MP Links:  289 (291/285), 281 (285/277+), 274 (277+/270), 266 (269+/262), 257 (262/253+), 249 (253+/245+), 242 ( 245+/238), 234 (237+/229+), 226 (229+/222), 218 (222/214), 211 (214/206+), and 202 (206/198+).

On the PRR Track Charts Continuation Page 1:

The Allegheny Division chart continues from Huntingdon (MP 202) on west to Duncannon (near Harrisburg) and the Harrisburg Division (MP 113), plus special coverage of:

MP Links:  202 (206/198+), 194 (198+/190+), 179 (182+/174+), 171 (174+/166+), 163 (186+/159), 155 (158+/151+), 147 (151+/143), 139 (143/135), 131 (135/127+), 123 (127+/119+), and 116 (119+/113).

The MAINTENANCE PROGRAM AND TRACK CHART posted here appears to be dated 12-31-70; it covers the ALLEHENY DIVISION of the CENTRAL REGION of the (PRR purists - excuse me!) PENN CENTRAL railroad.  However, it still shows full four-track Main Line [from "Gray" Tower at Tyrone (MP 223) through the Horseshoe Curve to where the north track diverges as the Sang Hollow Extension at Johnstown (MP 277)] and the latest date in the maintenance examples noted on the printed copy is 1967.

The ALLEHENY DIVISION runs between the Pittsburgh Divison at Milepost 290+1100 [meaning Milepost (MP) 290 (290 miles plus 1,100' from Philadelphia)] just west of JD tower near New Florence and Johnstown, and the Harrisburg Divison at MP 113+1825 just east (south along the Susquehanna River at that point) of Duncannon, just west (north) from the Rockville Bridge between Enola and Harrisburg.

The document is in the form of an "endless" chart folded to 4" x 11" (10.2mm x 28mm), with cardboard pasted behind the cover and on the back of the last fold.  It consists of two separate sections, the MAINTENANCE PROGRAM, printed at the top and the TRACK CHART, printed at the bottom; the two align horizontally in terms of track location.  As with all Pensylvania Railroad (PRR, Pennsy) track charts, the mileposts are based on the reference point of Philadelphia and, in this case, are shown in diamonds at the top of the chart; the figures in between are the actual distances between mileposts, in feet, which differ slightly from a true mile of 5,280' because of the locations of the posts.  Sub-divisions are shown, as are the names of the Supervisors and Assistant Supervisors.

At the very end of the document, the Johnstown branch is shown.

I have posted this with scads of verbal detail so that it is easy to search for place names using your eyes or the built-in local search function:

- [I think right-to-left, or east-to- west in railroad terms, but this information is given in reverse sequence so that it reads logically from left-to-right (west-to-east), as arranged in the document.  Note also that the document is in three pieces, pasted, quite obviously, at the very beginning of the charts themselves, where it doesn't interfere with visualization, and, more obviously, at MP 238; unfortunately, the less informative right part there is pasted over the more useful left part, so I will verbally describe what's covered over at that point, which is the eastern approach to the Horseshoe Curve out of Altoona.]

The upper portion of the document is of little interest to me and I will not use up valuable bandwidth to reproduce it in its entirety.  It is (was) color coded by hand and is so faded that it won't reproduce well, anyway, but represents the condition of the rails and ties at an unspecified given moment in time; the hand- written annotation on the cover is in green felt-tip marker and reads:

(Thumbnail image - click on the picture for a very-large image)

The next two folds contain a "PROGRAM HISTORY LEGEND" (top) and an "INDEX" (bottom) {TN}:

[Note that, the legend notwithstanding, the document is printed on off-white paper and there is no color whatsoever except for the green felt tip; I assume that it is a so-called "white print" (from an Ozalid machine).  Further, it would appear that this is made from a second (or greater) generation master transparency, with many of the annotations, such as those for the Sang Hollow Extension, the tie count, and the track maintenance details, pencilled in on an intermediate master; I assume that the original ink tracing was kept at Philadelphia or, once it became Penn Central or Conrail, at Enola].

NOW, at last, we come to the actual track charts.  As promised, first I will show the entire next fold in full {TN}:

Steam locomotive pans (water troughs) are no longer shown.

The chart seems to use a single word, "MAINLINE", but I will use the more standard convention, "MAIN LINE".

Here we go, then; to save me lots of work, and you peering at a bunch of illegible thumbnails, I am giving verbal descriptions of each fold and linking them to the full images; the descriptions consist of the end mileposts, the features between them, and the image filenames are based on the approximate middle milepost.  Note also that speed restrictions are posted at the bottom of some folds, as are spaces (mostly blank) for gross tonnage restrictions (which is determined by track conditions) and named curves and other features (all of which can be searched):

:

MP 290+1100 - SUB. DIV. NO. 7  SUPERVISOR J. KOHAN  ASS'T. SUPERVISOR R. M. WILE

MP 281 {TN} (285/277+) - Seward, Nutter Hollow curve, Seward curve, SB 2831, Charles curve, Cramer curve, Trout Run (SH), Charles Run, Wildcat curve, SB 2819, County Line curve, Westmorland Co. - St. Clair Twp./Lower Yoder Twp. [SH - E. Wheatfield Twp. - Indiana Co.]/Cambria Co., SB 2805 and "SQ" (no tower)SB 2791/2790, Red Rock curve, Bonemill curve, Bone Mill and Sewage Plant (SH), Blue Rock curve, Dornock point curve, SB 2775, Sheridan curve:

:

