I have been driving for 37 years, and in all that time only once have I ever seen a train on the B&LE bridge over the Allegheny River northeast of downtown Pittsburgh. That was just two years ago (only took 35 years to see my first one!)

Today, my son and I were returning on the PA Turnpike from a bike trip on the Great Allegheny Passage. As we passed the B&LE yard near Univeral (Plum Borough), my son said "Dad, that train is moving!". Indeed it was, and towards the Allegheny River. I slowed down as we approached the river to look at the signal that is always red. Today it was green! So we got off at the Route 28 exit, parked the car, and waited a little more than 5 minutes. We were rewarded with the following:






Got to see a train again after only a two year wait! I think the front three are SD-38-2's and the trailing unit is a Tunnel Motor. I told my son to take a good look. If he has the same luck as me, it might be 35 years until he sees another train on this bridge!

Neal,

What's remarkable about your sighting is that the train's let by a trio of SD38-2s or SD38ACs (I can't tell for sure). I travel under that bridge twice a day to and from work & have rarely seen anything but the tunnel motors in three-unit consists for the last few years. With the economic downturn, and after losing the AK steel business, I thought that the Bessemer had stored many older units at Greenville, leaving only a trio of tunnel motors active south of Greenville. You didn't happen to catch the cab numbers?

Thanks for posting!

Anthony

neat pic what rail line i can't tell

Bessemer & Lake Erie, now owned by CN.

Anthony, I knew that this thread would catch your attention! I'll see if I can blow up the originals which were shot at high resolution to get you the cab numbers. You can thank Steven for these photos. Had he not seen the train starting to roll out of the yard, I would have never known to stop to photograph it.

Anthony,

I blew them up. Still hard to tell but looks like:
868
876 or 878
867
600 or 800.

Do these sound right? Were shot at 5 megapixels. Too bad I didn't have the 10 megapixel SLR with me. Then I could tell for sure. I'll e-mail them to you as an attachment if you want them. Trade for those Conway turntable photos!

Neal

Here is the B&LE Roster:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/locoList.aspx?id=BLE

Bob

Neal,
I was just down there today myself. Rode from Deal to the first W M Scenic RR bridge past Frostburg. Got to the bridge 1 minute before the 2-8-0 crossed over. Looked up to a view that was a clone to the picture Mike CT posted last week. Boy what a ride getting back up to Big Savage. Hard to believe steam engines made that grade in places.

A lot of people say the same thing about the trains on the Allegheny River RR bridge. The Bessemer RR usually makes several runs a day, or did. I live close enough to tell direction and whether they are loaded or empty (laboring verses dynamic brakes). But sometimes they sneak by. My son and I tracked them on the radio and he has photographed that RR quite a bit.

quote:

I blew them up. Still hard to tell but looks like:
868
876 or 878
867
600 or 800.

All look OK except for the tunnel motor (the last number). Will have to blow up the photo again.

I live in Oakmont and the Bessemer is in my back yard. Growing up there were many more trains but now there is one loaded south between 6:00 and 8:00 each night and the empty train north when they uncouple here. I played on the tracks and that big trestle There was two tracks at one time but it has one now and a road for truck traffic and maintance. If penndot built thier bridges like this one they would never need replaced. Carnegie was ahead of his time in bridge construction!
When we were younger my friends and I would jump off the bridge into the river. It was our jungle Gym. If our parents only knew. Bessemer and Lake Erie has the best maintained trackage I have ever seen. and a very high track poundage. There is limited travel on the line but it is kept very nice.

If there was ever a way a rail excursion could be formed this would be the line to do it. I would love to ride a passenger line from North Bessemer to Conneaut Ohio.

FYI;
The B&LE ran excursion trips to Exposition park, Later called Conneaut Lake Park. With more than 10 trips a day. Maybe if they still had run the train there the park wouldn't be in such financial mess.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: harleyhouse,

Neal: My guess is the trailing unit at the RH side of the picture is a GE "U"-boat as evidenced by the radiator cooling fan "hump" on the rear of the unit.
Larry D.

