My lovely wife, of 17 years, and I celebrated this auspicious occasion by journeying to that railfan mecca that has been chronicled in these pages many times - The Tunnel Inn. We stayed in the "Alco" suite and enjoyed the hospitality of Mike K's wonderful inn again.
Friday night was spent getting there and dodging the high volume of Penn State Nittany Lions fans on US 22 and 322 (a way I wont take again to get out there). We took nearly 5 hours to get there but in the end we had a peaceful evening watching a few trains and then off the sleep.
Sat. morning was spent down to the Johnstown Flood Memorial in South Fork at the site where it all started - the ex South Fork Sportsman's club. After watching a gripping introduction film (which I found a trifle disturbing) of how it all happened we walked down to the north damn remnant to look out at the old lake bed.
At one time there was this whole lake in this area, built by the canal companies of the time to keep the canals replenished, then after the RR came thru it was abandoned. The Earthen dam, which would eventually fail, was string and secure during the time of the canal era but was let go, and even dangerously altered to the needs of the upper class patrons of this athletic club.
The boundries of the lake are quite clear, even almost 120 years after an entire body of water emptied out in a matter of minutes on that fateful afternoon of May 31st, 1889. The one major change is that the NS South Fork secondary runs exactly thru the middle of the dam breach and on up the middle of the lake bed. Unfortunately this day no trains, just a string hoppers parked below the old dam area.
It was a fascinating visit to be sure.
Sat. afternoon was spent watching the parade of trains at Cassandra, with quite a parade to see. Saw the likes of 21E, 21G, 21J, 21M, 10N (with a nice mighty pull up the grade), 922 and even Amtrak over at Cresson.
Sat. evening was spent watching the PSU game over dinner at the Iron Horse Cafe and then back to the Inn for an early evening.
Sun. was spent at first dodging rain drops then off east heading home. We stopped off at the East Broad Top for a quick visit. We saw the 3:00 come into the station. After a look around the shops we decided this would be a great spot for a visit later on. Nice to see steam in action once again!
Happy Railfanning
The Fiddler!
1 comment:
One hopes the Royal Couple regaled in the opulence that defines the Alco Suite, and that glorious repast was enjoyed at the Iron Horse Cafe.
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