"RoW" = Right of Way.
For a start, the Horseshoe Curve is at the vertical center of the image, about
1/3 of the way down, circling around the left-most of the three City of Altoona
Water Works reservoirs, the blackish blobs at upper right with thick, vertical,
white lines to their right (impounding dams).
Altoona (BM 1,182 feet near the station) is downhill off-screen, about three
screens worth, to the upper right (east-northeast).
Now, lets follow the track west from Altoona actually running south-
southwest past Alto Tower at the 17th Street bridge; we start on
the right-hand margin, just above center, at a blackish blob (pond, lake, or reservoir).
The left end of that pond/lake/reservoir has Burgoon Run running (what else
would it do?) in from upstream above the Curve. Immediately above that is a
white line which is 40th Street coming up from southeastern downtown
Altoona South Altoona. Next, immediately above and left of that is a
greyish complex (an orchard?), with the tracks directly above that on a 1.75% grade
climbing uphill to the left. This is McGarvey's Curve (LH), with MP 239
(BM 1,260 feet), Wike's Curve, and Brickyard Curve (with what is or
was the Coburn Kilns/Blair Clay Products' Ladle Brick Yard/"The Kilns") at MP
238, downhill just off screen to the right. Following east/left (which is
westbound on the Pennsy at this point), we come to MP 240 and then enter Miller's
Curve (RH) just above the biggest reservoir, "Lake Altoona". Next, we go
right into LH Scotch Run Curve. MP 241 is located just above the
center reservoir, "Kittaning Reservoir", and, if you look very closely above the track
trace, you can make out a tiny black dot there. That is a huge, abandoned
water tank (1,660 feet at its base and still visible in the trees) and marks the former
site of the giant Kittaning Point coal dock, which spanned all four
tracks (oh, those were the glory days, indeed!). Visible as a thin white line
immediately above the tracks at this point, and running to the right, is a Jeep trail that
was the RoW of a PRR siding elevated uphill above the Main that fed coal and sand to
the dock on a track over the dock, perpendicular to the Main.
We are now at the site of the former (and completely vanished) Kittaning Point
Station; there was a handsome station and a stationmaster's house just south
of the tracks immediately east (right) of the Baker's/Kittaning RR spur and a freight
house on the north side at the turnout.
Climbing uphill (left) on a slight RH curve, we enter the HORSESHOE CURVE
itself and swing left on the 9° (604.7' nominal radius, 83.3"R in HO, 45.3"R in N,
and 33.0" in Z) lower curve on a 1.45% grade and cross over Baker's/Kittaning
Run (also with a mine run-off channel paralleling it). A coal hauler line
used to run up Kittaning Run; it was the S. E. Baker Railroad (later the
Kittaning Run Railroad), which was abandoned around the first World War.
The RoW is plainly visible on the ground and on the photo (angling up to the left).
We now enter the Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark, with the
upper plateau park (visible as a tiny white rectangle inside the curve) and PRR
K4s #1361 on display there. The K4s is barely visible as a elongated black
dot at the top of the white rectangle; GP9 #7048 was substituted for the K4s on 16
Sep 85 so that the big Pacific could be restored for fantrip service. Deep into
the Curve at this point, the LH white line between the tracks and the run-off channel
is 40th Street as it was before they cut in away from the Curve to build the Park
Service's Vistor's Center and parking lot. The sort of white triangle to
the left, where the road rejoins the channel, is the old parking lot, with the old gift
shop at its apex (top) and the old PRR bobber (4-wheel) cabin car (caboose) a
microscopic black dot at the left. Now, the darker grey triangular swath to the
left of the Curve is the top of the mountain (Kittaning Point), and the light
grey bar to the left of the tracks, opposite the upper park, is the sheer 100' high rock
face of the cut. At this point we start on the upper curve, still LH on the 1.45%
grade but changing to a slightly easier 9° 25' of curvature (637.3' nominal radius,
87.8"R in HO, 47.8"R in N, and 34.8" in Z) and cross over 40th Street, at 1,530 feet
above mean sea level, which becomes Sugar Run Road at this point, with
Glenwhite Run and its mine run-off channel all in the tunnel underneath (Kittaning
Point tops out directly above the Curve at 2,249 feet!). A short distance more
on the upper curve and we swing around on a very short RH curve and CLIMB
along the north face of the northern (2,421 feet) of the "Twin Peaks" (my terminology)
on a fairly straight run called the Ledge at 1.74% grade. Entering
broad RH McGinley's Curve, we climb out of the Horseshoe Curve and swing
around past MP 243 at 1,700 feet and out of sight over the hill.
