The RDC reached Hunker and now we would ride the Yukon Branch.
The switch was thrown and we were ready to go.
Leaving the junction at Hunker.
The tracks crossed a local road.
More purple flowers.
A switch to nowhere.
This switch is for the siding and when trains used the branch, they would pull in and then the engine would run around the train to push the cars up the line.
The siding where Belmont 10 Mine once was located.
Looking back.
Who knows where the tires came from along the line.
A neat rock formation along the tracks.
Sewickley Creek running on the north side of our route.
The tracks run on a ledge along the stream.
Sewickley Creek again.
Looking back down the tracks.
Crossing the creek for the third time.
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More rear-facing views as we neared the end of the Yukon Branch.
An old church in Waltz Mills.
The only customer on this line is the Westinghouse Electric Company facility.
This is as far as we went on the Yukon Branch as there were stored cars in front of us.
The RDC reversed and went back down the branch to the Belmont 10 Mine site and detrained for a photo runby.
The RDC waiting to begin the photo runby.
The reverse move.
The photo line.
The photo runby east
The photo runby west. The RDC returned to Hunker before it reversed to take us back to Scottsdale, ending a week of excellent rare mileage trips. A special thank you goes to Bart and Sarah Jennings and all the railroads which made these trips so unique and special.
One last view of the RDC before we departed Scottsdale for the final time. Randy and I drove to an Arby's to get some roast beef sandwiches to go before he drove me north to the Amtrak station in Greensburg.
The Pennsylvania Railroad Greensburg station built in 1911 and was part of a project to elevate the right-of-way as it passed through Greensburg. William Holmes Cookman served as architect. The depot is constructed of red brick laid in a Flemish bond pattern with stone trim and quoins on the building's corners; the overall architectural style is Jacobean Revival. A copper ogee dome with a finial tops a tall square clock tower. Ornamented parapets with center cartouches and corner finials surround the dome.
From March to November 1981, the station was the eastern terminus of Pennsylvania Department of Transportation's Parkway Limited train, which took commuters to Pittsburgh. Until 2005, Greensburg was served by the Three Rivers (a replacement service for the Broadway Limited), an extended version of the Pennsylvanian that terminated in Chicago. Its cancellation marked the first time in Greensburg's railway history that a single daily passenger train served the town. The small shelter that serves as the present station has no ticket office.
The station has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977 and now houses a restaurant.
I gathered my luggage and said goodbye to Randy, who was going back to Albany to catch a flight to Chicago for his next trip. I sat at a table with the computer plugged in and started working on this story until near train time.
The platform where I waited for my train, not believing it was all over.
The moon and the clouds over Greensburg as I waited for a thirty-minute late train.
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