![](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.nanosphoto.com\/gallery\/albums\/wpw-20080520\/thumb_20080519-_MG_9199.jpg?resize=150%2C100\")
Back in NJ again for a couple days. Yesterday I mixed things up a bit – no NJ Transit stuff at all, but I did catch some Norfolk Southern, Morristown & Erie, as well as the elusive Lehigh Valley Rail Management switchers. Yep, for those of you who are paying attention, I did say LVRB, and yes that does mean I went to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for a change of pace. Hey, it’s only 50 minutes to the west, so why not?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The day started out under crystal clear blue skies in north-central New Jersey. So I figured that after I got my rental car at the Morristown Municipal Airport, I’d take a swing by the Morristown & Erie shops to see what was up.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later I got to the parking lot behind Staples, and looked around. Not much different than last week when I dropped by<\/a> – a pair of Alcos and the Plymouth switcher were outside the shop building. One of the Alcos was running, though. So I got a few shots, and headed to the office.<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6982] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6981] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6980]\n Fast forward to 5pm. After a full day of training, I was ready to get out and shoot a bit. The sun was coming in and out of the clouds, so maybe I could get lucky. Over lunch I had been mulling around the idea of heading west to Bethlehem, PA, and Google maps was telling me it would be about a 50 minute trip. I figured what the hell – it was worth the trip west to see what I could get. And maybe the clouds would clear up a bit by the time I got out there.<\/p>\n About 55 minutes later (I stopped at a McD’s for dinner), I pulled into Bethlehem, PA and found a parking lot near the New Street Bridge, fed the meter, and hiked up the sidewalk on the east side of the bridge. As I got to the top, I was greeted by a nice view of the old Bethlehem Steel plant to the east, surrounded by a number of tracks.<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6979] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6978]\n Now the waiting game. The clouds kept coming by and obscuring the sun periodically. Hey, it’s still a nice view, despite the intermittent cloud cover.<\/p>\n A little while later, I heard something that sounded like flange squeal behind me. A look across the bridge showed a NS freight heading over the Lehigh River (either 32A or 36G – didn’t catch the symbol on the scanner).<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6977]\n Still plenty of clouds, but there were a couple breaks. Maybe I’d get lucky…<\/p>\n Then the freight came through the crossovers at CP-88<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6976]\n A switch to the wide angle as the power pulled under the bridge, with the steel mill in the distant background.<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6975]\n Next I put the telephoto back on, and moved out on the bridge over the Lehigh River to get a shot with some of the buildings in the background<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6974]\n And the shot I wanted, albeit without sun<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6973]\n But a couple moments later, a spot of sun began to break out over the train!<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6972]\n And now, in complete sun, I got a shot of the steel mill dwarfing the passing freight<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6971]\n Now back to wait mode.<\/p>\n During the wait, a PennStar helicopter passed overhead (PA’s version of CT’s LifeStar).<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6970]\n Not long after that, something caught my eye to the east – a headlight! But it was on something yellow…hmmm, UP?<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6969]\n Nope, too small for a UP unit, so that meant only one thing – the Lehigh Valley Rail Management was bringing interchange traffic out for NS to pick up. And as a bonus, the sun was in full force! So here’s a trio of shots of the switchers bringing the cars up past the old mill.<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6968] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6967] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6966]\n Then the conductor got off to make the cut<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6965]\n While waiting, I got a shot with the waving US flag in the background<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6964]\n And moving back for a vertical, including the mill<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6963]\n Then the power pulled away from the cars<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6962]\n And switched to the adjacent track<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6961]\n Then made their way back east<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6960] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6959] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6958]\n Back to waiting.<\/p>\n A little while later, I heard horns to the west. Well, this was good – we’re back to mostly clear blue skies, and some pretty sweet sunlight. A couple minutes later, an eastbound NS stack train came rolling under the bridge (my guess is it was 20W). And there was a surprise not only on the point, but also the 2nd engine back. The train was led by an ex-Conrail SD50, and a BNSF warbonnet, and followed by four NS widecabs<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6957] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6956] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6955]\n And for the final train shot of the evening, I zoomed all the way in and got a shot of the train heading off in the distance. But not only is this a zoom, but it’s a rather large crop of the original image.<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6954]\n Still a pretty cool view.<\/p>\n I waited around a bit longer, and got a couple other shots.<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6953] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6952]\n And with the shadows creeping up and over the banks of the Lehigh River, I decided to call it a day. But first, I checked out the CP-88 area, and got a shot of the bridge crossing the Lehigh River<\/p>\n [cpg_imagefixthumb:6951]\n After that, I packed things up and headed back to the hotel. Well worth the trip west…might have to do it again…<\/p>\n Now to give credit where it’s due. The site parailfan.com<\/a> was a huge help in getting the shots, specifically the Allentown & Bethlehem Railfan Guide<\/a>. It was a huge help in planning where to park, where to shoot, etc. Thanks to Nick Anshant and Dave Abeles, who wrote the guide!<\/p>\n Thanks for looking! Back in NJ again for a couple days. Yesterday I mixed things up a bit – no NJ Transit stuff at all, but I did catch some Norfolk Southern, Morristown & Erie, as well as the elusive Lehigh Valley Rail Management switchers. Yep, for those of you who are paying attention, I did say LVRB, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[132,161,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-aviation-photography","7":"category-nature-photography","8":"category-rail_photography","9":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"