Note that Burgoon Run is paralleled by a mine run-off channel; that channel used to
carry highly-polluted water (red with iron ore) down from the strip mines to the north
and east (a few visible as whitish scars at upper and middle left) before they cleaned
up the situation. Burgoon Run is actually the combination of Kittaning Run
from the northwest and Glenwhite Run from the west. The channel is
barely evident on the photo; it appears as the white line immediately to the left of the
leftmost reservoir, whereas Glenwhite Run itself appears there as a microscopic black
line between the reservoir and the tunnel under the curve (The Run and the channel
run under the Curve in two paired conduits next to the road in a common tunnel.
The Glenwhite Coal and Lumber Co. had rails up both sides of Glenwhite Run
until 1938. The line on the north side had a wye at the Curve and the
RoW of the wye is still plainly visible on the ground and it can be seen on the photo
as a white trapezoid above the western tunnel mouth (against the tracks and left of
the Curve).
Continuing uphill (down on the photo), we hit the Whipoorwill Straight Line,
swing very slightly left on gentle LH McCann's Curve and pass MG Tower,
barely visble on the photo as a dot to the left of the track opposite an old, abandoned
reservoir visible as a white oval just right of dead center on the image. A long
tangent brings us to MP244 (1,800 feet) and RH AG Curve and around the
southern "Twin Peak" (2,422 feet) into Greenough Curve and parallel to
Sugar Run and U.S. Route 22. Swinging left on
Brandimarte Curve (named for Italo-American track supervisor Giulio
Brandimarte, 1885-1970, who worked for the PRR from 1905 to 1957!), we come to
MP 245 and swing left on Allegrippus Curve, named for the locomotive that
came to grief there.
Next, we swing right on Cold Curve, come to MP 246, and turn sharply left on
Bennington Curve at 1,900 feet, where the Pennsy's "Red Arrow"
crashed in 1947, and the site of the former Benny Tower, then on past
the Slide.
OOP! We just fell of the left margin, but if we hadn't we
would have continued uphill and westerly through a very gentle RH Salpino Curve
on a fierce 2.36% w/b grade (1.89% e/b) into the Tunnel Hill area at MP 247
and the turnouts at the tunnels under the hill, exiting in Gallitzin, the
Allegheny Crest, with SF Tower controlling the east portal area.
The northern tunnel is the Gallitzin Tunnel (now used only as a vehicular
service road but with rails in place for emergency use), the central one the
Allegheny Tunnel, cresting at 2,194.6 feet above mean sea level,
while the southern tunnel is the old New Portage Tunnel; the two southern
bores, cresting at 2,160.8 feet, were deepened in 1995 to accomodate double-stacks.
Just east of the NP tunnel, the old NPR line came in from the southeast and the e/b
Main flyover under which it ran into the Allegheny and New Portage Tunnels and the
NPR RoW are still there; the BM is 2,109 feet. MP 248 is at the west end of the
tunnels and, after AR Tower (2,154 feet) in the wye (known as the
Loop Track, where the steam helpers turned) between the e/b and w/b
tracks in Galltzin (controlling the west portal area and the loop/wye), we come to
Cresson and MO TOWER, Lilly, Portage,
Johnstown, and, so, finally, to Pittsburgh and "the West".
Helpers now run to Cresson before running back to Altoona.