My guess is the trailing unit at the RH side of the picture is a GE "U"-boat as evidenced by the radiator cooling fan "hump" on the rear of the unit.

It is definitely not a U boat. The B&LE never ran U boats. The B&LE bought SD-40T-3 in 2000 numbering 900-910.

See http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ble/ble.html

I great up in Oakmont and North Bessemer until I moved to near Trees Mills, Westmoreland county, in 7th grade. The B&LE ran multiple trains a day when I was a kid. I remember listening to the trains coming in and out of the North Bessemer yard all day and night from when I was in 1st grade until finishing 6th grade.
I have an uncle that spend 40 years on the Bessemer and still lives near the North Bessemer yard. He told me that only a few trains a week run out of North Bessemer. Not like when I was a kid.

Nice Photos Neal - that is quite the impressive bridge from driving on the TPKE!

Did you also have a hand in this photo? I would imagine you are somewhere in the foreground at least!

What is amazing is the gap between those first 3 engines that progressively gets smaller to the rear.....10' or more between the first engines.
Prototypical Lionel couplers??? Joe

quote:

Nice Photos Neal - that is quite the impressive bridge from driving on the TPKE!

Did you also have a hand in this photo? I would imagine you are somewhere in the foreground at least!

MJ,

Your photo did not appear on the post, but I was able to view it by right clicking on your link. I could not repost it here, but here is a link.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=294015

No, I had nothing to do with it, but given the date listed, it is of the same train. Photographer must have been standing up on Gulf Lab Road. My son would have been just out of view to the right. We pulled over where the off ramp from the Turnpike merges onto 28 north. we would have never had time to make it up to this vantage point.

BTW, are you aware that I am co-author of the book "The Pennsylvania Turnpike" published by Arcadia Publishing 1n 2004?

quote:

Growing up there were many more trains but now there is one loaded in between 6:00 and 8:00 each night and the emepty train leaves when they get here.

Yes, the train I saw around two years ago was also late in the day as I recall. Was 3 tunnel motors leading a coal drag south. No camera that day however.

Wow! Thanks for posting this picture! Back around 1962 so we were on our way to Meadville to visit Grandma west bound on the Turnpike. When we crossed the river, a southbound F-unit lashup was dragging ore jennies into North Bessemer. It was soooo cool for this 5 year old kid to see. Never saw another train on that bridge, although I crossed it a hundred times since. Ruined me for life. Been a fan of F-Units and the B+LE ever since. Thanks again!
Oh, BTW, Neal, I have your book and enjoyed the history of the South Penn!

There is a great NEW book out on the B&LE It is titled Images of Rail Bessemer and lake Erie Railroad, Paperback copyright 2009 By Kenneth C. Springirth.
I bought the book and it is wonderful, Great pictures and story. I have four older Bessemer books but this is the nicest. $17.15 New at Amazon.com

quote:

Oh, BTW, Neal, I have your book and enjoyed the history of the South Penn!

Thanks Jim. Here's a photo of the cover of the PA Turnpike book:

quote:

Originally posted by harleyhouse:
There is a great NEW book out on the B&LE It is titled Images of Rail Bessemer and lake Erie Railroad, Paperback copyright 2009 By Kenneth C. Springirth.
I bought the book and it is wonderful, Great pictures and story. I have four older Bessemer books but this is the nicest. $17.15 New at Amazon.com

Any pictures of the Huletts operating at the Conneaut Dock? I've only seen a couple of shots in the other three books. I would also love to see more shots of the Western Allegheny Branch, particularly during the final days of the f-units.

I think there is I will try to scan them. I was in Astabula, OH reciently and they have a Hulett bucket there on display. There is a great viewing point to see the coal docks and a cool bascule bridge that still works.
I love the Bessemer, now Canadian National I am sad they have discontinued running a caboose on thier trains. They were one of the last ones. I will have to go down and watch thier sister railroad the UNION they still run a caboose.

