Sandy Johnston
@sandypsj
Transit geek. Planner. Cat dad. Cubs fan. Deputy Director of Regional Transit Planning at MBTA. Blogging much less than I'd like at www.itineranturbanist.wordpress.com. Opinions my own.
I do, in a whimsical way, prefer the Bar Nunn approach in its honesty to redevelopment that totally wipes out that the area was once an airport. L to R: -The Glen, Glenview, IL -Stapleton, Denver -long-stalled South Weymouth Naval Air Station, MA
TIL I learned about Bar Nunn, WY, a suburb of Casper which: a) Is named for a livestock brand, itself a pun on a family name b) takes its urban form from the fact that it used to be an airport and the neighborhoods were laid out along the runways. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Nun...
Took Clifford the Big Red Trike for a spin to check out the new Jackson Square Greenway. It doesn't currently go much of anywhere but it's a pretty decent public space!
Newest addition to the layout: a custom-painted Kato SD40, an ex-CGW unit renumbered to its C&NW number after the 1968 merger. Nice when somebody out there made what you needed!
Very amused by this condo building amenity in the Seaport: a mini dog park complete with fake fire hydrants for the dogs to piss on.
Figured out how to extract stills from the video I accidentally took last Wednesday. Here's Reading & Northern T-1 4-8-4 2102 crossing the Lehigh River at Glen Onoko with a long excursion train.
I think this shot does the best job showing the length of the damn thing
Not the best shot in the world but here's 4014 putting on a smokeshow after reversing direction to pull into the Jim Thorpe station on Wed night.
Think this is my favorite of my shots of 4014 (the Big Boy) leaving Jim Thorpe this morning.
Power for the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway today was this A-B pair of F units. Fun ride into the Gorge, and thank God for relatively effective A/C. Alas, the dome car was sold out :(
One of the local book shops is emphasizing the train thing with their displays
But seriously, this is a gigantic locomotive that is virtually impossible to fit into a shot in an Eastern setting like Jim Thorpe, and that whistle has physical power at close range.
What we came for, Part 1: Reading & Northern 4-8-4 2102 and a long excursion train crossing the Lehigh River in the Glen Onoko section of Lehigh Gorge State Park. Big mainline steam is a whole 'nother thing. Recommend sound on :-) Video by @gabriellaspitz.bsky.social, stills to come.
Reversing into the yard from the station. These locos are powering an excursion from Nesquehoning to Reading on Thursday, not sure what they're doing here tonight--maybe backup power for 2102's Pittston excursion tomorrow?
Was sitting in the little plaza in front of the Jim Thorpe train station, with no expectations of a train, and who would show up but Reading & Northern's pair of Semiquincintennial locomotives, GP38-2 2026 and SD40-2 1776?
No pictures because I was driving, but we also passed through some classic Lehigh Valley logistics sprawl outside Northampton. Warehousing has to go somewhere but some of this is very messy. www.google.com/maps/@40.706...
Lehigh Gap above Slatington, from the Lehigh Gap Nature Center. Note the bridge abutments on the hillside that once carried the Lehigh & New England Railroad over the Central New Jersey and Lehigh Valley. Only the CNJ remains today.
Bethlehem's City Hall and library are Pretty Good, especially the library
Plants growing out of a mound of what are I think ore pellets on one of the in-plant shuttle cars left from the shutdown. Life finds a way.
A pair of Norfolk Southern SD units shuffle cars in the yard behind the old plant. Lead unit is an SD40E (SD-50 rebuilt to be a less bad locomotive)
Remains of the in-house electric railroad that carried iron ore and other elements of the steel making process between parts of the plant.