I’m standing on the bridge carrying Pennsylvania Route 5 over the CSX Erie West Subdivision tracks west of Lake City, Pennsylvania, on April 27, 2008
Amtrak’s eastbound Lake Shore Limited is making good time as it heads toward its next station stop of Erie, Pennsylvania.
It is early morning and the rising sun is creating strong back lighting that mutes the colors, but provides a nice glint on the side of the passenger cars.
It is the type of image that when I made it I didn’t like how it turned out. Years later I decided to scan the slide to see what I could do with it.
Upon further review I decided that I liked the glint because it nicely draw out the profiles of the different generations of passenger cars on Train 48.
There are two Heritage fleet members, a baggage car and dining car, three Viewliner sleepers and a string of Amfleet coaches and a food service car.
The differences in how those cars were designed and constructed show up well here even if the image is not all that colorful. It almost appears to be a hybrid with elements of black and white and color photography.
It is Sept. 3, 1983, in Rensselaer, New York. Amtrak power car No. 154 leads a Rohr Turboliner passing through with an Empire Corridor train. The 154 was built in California 1976 and featured coach seating. The Rohr Turboliners spent much of the service lives in New York State and were gone from revenue service by 2003.
Amtrak ran an extra section of its Wolverine Service over three days during the Thanksgiving 2017 travel period.
It was able to use equipment that would otherwise be laying over in Chicago before its next assignment to hit the road and add capacity during a busy holiday travel period.
But these extra sections of Midwest Corridor trains won’t be running this year due to shortages of equipment and operating personnel. As it is suspensions on three Midwest Corridors will result in less capacity than normal and there are few if any additional cars that Amtrak can add to trains that are running as scheduled.
The train shown above, operating as No. 356, is shown crossing the Huron River in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in Barton Park. P42DC No. 33 is trailing in this image. The train will turn back to Chicago in Ann Arbor thus there is a locomotive on each end.
The wayback machine has taken us to the first decade of Amtrak operations in the Northeast Corridor. Amtrak GG-1 Nos. 910 and 905 are leading an Amtrak train through Morrisville, Pennsylvania on Aug. 23, 1978.
The rear SC-44 Charger locomotive on Amtrak’s westbound Blue Water passes a colorful stand of trees in Porter, Indiana, On Oct. 23. The train is on Amtrak’s Michigan District but is in the process of getting onto Norfolk Southern’s Chicago Line. It operates with a locomotive on each end to avoid having the turn the the consist in Port Huron, Michigan, the eastern terminus.
There was plenty of color in Cumberland, Maryland, on Oct. 23 when Amtrak’s Capitol Limited arrived en route to Washington.
No. 30 arrived on time with Phase I heritage locomotive No. 161 on the point. Behind it is colorful fall foliage on a nearby hillside.
The tracks here are owned by CSX but were once part of the Baltimore & Ohio mainline that hosted the original Capitol Limited between Chicago and Washington.
Amtrak’s Chicago-bound Capitol Limited is only a couple of minutes or so behind schedule as it rushes through Chesterton, Indiana, on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.
The P42DC is crossing the bridge over Coffee Creek and passing a stand of fall foliage.
No. 29 on this day had six cars rather than the customary five with the additional car being a transition sleeper. The train was reported on the Amtrak website to have arrived at Chicago Union Station on time at 8:45 a.m.
It’s fall foliage season in the Midwest and I venture up to Goshen, Indiana, to catch the westbound Lake Shore Limited passing a colorful stand next to Oakridge Cemetery. No. 49 was running a little behind schedule as it came charging westward on the Chicago Line of Norfolk Southern.
Amtrak in the Heartland 