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J. Moyer - Tourist Trains, Timetables, and More

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J. Moyer - Tourist Trains, Timetables, and More

I'm on a mission to collect, preserve, and share bits of Pennsylvania's rich railroad and industrial history.

Everything posted here is either taken by me or from my physical media collection.

09/06/2026

A spur of the moment trip to Williams Grove this afternoon. 643 was down, again, but the real reason I was there was to see Rockhill Trolley Museum's Oporto 172 and the odd steam-powered railcar mover "Gypsy" that usually lives at the Walkersville Southern. 643's replacement was nothing to be upset about anyway, as operational Vulcan centercabs are few and far between. This year's show feature was Case, and there was a very strong representation of them among the large gathering of traction engines.

09/01/2026

"Every masterpiece has its cheap copy..."

Two of the headlining units at this past weekend's America 250 Locomotive Celebration at the North Carolina Transportation Museum were near duplicates of the Delaware and Hudson's bicentennial paint scheme applied to a U23B and RS3M. That Morrison-Knudsen rebuilt RS3, at the time renumbered 1976 and later returned to its original 506, still exists, and until the G&W takeover of the Tioga Central, was still pulling excursion trains in a very faded red, white, and blue paint job. One of the only survivors of the Tioga Central's Alco-heavy roster, it was passed along to the Livonia Avon and Lakeville, and finally the Arcade and Attica, though the patriotic 1976 paint job is a thing of the past. Sadly, so is the Tioga Central which was closed at the onset of the pandemic, seemingly just the excuse Genesee and Wyoming needed to get back out of the passenger business. The tracks from Wellsboro Junction into Wellsboro proper were also ripped out in the last couple of years for a bike trail.

08/21/2026

A few years ago when I was just beginning to take an interest in slides, a small nearby auction house was liquidating the enormous collection of a photographer from the area. I took the time to show up for one of the preview days to sift through several tables worth of foam trays. To a new collector looking for a budget entry into the hobby, there were a few interesting lots but not much to write home about. What caught my attention was a massive cardboard box on the floor with "trash" scribbled on the side. Evidently, the man's collection hadn't been stored well and a large quantity were varying degrees of damaged, from rough edges that barely showed up in a scan, to completely unrecognizable. Somewhere in the middle was a couple dozen uncommon Ektachrome super 127 slides from the 60's. I inquired, and for a nominal fee I was allowed to walk out with everything. Ultimately, a lot of that box was beyond salvation, but a few subjects were interesting enough to justify keeping them out of the landfill. This one, neither the best nor the worst from the bunch, shows Lehigh Valley F7A 572 leading a light power move (helper set perhaps?) east across the river with a pair of Alcos at what should a be a familiar location to most in the lower end of the Lehigh Gorge.

08/11/2026

"I hear it fills up faster if you stare at it impatiently." When running a tourist line on a shoestring budget, ingenuity becomes a matter of survival, as seen here. The crew of the Wawa and Concordville Railroad proves that water towers and standpipes are merely optional, provided you have an overpass and a fire hose at your disposal. Normally, the W&C's operations were confined to part of the Octoraro Branch between the towns for which the road was named, but a one-off charter in November of 1967 brought the fancifully dressed S100 as far west as Kennett Square.

07/28/2026

Not quite as glamorous as the steam "lokies" it replaced, Lehigh Coal and Navigation number 125 was photographed shifting cars near the company's Greenwood breaker by Bob Wilt in November of 1971. Mr. Wilt called it a GE 44-ton on the slide mount, but it appears to be a 45-ton that was modified with dual motor trucks sans-side rods. Though long out of service, it is still on Lehigh Anthracite property a stone's throw from where this picture was taken.

Edit: Per multiple comments, late model 45-tonners could be optioned with chain drive trucks, still with a single traction motor, to eliminate the side rods.

07/12/2026

I decided to make one last go of seeing the big boy before it left PA as it headed west out of Altoona yesterday. Since experiencing it up close was already checked off my list, I focused on incorporating landmarks of the Pennsylvania Railroad's "broad way" across the Alleghenies. In geographic order I was able to get it passing Alto tower in Altoona (1915), the Portage Area Historical Society's station (1926), and the stone arch crossing of the Loyalhanna Creek in Latrobe (1901).

07/07/2026

I may be a day late and a dollar short for a true fourth of July post (my power was out and I was riding behind a T-1), but nonetheless, in honor of our nation's semiquincentennial we'll revisit the bicentennial year of 1976. Blazing east through Christiana later in the summer, Conrail 4800 heads up the "Susquehanna Special," a Philadelphia to Harrisburg train that was organized as part of the 1976 NRHS convention. Behind it is E60 972 and nine amfleets. The prototype GG1 became one of the first locomotives to receive a full Conrail paint job when it rolled out of the shop only a few days after the takeover in this very over-the-top patriotic livery.

07/02/2026

On a list of things I never thought I'd get to see in my lifetime, a Union Pacific "Big Boy", under steam, pulling in for a station stop on the CNJ at Jim Thorpe would have to be so high, it wouldn't even cross my mind. So anyway, here it is, likely one of the coolest things I'll ever get to see with my own eyes.

06/25/2026

On the paperwork side of things, I recently nabbed a pair of Quakertown and Eastern tickets from an earlier excursion over the L&HR off of Ebay. There's definitely a few interesting tidbits for the unwitting traveler. What I hadn't realized when I bought these was how obnoxiously large the things are for tickets, at an unwieldy 5 1/2" x 7 1/8", perhaps a contributing factor to their relative scarcity today.

06/24/2026

Quakertown and Eastern Railroad 4 has just left the Bel-Del at Belvidere, NJ and is now about to duck under Belvidere Road on the Lehigh and Hudson River. Along for the ride to Warwick, NY is L&HR Alco RS3 10, which was possibly added back in the yard at Phillipsburg. From the few online resources on the Q&E, I couldn't for the life of me find the exact date that this trip took place, but it was the same day that the railroad's postcard photo was taken on the LV main east of Bethlehem.

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