Capital Limited

After a good day chasing the Virginia shortline Winchester & Western, I wound up in Martinsburg, West Virginia — a town I had seen many times from the train but had never viewed from ground level. Realizing it was about the right time of day for the westbound Capitol to come through the area, I checked the trusty Amtrak app on my phone and found that — much to my delight — #29 was about 20 minutes behind coming out of Washington DC. This gave me a few minutes to poke around the historic B&O station and shop area in Martinsburg. The NA cabin east of the station is a great place to catch westbound movements coming into view underneath the two-track signal apparatus. I got into place and was soon rewarded with the headlight of 29 coming around the far corner. I was pleased to discover Amtrak's Veterans memorial paint scheme was the second unit in the elephant style consist. Behind the second unit, a dead-headed Amfleet car was in tow, followed by one of the new series baggage cars. 29 did her brief station work at the Martinsburg platform — about a dozen souls unloaded while another dozen boarded — and before long the stainless steel consist was on the move again. Clear signals would take her westward to a smoke stop in Cumberland, then up the grade for another locomotive workout on the Sand Patch climb. For as many times as I have taken the Capitol, Martinsburg was my first time catching her from the ground.

11:48 pm. Tuesday night. I'm back at Amtrak's worn out Pittsburgh station, to pick up my wife and daughter from their long weekend away. Word in the waiting room is that the westbound Capitol is running a bit late. A check online confirms that she is nearing downtown, but still a ways out from the platform. A throng of westbound riders huddles near the door out to the track area, all eyes looking down the track for the tell-tale headlights. It is now midnight, and folks seem anxious to get aboard and settle in for the overnight sprint across Ohio toward the Windy City. My tracker app says "On Time" into PGH, but I'm suspicious. We're already past the hour. Then, suddenly, headlights. Closer. But as the rumble of prime movers draws close, I realize through the bright haze that the face is all wrong. Nope. No Capitol. Norfolk Southern movers. And that's why 29 is running late: stuck behind a manifest that needed to flush through the block before station work could be done. Seventy-five freight cars later, with many a squealing flange, again the platform is quiet as we wait for something looking more like Genesis lines to appear upstream. An attractive female conductor scans a few eager tickets. An elderly couple waits for their golf cart ride down to the coach area. A young male smoker gets in his final anxious puffs before the long ride to the next smoke break stop. Cleveland? The relief engineer calmly paces the platform, his compact luggage parked near the familiar spot: as if to signal to his timed-out colleague right where to park the locomotives upon arrival. The baggage handler -- I always see him here; a veteren of this station, with his Steelers hard hat -- has his ancient carts in place, with a smattering of checked bags and someone's boxed bicycle. 12:10am now. Wednesday morning. And then, Lights. A quick tap of the horn. Ditch spots alternate as the train drifts closer. The whine down of General Electric prime movers finds my ear. I hear the air compressor clutch grab hold on one of units. Air tank pop valves fire off with a sharp hiss. And two Genesis units -- In elephant formation, as these particular bodies should be, I say. -- come to a smart stop at our end of the platform, with the typical stainless steel double-decker Capitol manifest in their wake. The baggage swapping begins. Outbound passengers make their assault on open doors. Weary Washington patrons detrain from the rear to make their hike. Deputy conductors scan tickets. Smiling sleeper porters watch for their Select Few. Engineers swap places, and grips. Golf carts race around with AARP members. And in the crowd of platform midnight-marchers, I see two familiar faces for which I'd give my life, if needed. Home. We head downstairs to wait for some luggage. But soon enough, back up top, Mr. Moorman's Twenty-Nine will be up and moving again. Track speed and nighttime running through the curves and cuts of western Pennsylvania, with the shores of Lake Erie to follow, and then the diamonds of Chicago's Union Station by brunch time -- assuming all goes reasonably well on the balance of this run. All of this brisk shuffle, the nightly dance card at the tired old Pennsylvania platform known simply as PGH. Go on Cap. Get out of here again. Make your morning run.

Alliance, Ohio: a great place to watch mainline movements, day or night. Every time I make a visit to this diamond crossroads on the old Pennsylvania Railroad, current owner Norfolk Southern always delivers the goods. The Pittsburgh-Cleveland mainline by itself is a superhighway of coal, intermodal, and manifest movements. But add a few secondary routes that converge in Alliance and the show out on the platform is usually a good one. In my experience, one can count on seeing 4-6 trains an hour; sometimes more, maybe less. Expect a parade of black Thoroughbred power on a variety of trains. I even caught the NS executive business train gliding through one afternoon. See just a few examples below.

