A former B&O GP40 leads an interesting mix of units on D&H 556X as the train departs Allentown Yard. 556X was one of two 556 trains to operate through Allentown on this day. D&H 556 entered Alle... (more)

Half-Patched

Both locomotives in this GP9/GP30 combination appear have been pulled out of the shop before the Conrail rebranding process could be completed. Both units’ long hood... (more)

A clean, but eclectic, mix of Conrail power leaves the yard in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The mix includes a C36-7, an SD50, a U36B, an SD38, and an MT6 slug. The latter two are a yard set that like... (more)

Big Boats on the Star

One of the staples of Allentown-area train operations before Conrail was Reading train HB8. Operating from Harrisburg (Rutherford) to Bethlehem (actual... (more)

Drab Power on a Dreary Day

The day after Conrail’s first anniversary finds a GP30/GP9/GP39 power set in a mix of patched and unpatched Penn Central colors (colors?) approaching ... (more)

The Jersey Central owned thirteen six-axle Alco RSD4s, and a regular assignment for a pair of them in later years was the hump switcher job at the CNJ/RDG Allentown, PA, yard. CNJ 1611-1608 paused... (more)

CSX used its interchange with the Delaware & Hudson in Buffalo as a major outlet to the northeast and New England. After the D&H was jettisoned by Guilford, the New York, Susquehanna & Western was... (more)

An SW8 in one of the Lehigh Valley’s later paint schemes works the west end of the yard in Allentown Pennsylvania. Today, I would never expect to see a piggyback car in a classification yard, bu... (more)

One of the Lehigh Valley’s dynamic brake-equipped SW8’s idles at the west end of Allentown yard. Those 50’ Vermont Railway boxcars were a common sight in that era.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, Boeing-Vertol produced the US Standard Light Rail Vehicle. A total of 275 articulated railcars were sold to Boston’s MBTA and San Francisco’s MUNI. The... (more)

Built Like a Mack Truck

That phrase was very much a part of the fabric of Allentown, Pennsylvania, home of the world headquarters of Mack Trucks. Although I grew up about twenty mi... (more)

A pair of Conrail SD50’s works a train of laded hoppers (coke from Bethlehem Steel?) west past the Allentown Yard hump leads.

Class units of Conrail’s C32-8 and C30-7A classes, joined by another C32-8, have dropped their westbound train on a hump lead, and are now proceeding to the west end of Allentown yard. All three... (more)

Three Builders, Three Decades

Locomotives of three different manufacturers from three different decades pass each other at the west end of Conrail’s Allentown, Pennsylvania yard.... (more)

A Conrail Allentown yard job works the west end of the yard as morning fog lingers in the Lehigh River Valley. With Penn Central roots, Conrail’s fleet of nineteen U23C’s seemed to keep their ... (more)