East of the Mississippi - Travels in the USA 1991 to 1994
Most of my visits to the USA have been east of the Mississippi, I have always had a soft spot for the railroads of the east, of the various railroads which were amalgamated to form Conrail in 1976 two, the Lehigh Valley and the Erie Lackawanna are among my favourites. And the scenery's not bad either - Horseshoe Curve, Sandpatch Grade, the Canisteo River Valley and the Southern's Rathole are all splendid places along which to watch trains. So join me on three eastern odesseys of the early 1990s.
Autumn 1991 saw me flying to Chicago and then catching the train to Altoona, Pa in order to spend a week chasing trains over the Allegheny Mountains, in particular along the former B&O mainline over Sandpatch Summit between Cumberland, Maryland and Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The weather over the weekend in Chicago was pretty appalling but dawn on Monday revealed a cloudless sky as the Broadway Limited pulled into Pittsburgh. And that's how it stayed for much of the following week before I returned to Chicago on Saturday. This was the first time I hired a car in the US, an Oldsmobile IIRC, which gave me the freedom to get away from towns and out into the countryside.
I was back again at Easter 1992, which fell in mid-late April. Flying to Chicago I picked up a hire car and headed south, firstly through southern Illinios and then into Kentucky for some pictures along the Norfolk Southern's 'rathole' mainline (the grandly named Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway) from Cincinatti to Chattanooga. At Somerset, Ky I turned east to stop my second night in Corbin, Ky a coal mining town with a large railroad yard. From Corbin I spent the next day, the Sunday before Easter, on the Virginia/Tennessee border near Natural Tunnel State Park before driving back to Somerset for the night. The first half of the holiday was characterised by reasonable weather, the latter half back in the Mid West was dismal! The company was much better as I met up with friend Mel Finzer for a traditional easter egg hunt at home in Naperville.
In June 1994 I flew to Boston for a 10 day adventure zig zagging around New England and New York State, in particular looking for trains on the former Erie Lackawanna lines in upstate New York in and around Binghamton. I managed to do much of what I set out to, but there were a few missed opportunities, which still annoy me 19 years later :-)
Read MoreAutumn 1991 saw me flying to Chicago and then catching the train to Altoona, Pa in order to spend a week chasing trains over the Allegheny Mountains, in particular along the former B&O mainline over Sandpatch Summit between Cumberland, Maryland and Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The weather over the weekend in Chicago was pretty appalling but dawn on Monday revealed a cloudless sky as the Broadway Limited pulled into Pittsburgh. And that's how it stayed for much of the following week before I returned to Chicago on Saturday. This was the first time I hired a car in the US, an Oldsmobile IIRC, which gave me the freedom to get away from towns and out into the countryside.
I was back again at Easter 1992, which fell in mid-late April. Flying to Chicago I picked up a hire car and headed south, firstly through southern Illinios and then into Kentucky for some pictures along the Norfolk Southern's 'rathole' mainline (the grandly named Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway) from Cincinatti to Chattanooga. At Somerset, Ky I turned east to stop my second night in Corbin, Ky a coal mining town with a large railroad yard. From Corbin I spent the next day, the Sunday before Easter, on the Virginia/Tennessee border near Natural Tunnel State Park before driving back to Somerset for the night. The first half of the holiday was characterised by reasonable weather, the latter half back in the Mid West was dismal! The company was much better as I met up with friend Mel Finzer for a traditional easter egg hunt at home in Naperville.
In June 1994 I flew to Boston for a 10 day adventure zig zagging around New England and New York State, in particular looking for trains on the former Erie Lackawanna lines in upstate New York in and around Binghamton. I managed to do much of what I set out to, but there were a few missed opportunities, which still annoy me 19 years later :-)
From Fairhope I got hopelessly lost trying to find the horseshoe curve at Mance, wandering off in all directions until, more by luck than judgement, I found myself on Brush Creek Road where it passes underneath the railway. I parked the car and walked around the curve I caught this train of westbound autoracks behind a trio of stealth SD40-2s entering the horseshoe curve. This has always been one of my favourite pictures.
