# The Keystone Corridor End to End.



## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 29, 2009)

I have to admit this was one of my least planned trips in recent memory. My mom told me on Saturday that she wanted to do a day trip with me on Monday. I of course seized the opportunity at a free train ride. With it being the Monday after the holiday I found most trains were sold out, or very full. The Keystone Service was still in its low bucket, so Harrisburg it was. I made the reservation on Sunday afternoon, and made no other attempt to plan.

My mom and I were ready to leave the house around 8 AM, so we headed to Little Silver the closest station on New Jersey Transit’s North Jersey Coast Line. We made it in time to catch the 8:38 AM local train to New York Pennsylvania Station. The train that pulled up told me right off the bat it was going to be an interesting ride. 5 single level commuter (Comet IVs) cars and one ALP-44. They usually run 8 to 10 car trains.

We found seats and so began the day’s train riding. The trip from Little Silver is 47 miles 23 of which are on Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. By the time we came on to the NEC near Rahway our train was about 75% full. Long story short we ended up with very crowded standing room only conditions from Elizabeth on. The train however, made an on time arrival to New York Pennsylvania Station at 10:10 AM.

Our Amtrak train was scheduled to depart at 12:05 giving us time to get a few things done in the city. Most notably we made the 3 block walk to B&H Camera Superstore where I purchased a new lens for my camera. You can see the results in the photos found at the end of this report. We also made 2 stops to get some lunch since Keystone trains lack food service cars.

At 11:55 our train was called for boarding at track 8 west. This worked out nicely since we were standing just a few feet from the escalator down to track 8. We took a pair of seats on the left side. Due to this trains change in direction you have 2 choices, sit backwards between New York and Philadelphia, or sit backwards from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. We elected to sit backwards for the New York to Philadelphia segment, since the trackage from Philly to Harrisburg was less traveled for us. We left New York on time with a decent crowd.

We made our stop in Newark Penn Station 10 minutes later, and then it was time for a nonstop run to Trenton, New Jersey. This is my absolute favorite section of the Northeast Corridor. Its not very scenic, in fact aside from 2 river crossings the run is almost entirely in Industrial areas, or backyards. However, the tracks are as straight as an arrow for miles, and the whole run is on a 4 track mainline. Once you get moving there is no slowing down. We flew across my home state in about 45 minutes gliding to a smooth stop at Trenton Transportation Center right on time.

We were stopped in Trenton for no more then 1 minute. One person boarded, and we were on the move again toward 30th Street Station Philadelphia. There wasn’t to much equipment in the Philly yard aside from one Catenary Repair Vehicle. You can usually see some pretty neat equipment, but I guess it was being used elsewhere.

We rolled into 30th Street Station a few minutes late, and with only a 10 minute printed stopover I didn’t get off the train in Philly. After the engineer switched ends, we started moving toward the Keystone Corridor. We made our way through the stations with an average of 6 or so people boarding and 6 detraining at each of the stops. The best part of this route IMHO is the area leading up to and after Lancaster, PA. Since you roll through the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch Country.

The 3 stops after Lancaster didn’t see anyone boarding or detraining. In fact in Mt. Joy, PA we couldn’t have been stopped for more then 30 seconds. Then made another very brief stop in Middletown, PA, and it was on to Harrisburg. We rolled into Harrisburg 3 minutes late.

Harrisburg’s Train Station would almost be what some call a disappointment. When you think about all the grand stations in the PRR system, you’d think the capitol city would warrant a grand station, like the ones in New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburg. Instead you find a nice train station, but not a “grand one”. In fact I would say Lancaster’s train station is nicer then the one in Harrisburg. Inside the station you will find a Transit News, your typical travel store selling toiletries and food along with a selection of books and magazines. They do have some PRR stuff for sale which I thought was a nice touch. The “Snack Bar” is a bank of vending machines. There were also signs for a restaurant, but following the signs led to a dead end, and a door marked Amtrak Personnel Only.

Don’t get me wrong its a very good train station. It has a nice waiting area, and clean bathrooms. When you compare to other stations in the Amtrak system it sets the bar pretty high. To me it seems anyway it called for PRR to build a grand station, but what do I know.