On the opposite (south) side of Sugar Run is the old PRR Muleshoe Curve,
which was the RoW of the now-abandoned PRR New Portage Branch,
previously the New Portage Railroad. This line was built by the
Commonwealth (State) of Pennsylvania to replace the Allegheny Portage Railroad
in the 1850s when the PRR was cutting the Horseshoe Curve. The APR was a
part of the Pennsylvania Main Line of Public Works and Utilities, the
line of canals and inclined planes that linked Philadelphia (hence the Phillly
term "Main Line" - being on the RR was a status thing then) and Pittsburgh
in the early 19th Century. When the PRR was "new', it ran south from the
Belefont/State College area down the valley of the Juniata River through
Altoona and on to Duncansville where it turned west to Holidaysburg as now but also
turned east (wyed) and met up with the APR. The APR started at the eastern
terminus of the canal system at at Hollidaysburg and went up over the Alleghenies on
ten inclined planes, five on each side of the crest, to get canal boats over to
Johnstown and the terminus of the western canal; its RoW was used by the PRR from
1850 through 1854. The APR crossed over the old highway to the west, now
old U.S. 22, on the cut-stone Skew Bridge which still stands, between the
eastbound and westbound lanes of the highway about one screen distant to the
lower left; now a part of the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site,
with a National Park Service Visitors Center only a few hundred yards north-northwest
nearby at the head of Plane 6, headquartered in the restored Lemon House,
a 19th Century hostelry serving passengers waiting to be hauled up, or let down,
Plane 6. The foundations of the steam hoisting plant there have been
dug up and restored and a simulation of the plane has been constructed.
To make it easier for you to see the features at the Curve itself, here are a close-up
of the Curve area and one even closer of the Curve with the water tank indicated:
(enlarged from EROS Data Center ABIVALR 00000003 73, 05 Jun 62-
close-up of Curve area)
(enlarged from EROS Data Center ABIVALR 00000003 73, 05 Jun 62-
close-up of Curve area with water tank indicated)
You can even see Signal Bridge 2416 (at MP241.6 -surprise!), just west (and PRR
West - left) of the tank, at the sites of the old Kittaning Point passenger and freight
stations (still visible below and above the tracks, respectively). If you look
really closely, you can make out the sheer rock face of the cut as a diagonal dark line
at the far left and the tiny black blob just inside the tracks opposite the bottom of that
line is the stone track shack (noted below). Following the track around to the
west (down at that point on the photo), you can easily see where 40th Street runs
under the tracks where Glenwhite Run comes in from the west to join Kittaning Run
and become Burgoon Run and the mine runoff channel immediately south (down) of it.
You can see the Jeep trail by the tank and the rights-of-way of the old S. E. Baker
(later Kittaning Run) RR (north side of the run) abandoned ca. 1917) and Glen White
Coal and Lumber Co. RR (both sides of the run) abandoned ca. 1938) in their
respective runs; the trace of the wye of the northern line of the latter is still quite
evident on the ground. U- by the tank, you can also quite clearly make out the
RoW of the line from the east that carried coal gons up to the coaling bridge between
the tank and the tracks. It seems to me that in 1962 the little gift shop and the
N-6b cabin car (caboose) #980901 (burned by vandals in 1976) were already there
but I can't really make them out and I must assume that long diagonal blob just above
and to the right of the shack, opposite the rock face, is 1918 K4s #1361, dedicated
there 08 Jun 57 and removed for restoration to running condition on 16 Sep 85 - 1955
GP9 #7048 (below, right) replaced her later that same day. The round dark
blob ahead (upper right) of the old Pacific is the giant tree that still shades that area
(and obstructs photos).
Mid '70s Photos - I ran across a slew of photos taken at and around the
Curve sometime in the mid '70s, well before the ones below dated Aug 83, and most
were simply awful but a few are worth posting because of their special interest (at
least to me). First of all, I ran across two color shots taken from the parking lot
at the base of the Curve, showing (left to right/west to east) the hack (funny, I could
have sworn it was a 4-wheel bobber, not N6b ##980901), the gift shop, the "Food
Shoppe", and a gazebo (who remembers what the gazebo* was all about, please?):
(Mid. 1970s photos by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed images; click on pictures for larger images]
* - Well, Jason remembers - it was a wishing well (12 Jan 07 - thanks, Jason)!
