The Pine Tree Limited At Portageville, NY

  My second stop on this trip would be at Historic Letchworth State Park in Portageville, NY where the Norfolk Southern's former Erie (and later Conrail) Southern Tier Line passes through the park on an impressive bridge over the Genesee River which runs through a very large and deep gorge in the middle of the park. I had the rare privilege of riding an Amtrak train over this bridge in 1998 on an excursion train operated by the Western NY Railway Historical Society, so I knew this park would make a great setting for some photos! The train ended up changing crews at the diamond where the Buffalo Southern Railroad crosses the NS (known as GB Diamond) not far outside Buffalo, and there were other delays which caused the train to leave Buffalo for points east a little later than schedule. I ended up arriving at Letchworth State Park a good hour before the train did!
  I kept a close listen to my Yaesu FT-270R radio to see if the train was in the area (I am a Technician Class Ham Radio Operator and this radio also receives the railroad band. It's probably the best radio out there for railfanning if you ask me). Being down inside the gorge, made it very tough to hear much of anything until just before the train arrived. There were a few other railfans in the park, some people from local newspapers and just park guests who thought this was interesting! What we would all witness was history! This may have been the last active passenger train to go over this bridge as it's slated to be replaced by a new bridge near here in the next couple years.
  Included here is a collection of photos taken at the park and of the Pine Tree Limited going over this iconic bridge over Letchworth Gorge. This is one of the nicest state parks in all of New York. I recommend a visit here just to enjoy this beautiful park if you're ever in the area, it's located about 45 minutes southeast of Buffalo.

After parking the car, I took a walk along the trail next to the Genesee River which you see here. The railroad bridge goes over an
area known as the Upper Falls. I would take some photos walking along here testing for the proper exposure settings to use on
the camera since the bright sky would most certainly fool the light meter on the camera.

Having arrived at the area where I would eventually photograph the train, here we see the Upper Falls on the Genesee River at Letchworth
with this very impressive bridge which was built in 1875 and replaced what was then the largest wooden bridge in the world, built in 1852.

A zoomed in view of the Upper Falls! Western New York had a lot of rain this past summer so there
was plenty of water running up the mighty Genesee River this year!

After waiting a good hour, here comes the Pine Tree Limited crossing over the Genesee River at Letchworth State Park! Here we see
the Amtrak power along with PV Babbling Brook passing by. The train would go slow enough to get several photos.

Here we see Babbling Brook, City Of Spokane, Puget Sound, Sierra Hotel, and New York Central #3 checking out
their million dollar view of Letchworth Gorge!

New York Central #3, Mount Vernon, Dearing, Dover Harbor, and Canon Ball all get their chance to see the gorge!

Now J. Pinckney Henderson, Wisconsin, Northern Dreams, Northern Sky, and Cimarron River get their million dollar view!

Caritas, Pacific Sunset, Salisbury Beach, Pacific Sands, and Tioga Pass get some views!

Now we see Vista Canyon, Federal, Oliver Hazard Perry, Observatory, and Moonlight Dome making their way over the mighty Genesee!

Birch Grove and Georgia 300 are the last cars to go over the gorge today. The train would go to Binghamton, NY to spend the night
before continuing the journey onto an eventual arrival in Portland, ME.

Just before heading up to Rochester, I got this pic of the bridge hidden in the trees!