Former Pennsylvania Railroad GG-1 No. 4859 and an N6b cabin car, owned by the Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, are now on track 8 while Amtrak continues work to refurbish the station in the commonwealth’s capital.
While this is not an ideal location for viewing, it will protect the equipment until a more suitable location is found. No. 4859, pulled the first train into Harrisburg following the electrification of the line from Philadelphia in the late 1930s.
The track level facilities are undergoing an extensive upgrading project, with the installation of high-level platforms and new elevators. The platform between tracks 6 and 7 was recently completed. Work will commence soon on the one serving tracks 4 and 5. The work is being done in preparation for additional Keystone Service trains as the current ones are running at or near capacity.
When completed, a more accessible location will be sought by the historical society chapter in conjunction with Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
The “no glass-top” rule predates AMTRAK by many years. As a rider on the old B&O’s dome cars, I remember the dome seats being evacuated around Silver Springs due to “safety precautions.” Falling wires with their heavy insulators and brackets could do major injury to a passenger. You’ll note that the DEADHEAD move should have had no unauthorized persons on board.
Superliners are not “impossible” on the Harrisburg-Philadelphia Amtrak line, because at one point Amtrak operated a deadhead train of Superliners from Chicago to Harrisburg to Philadelphia for display for a travel agents’ convention there. It operated east- and westbound with no modifications to the catenary required. There may have been some kind of temporary accommodation at the lower level of 30th Street, but as for line of road, no problem.
As a former power director, I vaguely remember this move. I believe power was removed from the route the cars travel to 30th St so as to avoid any chance of drawing a Arc or wire contact. And the track it sat on was #2 track which was turned off and temp grounds put on the overhead wire just outside of the portal.
“When completed, a more accessible location will be sought by the historical society chapter in conjunction with Amtrak and the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.” Maybe this would have been better addressed during the planning phase. A plan developed without this consideration is unlikely to provide any parking spots in a station
High platforms will render Superliners impractical even with height clearance because of their low ground level entrances. One versatility of single-level passenger cars is adopting to both low level and high level platforms. There are bilevel cars with end vestibules affording such adoption in which case boarding becomes cumbersome when descending or ascending to a seat at each level.
I tried to show him the history how a lot of trolley railroad used to run off of underground catenary but he failed to look into the history and see how it was built. There was underground catenary, that is why the word overhead is used. Such a childish complaint.
George and Alexander—Why do we even bother?
Alexander Mitchell – Here we go again. Now, if we only had “underground catenary,” all would be well.
Alexander Mitchell,
Not necessarily so, if any of the lines are accessible to (hi-cube)double stack containers trains then they can easily handle Superliners because of the following: a hi-cube double stack requires 20’4″ clearance above the rails where as a Superliner only requires 16’4″. Same thing would apply to any new equipment purchased in the future.
The trains currently in operation, and any additional ones planned, consist solely of Amfleet I and II coaches. Any new equipment will be built to the same platform height. Any future possible addition of multi-level coaches would easily fit under the catenary, as on NJ Transit and Marc.
Superliners are “impossible,” let alone impractical, anyway at Harrisburg and points east because of the overhead catenary. Superliner entryways have the option of flip-down decks for high-level platforms or raising said decks to expose the stairs to lower levels.