MP 274 {TN} (MP 277+/270) - Lower Yoder Twp./Johnstown Corp. Line, SB 2772, Conemaugh Lumber, "SG" Tower, Morrellville Yard, Morrellville curve, SB 2763/2762, Brownstown and Haws curves, SB 2753/2752, Conemaugh River, SB "JW" Tower, Woodvale Eastward (EWD) Receiving Yard, Woodvale curve, Johnstown Branch (see separate chart at end), "C" Tower, Main Line Pits, SB 2730, Westward (WWD) Receiving Yard, SB 2722, Conemaugh Sta. curve, Johnstown Corp. Line/Conemaugh Corp. Line, Conemaugh Boro., Conemaugh Twp./E. Tayor {sic} Twp., Buttermilk Falls curve, "AO" Tower, Little Conemaugh River, Mill Dam curve:

:

MP 266 {TN} (MP 269+/262) - Black Diamond curve, SB 2695, Mineral Point curve, SB 2677, Viaduct curve, Little Conemaugh River, SB 2663, SO Storage track, "SO" Tower, Southfork, Conemaugh Twp. - E. Taylor Twp./Richland Twp./Croyle Twp., S. Fork curve, Little Conemaugh River (again), Summerhill Br. Industrial Track, South Fork Br., South Fork Sec. and Maple Sec., Ehrenfeld curve, Jumpover curve, "W" Tower, Ehrenfeld, Little Conemaugh River (yet again), Summmerhill, SB 2637, Croyle Twp./ Summerhill Twp:

:

:

:

:

{pasted overlap}

MP 237+2038 - SUB. DIV. NO. 4 - SUPERVISOR G. M. LOWE  ASS'T. SUPERVISOR B. FINE

Because of intense interest in the Horseshoe Curve area, I have made up a single image of the several folds encompassing the Curve {TN}:

MP 234 {TN} (MP 237+/229+) - two undesignated SBs bracketing "SLOPE" and "ALTO" Towers, Main Line tracks diverge for shops, Altoona, "WORKS" and "SOUTH" Towers, Juniata Scales (Altoona and Juniata shops and associated trackage not shown), "ROSE" Tower, E. Altoona, E. Altoona curve, Altoona City/Logan Twp., Logan Twp./Antis Twp., tracks converge back to the Main Line, two undesignated SBs bracketing "ANTIS" Tower, Dormers Crk., Sugar Run curve and Sugar Run (see also 136.5), "BELL" (no tower), SB 2302, L. Juniata R., L. Juniata R. (again):

:

Because of intense interest in the Altoona/Juniata works, I have made up a single image of the several folds encompassing that five-mile stretch {TN}:

MP 226 {TN} (MP 229+/222) - Bell's Run, Bellwood, Tire Co., Mobil oil, Patt {sic}, SB 229.2/229.1, Henshey's {sic} Run, Fostoria Run., Fostoria, {unnamed} Run, Tipton Run, Pbgh. {Pittsburgh} Plate Glass Co., Tipton, Byers curve, SB 225.2/225.1, M^cFarland's curve, M^cFarlands Run, Antis Twp./Snyder Twp., undesignated SB (~223.4), No. 13 curve, L. Juniata R., "GRAY" Tower, Bald Eagle Br., Kerns curve, M^cNelis curve, Tyrone curve, "WILSON" Tower:

:

MP 218 {TN} (MP 222/214) - Plummers curve, Plummer's, undesignated SB (~221.4?}, Forge curve, "FORGE" Tower, undesignated SB (~220.7?}, No. 12 curve, L. Juniata R., No. 11 curve, L. Juniata R. (again), Snyder Twp./Tyrone Twp., Birmingham, L. Juniata R., No. 10 curve, Tyrone Twp./Warrior's Mark {Twp.}, No. 9 curve, L. Juniata R. (and again), SB 218.5/218.4, No. 8 curve, Tyrone Twp. - Blair Co./Warrior's Mark Twp., L. Juniata R. (yup!), No. 7 curve, Huntington County, Tyrone Twp. - Blair Co., L. Juniata R. (no fair - you guessed!), No. 6 curve, Spruce Crk. Twp. - Hunt. Co., Stone Quarry, No. 5 curve, Union Furnace, L. Juniata R. (uh-huh!), Tyrone Twp. - Blair Co., Arch Run, udesignated SB {216.3?}, No. 4 curve, Morris Twp. - Hunt. Co., Iron Works, L. Juniata R. (yee-hah!), Spruce Crk. Twp. - Hunt. Co., No. 3 curve, L. Juniata R. (arrrgh!), L. Juniata R. (double-arrrgh!), L. Juniata R. (triple-arrrgh!), Spruce Creek curve, Spruce curve, RoW narrows to double track, "SPRUCE" Tower, Spruce Creek:

:

:

* - I should add that, per the President and members of the PRRT&HS on the Discussion Web, the Sang Hollow Extension (ca. 1960s) connected the Main Line from Conemaugh at Conpitt Junction in the vicinity of "JD" Tower, running eastward along the north side of the Conemaugh River, parallelling the Pittsburgh-to-Philadelphia Main Line, to "SG" Tower (Johnstown) on the Main Line, about 14 miles.  "Sang" is an abbreviation for ginseng, which was prized for its supposed medicinal properties back in the early 1800s and was a common export from frontier regions without well- developed cash crops, a hollow in the mountains where wild ginseng could be found might well be named "Sang Hollow", rather than being an inhabited place or town.

For the insane bandwidth {and my time} this took up (18.5Mb of images and 27Kb of text and a full day-and-a-half), you'd better enjoy this!

© Copyright S. Berliner, III - 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 - All rights reserved.