The Lehigh Valley
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What a way to start 2016 than to see something I've been hoping to see for some time. A gathering of migrating Snow Geese. What an amazing sight to behold. Right up there with the perfect Dragon macro!!!
Back later tonight - finally headed into the city for the day.
After the hostler cleared the turntable at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania with a pair of Lehigh Valley RS11’s , he opened the throttle, and the Alcos exhausted plumes of thick smoke. This was the moment that I became an Alco fan.
After the Conrail consolidation, Lehigh Valley’s EMD switchers generally stayed in along the ex-LV lines until they were retired. Seven months into Conrail, five dynamic brake equipped SW8’s pass the lead to Bethlehem Engine Terminal. This may be power for a train headed the Hazleton Branch, which was one reason for switchers with dynamic brakes.
When the Lehigh Valley bought C628’s from Alco in 1965, they were delivered in a striking white, black and red paint scheme and were dubbed “snowbirds” by the local fans. Variants of the snowbird scheme were applied to several classes of freight cars, including this fifty foot covered hopper seen here at Enola, Pennsylvania two years after the LV ceased to exist.
A shop worker at Conrail’s Bethlehem, Pennsylvania roundhouse fires up Lehigh Valley RS11 7640 after performing some work on a rainy September day. LV’s RS11’s were always good for a smoke show.
I took this one just as I'm packing up, after shooting 30 previous frames. Guess which I liked the best?
Technical notes: Tonemapped 3xp at 8 sec f14 +/- 2 steps. Then some layer blending to clean up the foreground, selective saturation and curve adjustments.
Explore #30 Thanks all!
Lake Minsi
Bangor, PA, US
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All rights reserved © Shannon Field
What a way to start 2016 than to see something I've been hoping to see for some time. A gathering of migrating Snow Geese. What an amazing sight to behold. Right up there with the perfect Dragon macro!!!
Carrying sixty-four cars of intermodal traffic, the Lehigh Valley’s Apollo 2 rolls east across the Delaware River. Three examples of the last power acquired by the LV are in charge of one of the hottest trains on the railroad.
Lehigh Valley class AF-27, Alco C628, was the backbone of the LV’s latter-day road fleet. After purchasing eight of the six axle beasts new from Alco, the LV jumped on the opportunity to get nine more at bargain prices when the Monon, who had found them to be too rough on their track, looked to dispose of them. Their attractive “snowbird” or “white elephant” paint scheme didn’t weather well, and all but four were repainted in different variants of the Cornell red scheme. Here a pair of ex-Monon units lead westbound train NE-1 under the Easton & Northern branch in South Easton, Pennsylvania.
Ain't it a good feeling to wake up & to feel warm rays on your skin??? Not for me that time 'coz I was waiting for my friends on our way to white water rafting but just the same it's a sight to behold, have a good one everybody :-)
An overview of Lehigh Valley’s Bethlehem Engine Terminal reveals a variety of power in various states of readiness. As an SW1 leaves the turntable and heads out to work, two RS-11’s are on one of the turntable tracks, and the cab of an RS-3 can be seen in the servicing area. Farther out on the servicing tracks, a set of C420’s is being reconfigured, while a Reading/B&O power set is on the ready track. This power came in on train NE-84, and will take NE-87 to Potomac Yard after it arrives in the Lehigh Valley.
I never seen or shot the LV as I never traveled to the area it operated in before it was gone and even if I had I didn't have a good camera yet at that time so all I would have ended up with would have been 110 blurs. This weeks SNS is a C628 conveniently numbered 628 leading sister 629 at Crestwood PA on August 25, 1966. No photographer listed on the slide although I swear I've seen a very similar shot by Bob Wilt so it well could be his work. In any case an Alco classic. Chuck Schwesinger collection.
My first visit to Lehigh Valley territory after the Conrail merger was a sobering experience. The LV’s second generation road power was divided between Conrail and the newly-expanded Delaware & Hudson, with the D&H getting the C420’s and GP38-2’s, and Conrail getting the GP38AC’s, U23B’s and C628’s. Although the D&H power frequently visited the area, they were immediately rebranded to ensure that they did not get sent to some remote Conrail terminal in the confusion that could ensue in a one-day consolidation of six major railroads, as well as several smaller ones. Arriving in Bethlehem on Conrail Day 4, I found a sea of Penn Central road power, with some Erie-Lackawanna and Reading thrown in. I spied one train moving east with three LV U23B's and a PC NW2. This would be the last time I ever saw pure LV road units.
After sitting on a turntable lead in Bethlehem for some time, a Lehigh Valley SW7 clears its throat as it returns to work.
The "Hazleton man" rolls through the village of Treichlers on a hot July day. With five LV dynamic brake-equipped SW8's, a few cars of mixed freight, and a string of empty hoppers for the Hazleton area's anthracite mines, there is nothing in this photo that indicates that Conrail has been a reality for well over a year.
What looks like a major oversight by one of Conrail’s car painting crews is more likely a last minute replacement for a damaged door. Fifty foot Class X58 cars were of PRR/Penn Central lineage, while the door is, of course, from a Lehigh Valley car.
During a visit to Lehighton, Pennsylvania, we found three light Lehigh Valley GP38-2’s idling on one of the main tracks. LV 323 was built in November, 1972, and after a long career on the Delaware & Hudson, survives as CP 7310.
As daylight begins to filter through the fog, an NS coal train rumbles through Keystone, WV, assisted by the Lehigh Valley heritage unit on the rear.
Train AM-1, with 74 cars and interleaved C420's and RS11's, passes the New Jersey Zinc Company's west plant in Palmerton. The zinc company was by far the largest employer in Palmerton, but the by-products of its operation constantly spewed into the air, eradicating much of the vegetation on the Blue Mountain, including the Lehigh Gap in the background. Today the plant has been razed, and trees are slowly returning to the mountain.
While I am fully in support of the Snowplow Sunday movement, there are many of us who can't participate due to lack of material. I believe others have started the idea of Switcher Sunday, and this is my offering fot this week.
After the sun has dropped below the horizon, a Lehigh Valley SW8 works one of the hump receiving tracks at Allentown Yard.
Norfolk Southern's Lehigh Valley heritage unit leads 11R as they race along the old Delaware & Hudson in East Worcester, NY. Despite the second unit being dead, with only 2200 trailing tons, and a fifty car train of empties, they're having no problem keeping up with the track speed, making for a tough, but rewarding chase.