Philly Railfan Pictures of the Week

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Railfan Pictures of the Week - 06/16/2019

CSX Woodbourne Yard and SEPTA Woodbourne Station Langhorne PA June 10, 11, 12 and 13 2019

Although CSX separated their Trenton Line from SEPTA between Wood and Trent a few years ago, there are still some remnants of the electrification left. Starting June 10 2019, SEPTA is beginning the removal of catenary wires that still hang over the now freight only track. During the next couple weeks, the plan was for the wire train to come out of Philmont Yard on the Neshaminy Line around dawn and wait at CP Wood for CSX to clear out its early morning traffic before taking the line out of service until 14:00 each day. They would be working specifically around the grade crossings at Township Line, Heacock, Stoney Hill and Edgewood Roads. Reports in local papers have been warning that those grade crossings may be blocked for up to 30 minutes at a time. While the line was supposed to be under curfew until early afternoon, high priority trains such as Q032 cannot be delayed, which would require the wire train, which was symboled O34, to clear up in Woodbourne Yard, as pictured here.

Early the next morning the wire train shoves up through Woodbourne with SPAX 610 in the lead. There was an interesting discussion over the radio about the leader on O34. In order to fill out an EC-1 form to take the line out of service, the dispatcher is required to note the leading units reporting marks and number, but when NI asked for the initials for 610, the SEPTA engineer responded that there were none. They went back and forth for a little while until someone called out "SPAX", and they were able to proceed.

For all the traffic on Tuesday morning, they could have taken their time as a short time Q409 came west, while C746 waited for its turn on the Wood Connecting Track.

And of course SEPTA has its revenue trains during this early morning rush hour.

The plan was to work until 14:00 but by the second day O34 was packing it up and heading back to Philmont before 13:30.

By the third day, O34 was ready at Wood by 06:20 ...

but after waiting 30 minutes, SEPTA instead sent them up to Iron to get them out of the way, and CSX told them to be clear by 12:30.

On the fourth day, CSX had them clear before 11:00, so I don't know how much work is getting done as it takes about 20 minutes to set up every time they move to a new location. As you can see from this view looking west from Heacock, there are still wires on all three tracks. On a side note, NI was identifying the O34 leader as "SPEX 610" without correction. What's a vowel between friends.

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