About the only downside to Alliance is that its two Amtrak arrivals, one in each direction, take place in the middle of the night. Take your pick: 1:39am westbound or 3:05am eastbound! Neither is great for railfanning ... not to mention for the few patrons that board and detrain in this modest industrial town southeast of Cleveland and northwest of Pittsburgh. Indeed, if the Capitol Limited calls here during daylight, you know something is terribly awry with her schedule. Otherwise, plan on a midnight pilgrimage to Alliance if you want to see Superliner equipment come this way.

A midnight pilgrimage: exactly what I proposed to my daughter in the final weeks of summer before her school starts again. Come with me and we'll drive an hour and take some photos of the Capitol in the middle of night, to add to my collection. She was game for a little daddy-daughter adventure, so off we went. Indeed, she has passed that way before on the Capitol itself at least three times.

The platform and open-air depot at Alliance are bone quiet at 12:30 in the morning. Cricket sounds fill the air and the harsh yellow hue of platform lamps floods the scene. The Norfolk Southern district office is closed up tight; no one is around.

Until about 1am, when some cars begin to trickle in and already-tired passengers and their rides all begin to inch out onto the platform to see if No. 29 headlights can yet be seen. On the night of our visit, two freights flushed through the station area at near track speed before anything looking like a Genesis unit appeared in the distant darkness. I checked my Amtrak app: Looked like 29 was in good shape so far on this run. Sure enough, about 1:38 there was a blast for the distant crossing east of the station and some headlights rolled into view. The short platform at Alliance called for two stops this night: one for a sleeper patron and then another for the coach boarders on the rear end. A few folks stumbled off; a few others crawled on. The conductor gave the all clear, and in less than 5 minutes the Cap was off and moving again, still on time. She'd roll on through rolling Ohio countrysides before reaching the Lake and points west after Cleveland. Meanwhile, back in Alliance, it was a quarter-till-two and the platform was lonely and quiet again. The crickets sang their songs to pass the time, until about 3 o'clock, when -- if all went well -- sister #30 would brighten up this space again and the early morning shuffle of riders would take place once more under harsh tungsten lamps.

As for me and my railfan assistant, we called it a night after 29 took flight, heading back home in our own coach seating, to our own sleeper accommodations. Thanks 29. We'll catch you again soon, I'm sure, one way or another.

With our home in western Pennsylvania this last decade, and with family down in Richmond, Virginia, we've had ample reason to ride the eastern end of the Capitol Limited -- Pittsburgh to Washington DC and return. Despite the rough pre-dawn departure from the Steel City, the eastbound Number 30 ride is a beautiful path up and over the mountain and down into Cumberland, Maryland. The former Baltimore & Ohio main follows the winding path of the Potomac River, and after a dozen trips over these years we've seen the high line in all four seasons. Hawkins tradition: Drag ourselves to the station for 5am, go back to sleep in coach seating until the descent down Sand Patch, then move to the diner for breakfast as we roll into Cumberland and its morning station stop. The Cap maneuvers the mountains as it glides past a great many CSX coal and manifest drags struggling to do the same. Harpers Ferry is another great spot, followed by the flatland sprint around McKees Rocks and down into Union Station. Three times now I've also taken the Capitol west of Pittsburgh to its Chicago terminus -- an overnight run and therefore not as enjoyable.

In 2013, late in the evening on a westbound #29 return to Pittsburgh, I scratched out these lines:

Serpentine Sand Patch

I do not know these grades
nor these small town gates
I am an Allegheny amateur

My roots are all Southern
I know my rotten cross ties
and swamp bridge running
and those sectional thumps
and hot humid afternoons
and all steel rail tangents
through flat piney woods

I do not know these many hills
their misty and cool mornings
over these continental divides

But I like them nonetheless
the long double tracks
the unending S curves
the at speed crossovers
the B&O position lights
the deep curved tunnels
the CSX needle eye meets
the heavy hauler overtakes

We slide down all that ribbon steel like a silver snake in the tall grass. Out of one turn and into another. Forget the old rule about ample space between S curves. Up here, you take what you can get in the way of tangent running. Then we are out of one tunnel and through another. Soon we go over to left hand running, overtaking an auto rack moving in our direction. The racks come to a stop while the next crossover cuts us back over to the right. And just in time, too: A coal drag going the other way up the Patch waits there in a man-made hole. Some nice man sitting in front of LCDs way down in Jacksonville, with a wife and kids and a good medical benefits and shift still to finish, has once again threaded the old B&O needle: a pass and a meet with a needle-eye in between. And way up here, in the middle of nowhere Maryland. Or are we back Keystone way? I have no idea.

But I like this serpentine slide
up and down the Sand Patch
The old Boys who built this B&O
have made me a true believer