Eastern Rare-Mileage Trip
"The Pacific Express"

Bath, NY-Meadville, PA
Aug. 6th

Photos by Dave Ingles

For our stay in Bath, the original plan had been to go thru Bath on Friday night to as far northwest on the old DL&W main as possible and return to Bath and park for the off-train dinner at the Great Western Taylor Winery and the night, but in typical fashion for such trips, things often change at the last minute, and we pulled into Bath and parked for the night then and there, with an earlier-than-planned departure next morning to go north. When I raised the shade Sat. morning and saw rain, I pulled it down and the covers up. I felt us leave north at 6:42, and leave south at 7:15. Turns out we didn't go as far as advertised, only to MP 293, 7 miles north, just outside Avoca. Going back south, we went thru Bath at 7:43 and when I awakened again and noticed we were south of Bath, I slowly got going so I could do the one thing I missed the evening before, and that is photo the street-running the line does in the town of Painted Post at the south end. It was 8:30 or after as I made these vestibule shots going down Chemung Street. (An aside here. There is an Avoca, Iowa, and there is a Chemung, Illinois, near Harvard close to the Wisconsin border. These two states, and others in the Midwest, are rife with the same placenames as western New York State, so it's easy to trace where the pioneer migrations were to and from. Take note sometime and you'll see.)

East side of Chemung St. looking north.

Looking south, east side of Chemung St.

The apparent "official chasers' photo line."

Looking south, west side of Chemung St.

On the wye onto the NS, east of Gang Mills Yard west of Corning, just south of Painted Post.

We left Painted Post wye at 904 a.m., and this is almost an hour later in Hornell, once a big Erie hub and home of a big yard and diesel shop, the latter now being a passenger-car facility for Alstom. On a 1962 trip to these parts, three of us spent an evening here taking night photos of Erie FT's and other F units, Baldwins, and Alcos, all with on-the-spot permission!

Here's the old Hornell Erie depot, where in 1962 we photographed the Phoebe Snow, EL's version, with the lounge-observation car (DL&W had two) on the rear; those cars now are Metro-North "business inspection cars." We changed crews at Hornell, from NS to Western New York & Pennsylvania. NS's line goes northwest from here to Buffalo, while the short line runs the old Erie main line west to Meadville, Pa., and old Erie division point (with yard and car shop) that was our destination for Saturday night.

A similar trip with the PRR E8's had covered Hornell-Olean in 2007, so with the dark and rainy weather I mostly just enjoyed the ride. Here, at 12:45, we cross WNY&P's former PRR Buffalo Line in Olean, N.Y. In 2007 our train overnighted in the Olean Yard, which is west of here (ahead of us) on the old Erie.

Looking back at the connection track to the old PRR in the southwest quadrant of the crossing. WNYP in effect has a complete wye at this junction.

After mostly medium-speed or slower running from Hornell to Olean, as soon as we cleared the diamond, the engineer notched it out on 5711, so I was unable to get good shots of WNYP's parked Alco diesels with both cameras as we passed the engine facility.

Moreover, the freight cars all but blocked the view, leaving only a split second for shots, which were slides. WNYP bases its big 6-motor Alcos here.

The next point of interest was Salamanca, NY, where we stopped to change WNYP crews. On the north side of the old Erie are these former B&O buildings, freight house at right, depot at left. The depot was on a back-in spur from East Salamanca (on the Pittsburgh-Buffalo line, former BR&P), where there was a yard and a big yard office. Time here for our crew change was 1:25-1:30 p.m. On a depot-hunting and tourist-line trip in the early 2000's, Rick Moser and I visited Salamanca right at dusk. This day the lighting wasn't a whole lot better :-)

Heritage of the cabooses, from left, is Pittsburgh & West Virginia, B&O, and PRR, I believe.

This is the former Erie depot; we look west around a curve, this is the "parking lot side" of the building.

Street side of the former BR&P station.

Erie had a yard here at one time, too, obviously.

Jamestown, N.Y., was our next scheduled stop, for an hour or so, to participate in the re-dedication of the restored former Erie station, whose third floor faces street level downtown. The afternoon turned warm and humid, and the station elevator is not yet back in service, so I took a pass on inspecting the interior, just picking up the visitors' bureau's bag of goodies (brochures and such). Jamestown was the hometown of actress Lucille Ball, born here August 6, 1911, exactly a century before our visit. She died in 1989. An acquaintance of mine whose photos have been published in Classic Trains, Mert Leet, was also born in Jamestown, on Jan. 6, 1928; Mert died in a rest home in our area on July 30, 2011, at age 83.

Our Jamestown stop began at 2:45 and ended at 3:55. First on the agenda after we unloaded was a photo runby, our only such of the entire 4-day trip, although still shots were available at least once a day.

Backiing up for the runby. The weather cooperated, and although hot and humid, the sun was out for a while, for a change.

With a short opportunity, the west end "roster shot" of the depot from trackside.

It was a classic full runby, as the train backed up a quarter mile or more and went past us by the same length. Less than 5 minutes after we departed Jamestown, a "frog-strangler" rainstorm was upon us, so we were fortunate indeed on our timing.

Focus problems plagued me again at Corry, Pa., where we crossed the old PRR's line to Erie, Pa. This building has a mural for the Climax locomotive builder, which was in Corry. That's the ex-PRR track in between us. Time is 5:05 pm.

The Erie depot and a freight or baggage building still stand; sorry about the softness.

Dinner off-train in Cambridge Springs, PA, where we stopped at 6:10 and just parked on the main, was at the 1885 Riverside Inn, a well known venue in the region, and home to weddings and other events as well as being a hotel with a large dining room.

About mid-train on the south side in Cambridge Springs where our consist was parked is this Erie Railroad stone marker.

Opportunity for a head-end shot (digital only) before our 8:30 departure. The school bus was our shuttle to/from the Riverside Inn. We arrived at Meadville at 9:08 pm and parked for the night by the NS yard office, about the only railroad building left. The cars were watered and septic-pumped after our arrival.

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