on coal trains destined to the Eddystone Generating Plant. They had 2 test train sets which one could tell apart because of the yellow painted on the ends of the coal cars, the other train set having orange ends. From what I've been told the tests were a success but like anything else the cost was too high. Here we see XWB enroute back to West Brownsville shot in Hershey, PA passing the old Reading Hershey Lumber signal which is lit green for an approaching east bound train. Special thanks goes out to Bruce Kerr for the info on these trains.
Conrail meets Conrail......on the Santa Fe. On May 16, 1987, two Streator Connection trains meet at Argyle, Iowa, on Santa Fe's Transcon, 13.5 miles west of Fort Madison. This was taken from a rural overpass immediately west of the Argyle crossovers, an excellent spot for train watching. Conrail SD50s lead both trains. Photo by Joe McMillan.
An SD40 and two SD40-2’s lead a westbound Conrail manifest into Reading, Pennsylvania on the former Reading main line. The lead unit is passing the former Reading Brewing Company brewery, which closed in 1976, the same year that Reading Company was folded into Conrail. The brand was later resurrected and is now produced by Ruckus Brewing.
For the most part, Conrail’s GP15-1’s were relegated to local and yard service, and they rarely appeared on road freights. Here a pair of them bracket a GP38-2 on train ALCA (Allentown – Camden) at Monocacy, Pennsylvania.
Norfolk Southern train 22X crosses Conrail's HACK Lift Bridge in Jersey City, NJ with ES44AC 8098 leading. With the original 1930-built Wittpenn Bridge removed, new photo angles have opened up as a result.
CSX Q560 rolls through Parma, Ohio on its way to Selkirk, NY with ex-LMS 739, once owned by Conrail, now CN 2466 doing the honors. With the engineer hanging out of the cab, the marker lights on, and the classic signals, this scene gives me late Conrail vibes and is very nostalgic.
The hostler at Conway Yard guides a Conrail C630 into the shop. One of the shop workers has arrived at work in his Ford with the exploding gas tank option.
Former Reading GP35 3626 has undoubtedly visited the engine terminal at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania many times, and Lehjgh Valley RS11 7643 is a long-time regular in these parts. While there’s a high probability that the two have been in close proximity, they most likely never locked couplers until they were paired for this post-Conrail scene.