(13 Mar 05)
Next, well east of the curve, here's that huge open-topped water tank, first from the
west when we came upon it looming up out of the shrubbery, then from above looking
down from the old mine run RoW (what's that building in the near foreground?), and
lastly looking back from the east:
(Mid. 1970s photos by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed images; click on pictures for larger images]
Trudging around the outside of the Curve (can you even imagine doing that today -
and getting away with it?), along came an E/B diesel running almost light, pulling only
a drop-center flat with a big transformer load (I guess it was a trafo). It's a
great load to model but I only had time to unlimber the camera and grab this shot and
don't recall and didn't record what flat or where or when, but you can see across the
Curve to the opposite (S) mountain:
(Mid. 1970s photo by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
Finally, we drove over to Tunnel Hill, parked above the Gallitzin (N or W/B) Tunnel, and
climbed down (again, try that stunt today!); as I noted, most of the photos were just
awful but I did get these three of the old tunnel ventilation blowers from above,
looking ESE, then ESE again but closer, and almost S:
(Mid. 1970s photos by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnailed images; click on pictures for larger images]
Pictures taken from the S side show mostly brush.
Lastly, we walked in on the Muleshoe (see below).
On the incredibly foggy morning of 26 Aug 99, after blindly creeping over the mountain
behind an 18-wheeler the night before, I was at the Curve, like visiting an old friend,
and the traffic was quite good.
To get up to the upper plateau (the trackside park - you can still trudge up the
endless steps up from the parking lot (100' straight up!) or take 5-striped, tuscan
red, PRR passenger car #1854 (ha, gotcha!):
(Photo by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail image; click on picture for larger image.]
One guess how I got up this time, with a train coming up the hill over Miller's Curve?
Here, then, is a "panorama" of the lower Curve from Glenwhite Run down/right/east
to GP9 #7048; the fog was too thick to get the upper Curve without filters and the
trees have grown so thickly within my lifetime (they say the steamers' smoke kept
them down - ???) that you can barely see trains cresting McGinley's Curve. I'll
dig up 10-20 year old photos and scan them in one of these days.
(All photos by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for larger images.]
I have long been fascinated by the little stone shack sitting inside the track and
outside the fence at trackside smack in the middle of the lower curve.] It's not
all that old, perhaps turn of the 20th Century, but it looks just great and I want to
model it for my HO Curve:
(Photos by and © 1999 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
[Thumbnail images; click on pictures for larger images.]
WHEW! Hope all that holds you for a while!
On another incredibly foggy two days, 'way back on 06-07 Aug 1983, I was on both
curves and took a lot of useless pictures in the thick haze. However, three
are of some immediate interest. The first shows the area where the the
turnout for the New Portage secondary had just been removed (those are the
Tunnel Hill portals in the distance):
We camped out in the van under the New Portage duckunder (we lived dangerously!)
and in the morning drove the van along the now-abandoned Muleshoe RoW; this shot
was taken late in the evening facing south (PRR "west" along the RoW), just shy of
relocated Route 22 (which split the RoW):
Finally, we reached the gap where 22 ran and spotted huge, ghostly stacks of 39'
lengths of Muleshoe track panels stacked above us in the fog, looking for all the world
like out-of-focus Atlas Snaptrack:
(06-07 Aug 83 photos by and © S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
To contrast with that, here's an almost-painterly photo of the Muleshoe taken on the
mid-'70s trek noted above, when the tracks were still in place and it was eerily
beautiful:
(Mid. 1970s photo by and © 2005 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)
At the NRHS-Sunrise Trail Chapter meeting on 17 Sep 04, there were courtesy copies
of this postcard from Amtrak showing an early Trakker running e/b through the Curve:
We know the photo predates 16 Sep 1985, for that is when PRR K4 Pacific #1361 was
removed and you can just make out her tender peeking out behind the huge tree in
the upper park, at left, between the white interpretive sign and the Trakker:
For tall tales of the BW and its equipment and such,
visit the Berlinerwerke Apocrypha page.
If you like this sort of nonsense, take a gander at Jim Wells' incredible 
and at the AW NUTS Magazine site, "A Publication of the A.W. N.U.T.S. Garden Railway Society".
THUMBS UP!
THUMBS UP! - Support your local police, fire, and emergency personnel!
S. Berliner, III
To contact S. Berliner, III, please click here.
of this series of Horseshoe Curve pages.
© Copyright S. Berliner, III -
1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005,
2007
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