I would say the stations best feature is under its train shed it houses a GG-1 electric locomotive. Number 4859 is preserved at Harrisburg, because it was the first GG-1 to bring a revenue train to Harrisburg. It was actually supposed to be scrapped and just narrowly avoided being lost forever. Out of the 16 surviving GG-1s 4859 has the freshest coat of paint.

We were then called for boarding of train 654 with service to New York Pennsylvania Station. The conductor took a little liberty in the boarding process, requiring all luggage have a tag on it with both your first and last name. That I was fine with, then he required you to show him Photo ID before being allowed down to the train. I had never see a conductor request this.

We made it past the conductor after showing him ID, ticket stubs, and luggage tags. We walked forward to the cab car. The train didn’t seem to crowded, so we again decided to sit in seats facing forward at least as far as Philadelphia. At this point the sun was fading fast, and sadly the daylight last until Lancaster.

Once it got dark I started writing this trip report, and just enjoying the train ride. Before I knew it we were back in SEPTA territory, and making our stop in Ardmore, PA. The scheduled called for a 25 minute stop in Philly, but we made good time, and were going to be early into Philly. We got into Philly almost 15 minutes early, and the conductor said we wouldn’t be leaving until 6:50 PM. So you could visit the Food Court inside the station if you were so inclined.

Since had more then a half hour I did go upstairs into the main concourse to take a few pictures of the gorgeous main hall. The Pennsylvania Railroad spared no expense when they built this place. It is an absolutely stunning station. I didn’t go get anything to eat, in fact I never strayed more then a few steps in either direction from the staircase back down to the train. I did walk around on the platform and took pictures of our train. The flash created a really cool effect on the Cab Cars reflective paint.

We pulled out of Philadelphia's 30th Street Station right on time. I walked the train shortly after we pulled out, and found a pretty large crowd in the middle two cars. The cab car was virtually empty, so I switched to a forward facing seat for the rest of the trip into New York. We pulled into Trenton on time, and were soon on our way.

It was obvious we had the express track to ourselves, and once we accelerated out of Trenton I would be surprised if at any point we dropped below 85 MPH. We made arrived in Newark Penn Station 17 minutes early, where we paused briefly to let 3 or 4 people off. Then it was through Seacacus, and into the tunnel. We were looking at being 15+ minutes early, which didn’t seem to sit well with the folks doing track assignments at New York Penn Station. They slowed us to a crawl through the tunnel, and then we sat just outside of the station for some time. Finally we came to a stop on Track 4 about 5 minutes early.

Then it was upstairs, where we found saw the next train back to Little Silver was in 35 minutes. This gave us time to walk around a bit, and get some food to eat on the ride home.

They called our train for boarding 10 minutes prior to departure, and we headed down to track 3 for the 95 minute ride on the all stops local train. I had a pretty nice conversation with the conductor about ridership, and scheduling.

We pulled into Little Silver exactly on time, which ended the days train riding. It was a nice day although I think it was a little to much for my mom, I of course was bummed it was over.

Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave comments and/or ask questions! 

Please take a look at my pictures from the day by clicking here.

Here are a 3 samples from the album.

















I apologize for any errors in grammar, usage, spelling, etc. :lol:


----------



## AlanB (Dec 29, 2009)

Long Train Runnin said:


> They slowed us to a crawl through the tunnel, and then we sat just outside of the station for some time. Finally we came to a stop on Track 4 about 5 minutes early.


Track 4? :unsure:

That's a pretty odd track for Amtrak to be using, as you cannot take the train to Sunnyside yard for servicing. I realize that the Keystone's are push-pull and can at least operate in and out of track 4, but still that seems very odd. Wonder if your hold time was because of other problems at Penn and not your early arrival. Very odd to be on 4.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 29, 2009)

AlanB said:


> Long Train Runnin said:
> 
> 
> > They slowed us to a crawl through the tunnel, and then we sat just outside of the station for some time. Finally we came to a stop on Track 4 about 5 minutes early.
> ...


Thats what I thought. When I got on NJT to go home on track 3 that train set was still sitting down there on track 4. I highly doubt they are going to let it sit there overnight.


----------



## WhoozOn1st (Dec 29, 2009)

Nice reporting on a cool day of riding, Dude. I'll try to get to your pics tonight.


