Saturday afternoon, Kris and I were having lunch at the Speckled Hen in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, when my old friend Dan Howard forwarded me a text with a photo of Amtrak 42 (eastward Pennsylvanian) crossing the Rockville Bridge with a Norfolk Southern GE in the lead exposed about an hour earlier.

We didn’t know the details, but it appeared that Amtrak’s GENESIS P42 (that normal leads the train) had failed. I realized that it was unlikely that the NS locomotive would continue east because it probably didn’t have compatible signaling equipment, but that Amtrak was likely to assign an ACS-64 electric to haul the train to Philadelphia.

We were a little late learning this, and when I checked the tracker (asm.transitdocs.com) train 42 was already east of Harrisburg. Yet, we still had time to finish lunch and check a few locations. My favorite spots at Gap were back-lit.

When I checked the tracker a second time, I saw that 42 wasn’t making great eastward progress, so we backtracked west to Leaman Place in Paradise, Pa. Not only did we make it there in time to catch train 42 with an ACS-64 leading the failed diesel, but Amtrak Keystone train 670 was about three minutes behind it!

Photos exposed using a Nikon Z7-II with 24-70mm lens.

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