Spam Trak Adventure Fun Trip

[Guest ___]

Here’s my itinerary for the trip coming up in a few weeks from now. Since, I'm not going to hit Japan to either the fall or spring and that's assuming I don't land this contract gig for the Smithsonian Institute this week, I'm heading up to my hometown of Pittsburgh, and I decided to take the train. I'm taking the long way out so I can take the Acela and go around Horseshoe Curve. (I lived in Altoona for three years but never rode around the curve) Going home, I'm taking the Capital Limited as it runs through the area I always fan.(I have more pix of train 30 than I can count)

 

• MARC train P890 (DP 0518 MCY - AR 0645 WAS) 21JUL

• Amtrak train 2158 (DP 0900 WAS – AR 1034 PHL) 21JUL

• Amtrak train 43 (DP 1242 PHL – AR 2005 PGH) 21JUL

• Amtrak train 30 (DP 0530 PGH – AR 1350 WAS) 23 JUL

• MARC train P871 (DP 1550 WAS – AR 1714 MCY) 23JUL

[Bernard]

A while ago I saw a documentary about interesting sites to see by train and the horseshoe Curve was one of them.

I remember it being filmed from above and you could see why they made a 3 track horseshoe because of the steep grade.

Here is a video of the Horseshoe:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQFNFl9Edpk

[Guest ___]

HSC had four tracks, but in the mid-80's Conrail pulled the #3 track. I remember back in the early 80's watching a four train meet while standing by the old K4 that looked like cr@p from years of neglect.

[to2leo]

This kinda remind me of my own Spam Trak Adventures across America 3 years ago.

 

I had missed a train in Chicago, waited for 5 hours for a delay one, suffered thru an defective train with burning brakes and smell, rode a train that hit a runaway cow, got stuck with a seat beside a temporary garbage can during the Thanksgivings crunch, experienced more delays, saw a Cali kid smoking weed in one of the washrooms, got woken up by a drunken passenger leaving Rio.

 

BUT having that said,

IMHO, I would recommend the California Zephyr from Denver to Emeryville and the Surfliner from LA to San Diego.  Others, not so much 

[Guest ___]

Got lucky, no delay ours, even got back in to Union fifteen minutes early.