More Rest and Recreation Altoona Style

To add to Brad's post earlier about Rest and Recreation I was able to once again return to the Alleghenies once again and on one of those days spend it with Phil Faudi Guide Extraordinaire.

I attended a string teacher's work shop at North Allegheny High School in Wexford, PA, north of Pittsburgh PA on Sat. 10/17 following the previous Monday with Brad and Phil. Great workshop and I came away with many wonderful string teachings strategies.

Of course that's nearly a 5 hour trip from the Hills of Green where I live. OF COURSE I had to stay in the West Slope area for the night on Friday and again on Saturday. Stayed at the Cassandra Motel. At first I was little leary of it but it turned out to be comfortable and modest on it's accomodations. Fine for the thrifty railfan.

Now this particular weekend, especially up on the ridges, there was some snow which added to the magnificent color!

On the way back from the workshop stopped off at Conn Pitt Jct. and in the space of an hour I saw 10 trains if you include the helper moves (2). Amazing.

Next day saw some interesting action. Phil and I met up a 9:30 and headed out to Summerhill where we caught the WB 591 crusing down the hill to hold at South Fork.

Turns out there was some unscheduled trackwork at Conn Pitt Jct. (saw a lot of MOW vehicles there the day before) and this was like the cork in the bottle.

About 10:30 the cork was "popped"! 5 westbounds were at various locations on the hill and suddenly this stream of eastbounds came loose. Caught at least 10 trains in the space of 2 hours and a few more stragglers were on their way thru all afternoon long.

Despite the cold start the afternoon warmed up into the 50's so that early snow up on the mountain tops was gone pretty quick!

Caught trains at several place. Will have video soon on You Tube.

Always good to see Phil and we had a most excellent outing!

The Fiddler