As a daily commuter on Rt. 28, I've seen a number of B&LE trains over the past 3 or so years.. Every once in a while I would see one in the 3PM time frame coming across the big bridge from Oakmont to Harmar and I've also seen them in the Midnight time frame but going the opposite direction. You can't miss that bright orange of the HEP when you are driving along 28.

They occasionally have cars set out waiting for pickup on or just to the left of (if you are going northbound) the bridge that takes the railroad over RT.28. There was a small crane there for what seemed like weeks earlier in the year.

Thanks for the pics Neal

I love seeing that bridge every time I travel the turnpike. It's so massive! It's nice to know it's still an active line.

- RICH

When I was young I would visit my mothers aunt that lived on the north side of that bridge in Acmetonia.I remember like it was yesterday watching what seemed like all of the B&LE engines pulling the ore jennies. My mothers aunt said when they first moved into the house the B&LE was covering the wood trestle that ran from Gulf Lab Rd to old RT 28 with rock , dirty, boney and what ever else they could dump.She also said that there was a station at the top of the West end pier ( I believe it was RED RAVEN) and a long staircase leading down to rt 28 and the streetcar

quote:

Originally posted by richtrow:
Thanks for the pics Neal

I love seeing that bridge every time I travel the turnpike. It's so massive! It's nice to know it's still an active line.

- RICH

Rich: You may want to note that Neal's picture is actually of (3) Bridges.

You are seeing the new Turnpike bridge in the fore ground, concrete span. Existing Turnpike bridge is barely visible,silver steel span under the concrete, and the railroad bridge,green, all over the Allegheny River north of Pittsburgh at Harmarville, Old Exit 5 on the turnpike. I believe the new turnpike bridge is to be completed sometime next year. At that point turnpike travelers will be further away from the B&LE bridge.

Neal,

I didn't have my camera today, but at 5PM a Bessemer train was coming across the bridge northbound with an SD38AC, SD38-2, and an SD40T-3. I couldn't make out the numbers as I was actually going through the toll booth & too far away to make them out.

It seems obvious that they are running trains on the bridge around 5 - 6 PM. OK, now you know when to get your photos!

Our field shop is tucked behind the Days Inn next to Ward Trucking. As you come off the Pike there you can see all the white trucks near the hill. I always get to see some great trains when I have to go to the office. That bridge is quite a construction project.

The north side of the B&LE bridge was the location of the Bessemer's interchange with the Cheswick & Harmar Railroad, which went northeast up to the Harwick Mine and then southeast to the Colfax Power Plant at Cheswick. When I was in the 5th Grade, we used to hop on the coal cars and ride them for a little ways between the mine and power plant. Dumb!

Thanks for posting the photo from my old stomping grounds on the west bank of the Allegheny. I have fond memories of fishing off of the empty coal barges downstream of the power plant next to the former PRR Conemaugh Line.

quote:

The north side of the B&LE bridge was the location of the Bessemer's interchange with the Cheswick & Harmar Railroad, which went northeast up to the Harwick Mine and then southeast to the Colfax Power Plant at Cheswick.

Yes, I've seen the track along Route 28. I believe they reconstructed it when 28 was built circa 1970. Is it still in service. How far does it run? If still in service, who are its customers?

quote:

Originally posted by PRRMiddleDivision:

quote:

The north side of the B&LE bridge was the location of the Bessemer's interchange with the Cheswick & Harmar Railroad, which went northeast up to the Harwick Mine and then southeast to the Colfax Power Plant at Cheswick.

Yes, I've seen the track along Route 28. I believe they reconstructed it when 28 was built circa 1970. Is it still in service. How far does it run? If still in service, who are its customers?

Watson standard paints and chemicals, and Westinghouse EMD.
are two of thier customers.