Well, as I was leaving Bethlehem, PA Monday night, I was hoping that the clear skies would hold into Tuesday morning. When I got up and peered out the window at the pre-dawn light, I was greeted with a solid overcast. Damn. So I went back to bed for a while. When I did get up, I figured I’d head to the Manville/Bound Brook area and see if I could catch anything on my way in to the office. Since you’re reading this, and the little image to the left, I did catch something.
I pulled in behind the VFW in Manville greeted by absolutely nothing. Looking down the tracks to the east, the signals at Port Reading Junction were all red, and looking west I couldn’t see any headlights heading for me. To top things off, the scanner was pretty much silent. So I sat around and waited to see if anything would be happening.
After about 15 minutes of nothingness, the scanner woke up with what sounded like a yard job working Manville yard. With nothing coming along the NS Lehigh Line, I figured I’d head a bit east and see if I could find the yard job.
Short version was nope – I could hear them, but I couldn’t find any publicly accessible ways near the yard, so I headed back to the VFW to see if I could get lucky and catch something rolling by.
I parked, and walked up to the track level to take a look down the tracks. Looking east showed all red again, but looking west I saw something – a trio of headlights slowly approaching! OK, at least I’d get something.
A couple minutes later, Norfolk Southern train 18N pulled into view
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Then the train slowly approached, and I switched to the wide angle for a shot with the water tower
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And a going away shot, with the red signals in the distance
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As the train was slowly going by (the dispatcher was having computer problems, so he couldn’t line the route for 18N just yet), a tag on the last car caught my eye
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Just something that I’ve seen on other autoracks up in West Springfield, MA a couple times.
A look at the watch told me I needed to hop in the car and get to the office – had a day of training class ahead of me that I didn’t want to be late for.
Thanks for looking!
Tom
