Tag Archives: #West Cressona

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Christmas Convergence at West Cressona

I like it when I can tie several themes together. This post is special because it ties together many loose threads in one neat knot.

Catching CNJ 0-6-0 passing through the former Reading yard at West Cressona a few weeks ago is a perfect example.

Back in 2015, on a trip to photograph 113 in Christmas train service with photographer Pat Yough, I met photographer Oren Helbok.

This seasonally-themed train was working the prototype rails that had inspired my HO-Scale Wee Reading Company.

Researching the Reading in November 2021 led Kris and me to Pennsylvania, and it was a significant factor in considering our move to the state earlier this year.

In March 2022 on visit to Pennsylvania to explore the Strasburg and Harrisburg areas, Kurt Bell introduced us to author/photographer and fellow Trains correspondent Dan Cupper.

In October, Dan Cupper and I had visited West Cressona to photograph a Reading & Northern local with a pair of EMD SW8 diesels

Earlier this month, both Dan and Oren encouraged Kris and me to photograph this season’s trips with 113.

During our photography of the 113 trips, Pat Yough had phoned to say that the elusive Reading & Northern SD38 2003 was in the yard at West Cressona. (See earlier posts on Tracking the Light, including: http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/reading-northern-sd38-2004/and http://briansolomon.com/trackingthelight/the-solomons-gap/).

After catching 113 passing Becks, Kris and I made our way to the yard, which had been a feature of my model railroad, and caught 113 working its way through the historic trackage and passing 2003.

Back in 1986, I had photographed 2003 in an earlier incarnation as Grand Trunk Western 6253, which had arrived in my old haunt of Palmer, Massachusetts on a fiber-optic cable laying train. This stuck in my mind because it was the first time I’d ever seen a six-motor diesel on the Central Vermont.

My now-defunct Wee Reading Company HO railway. This was my interpretation of West Cressona Yard.
This angle was the inspiration for the model. I first stood here in 2014. This photo was made a couple of weeks ago.
Central Railroad of New Jersey 113 works past Reading & Northern 2003 at West Cressona, PA
Reading & Northern 2014 was at the back of the Santa excursion. In 2014, I made first visits to West Cressona and Minersville to photograph 113.
And there is the elusive 2003!
Central Vermont cable laying train at Palmer, Massachusetts in August 1986. I made my first photos of Palmer from this location in September 1977.

Merry Christmas from Tracking the Light!

Announcements, photography, Rail transit marathon, Tips and Technique

CNJ 113 Santa Special at Becks

Central Railroad of New Jersey 0-6-0 113 is one of those ‘Brigadoon’ steam locomotives.

In case you haven’t seen it, ‘Brigadoon’ was a 1940s musical, later a popular film, about a mythical Scottish village that only appears once every hundred years. When I was in high-school, the local summer theatre group performed this production; I played trombone in the pitband.

I use the term ‘Brigadoon’ as an allusion to a tourist railroad (or locomotive) that makes infrequent or rare appearances. In the case of 113, this a locomotive that only makes a few trips a year, which makes it a special treat to see in action.

A couple weeks back, Kris and I made the effort to visit Minersville, Pa., to see the engine, then set up on the old Mine Hill & Schuylkill Railroad route to photograph it in action.

The Mine Hill route was part of my vision for the Wee Reading Company HO-scale railroad that I’d built when we lived in New Hampshire, which made it a special place to see this steam locomotive in action.

In 2014 and 2015, I’d traveled with photographer Pat Yough to catch 113 on this route, and the photos I’d made on those trips were part of the inspiration to make this line the heart of my model railroad.

In this respect, I’d come full circle.

The location we selected was at Becks, west of West Cressona Yard. This offered a relatively open place with good sunlight.

While trying to pick the best place to photograph, I started a conversation with an elderly woman with a house over-looking the line. She told me that she’d grown up to the sounds of idling locomotives at the St Clair roundhouse near Pottsville. “My great grand father had worked for the Reading. He had two train wrecks on a very steep part of the line and told me about many years later.”

I asked if it was ok to stand in her yard to make my photos, and she thought it would be fine. This gave me a better trailing view to picture the steam locomotive at the back of the Santa Special.

I made these views of the passing train using my Nikon Z7-II digital camera. While I was waiting for the train to pass, Pat Yough called to say that Reading & Northern 2003 (the elusive SD38 discussed in previous episodes of Tracking the Light) was in the yard at West Cressona! Stay tuned for more!

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Standing on the Inspiration for my old Model Railroad

On my birthday I went to visit the railroad that had inspired my HO-scale Wee Reading Company.

In May, Kris and I had traded the joy of the Wee Reading Company—a microcosm that I created of Pennsylvania anthracite country railroading—in order to move to and live in Pennsylvania.

Fellow photographer Dan Cupper joined me on a day-long exploration of Reading & Northern operations. We began the day at Port Clinton, and followed the PNPV (Port Clinton to Pottsville) freight to West Cressona on the old Mine Hill Railroad—one of the component lines of the Reading system.

I made photos at the old yard, along the street and houses that I’d conceptually recreated as the center-piece of my HO-scale fantasy—itself now a memory.

This seemed completely surreal, but resulted in some interesting photos.

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