----------



## MikefromCrete (Dec 29, 2009)

Sounds like a great day. I enjoyed your report and photos.


----------



## Steve4031 (Dec 29, 2009)

I enjoyed it too. Thanks.


----------



## GG-1 (Dec 29, 2009)

Aloha

I enjoyed them also.

btw: the Yahoo ElectricCatenary group had coments about the status or the restoration of that G. She useualy sits under Live Cat. so the Safety rules make work on her difficult.


----------



## ceblack (Dec 29, 2009)

Long Train Runnin said:


> There wasn’t to much equipment in the Philly yard aside from one Centenary Repair Vehicle.
> I apologize for any errors in grammar, usage, spelling, etc. :lol:


Since you already apologized, I feel I should apologize in advance for pointing this out...  but I do it only because of the humorous image it created for me. 

When I read "Centenary Repair Vehicle", I wasn't sure what you were referring to. Probably due to my sarcastic nature, my first thought was that you had seen some type of hospital car. Then it occurred to me that perhaps you were only talking about some beat-up 100+ year-old MOW flat car.

Common sense finally kicked in and I realized (correctly, I hope) that you were referring to a Caternary Repair Vehicle.

Thanks for the great report and photos!


----------



## acelafan (Dec 29, 2009)

Long Train Runnin said:


> We made our stop in Newark Penn Station 10 minutes later, and then it was time for a nonstop run to Trenton, New Jersey. This is my absolute favorite section of the Northeast Corridor. Its not very scenic, in fact aside from 2 river crossings the run is almost entirely in Industrial areas, or backyards. However, the tracks are as straight as an arrow for miles, and the whole run is on a 4 track mainline. Once you get moving there is no slowing down. We flew across my home state in about 45 minutes gliding to a smooth stop at Trenton Transportation Center right on time.


I agree, that stretch through central NJ rocks! Thanks for a great trip report and photos.


----------



## rail_rider (Dec 29, 2009)

Nice report, I've wanted to take this trip from Trenton for awhile now. Maybe 2010 will be the year, could use it to shoot for Select Plus. Pictures really make a report like this stand out, wish I had your talent. Wishing you many more trips like this in 2010!


----------



## Ryan (Dec 29, 2009)

Great pictures! What kind of lens did you get? I'm jealous of getting to stop into B&H in person to pick something up.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 29, 2009)

GG-1 said:


> Aloha
> I enjoyed them also.
> 
> btw: the Yahoo ElectricCatenary group had coments about the status or the restoration of that G. She useualy sits under Live Cat. so the Safety rules make work on her difficult.


Well the group keeps it in good shape, I have seen 5 or 6 GG-1s and this one was in the best shape, by far. IMHO


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 29, 2009)

ceblack said:


> Long Train Runnin said:
> 
> 
> > There wasn’t to much equipment in the Philly yard aside from one Centenary Repair Vehicle.
> ...


:lol: not a problem the word I meant to use was catenary. That was me just trusting spell check.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 29, 2009)

rail_rider said:


> Nice report, I've wanted to take this trip from Trenton for awhile now. Maybe 2010 will be the year, could use it to shoot for Select Plus. Pictures really make a report like this stand out, wish I had your talent. Wishing you many more trips like this in 2010!



I would recommend it! Its a very nice day trip, and from Trenton it really wouldn't be to to expensive.

Thanks for the compliments on the photography. Its been a long process, my first pictures were terrible, but I got a new camera, and now slowly but surely the quality has improved.


----------



## Long Train Runnin' (Dec 29, 2009)

HokieNav said:


> Great pictures! What kind of lens did you get? I'm jealous of getting to stop into B&H in person to pick something up.


B&H is an amazing place it was my first time there and I was amazed at the size as well as the number of staff. If you have a layover in New York I'd say its worth a look.

I got a nikkor 18-105mm lens. Its my first lens with Nikons VR technology, and so far the pictures are looking good.


----------



## J-1 3235 (Dec 30, 2009)

Nice trip report, and thanks for sharing your photos with us. 

Mike


----------



## Bill Haithcoat (Dec 30, 2009)

Great shots and great report. Love those GG-1's.


----------

