Don't come to Gettysburg....

If you are interested in riding the Gettysburg & Northern Scenic Train, Mystery Train, or any other passenger excursion for that matter. Apparently, no excursions will run this coming year as the season has been suspended.

The company website is helpful http://www.gettysburgrail.com/
And here is an interesting article http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_11707394

The railway recently was the focus of controversy when, in July, a former employee began handing out literature to visitors about what he said were unsafe practices at the railway.

Pioneer Railcorp eventually issued a cease-and-desist letter to Stewart Sifakis, who alleged the railway failed to perform required brake tests. He also said the railway is violating Federal Railway Administration standards by crossing roads with broken signals and failing to post a flagger at the

The quote above is very interesting and telling.

atsf sp wrote:The company website is helpful http://www.gettysburgrail.com/
And here is an interesting article http://www.eveningsun.com/ci_11707394

The newspaper has moved the article to its' archive. You need a sign-on to view it but here's the link to the abstract:
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Arc ... weights=no

I don't wonder if some of this is in relation to the fact that the company just received a large sum of grant money to upgrade the majority of the rail line to become a Class 2 railroad. I know they are doing alot of work between Aspers and Mt Holly Springs at the moment. They have recently installed 2 new switches just north of Old State Rd crossing. Not really sure what they are really for though, as there are no industry to serve, unless they are just building new sidings for storage of cars. I know right now they are storing a ton of cars on every available inch of track they can right now.

One reason to come to Gettysburg right now is for pictures of the maintenance/track laying equipment, on both the Gettysburg Railroad and on the Hanover Sub of CSX. CSX has embarked on a major upgrade from Glenville(south of Hanover) to Gettysburg, replacing ties and upgrading all the grade crossing through that stretch of track.

CSX ballast train was working the Hanover Sub today through Gettysburg PA. Had a SD70M, SD60M in the lead and SD40-2 trailing on the end of train. They are currently working between Glenville and Blue Ridge Summit replacing grade crossings. I was able to catch it as it was just starting to ballast the section I was at, train is just rolling along and the doors magically open up! In some places though, it looks like after a snow fall and the train pushed a path through the snow, some areas 4 or 5 inches above the railhead.

MOW work is in full swing now between Center St in Hanover, homebase for CSX on the Hanover Sub and Gettysburg. Numerous areas where active work is ongoing, along with tons of fresh ties lying along the main. Tie gons tied down behind the Utz Plant on High St, and on Camp Siding in Gettysburg, in front of McDerrmitts Cement along Rt 30. Many grade crossings are already complete.

Here are a few pics from Gettysburg...

More pics of track work and equipment as the tear through the Hanover Subdivision:







More can be seen at : http://s118.photobucket.com/albums/o120 ... Trackdogs/

---Pioneer Railcorp eventually issued a cease-and-desist letter to Stewart Sifakis, who alleged the railway failed to perform required brake tests.---

Apparently, Pioneer Railcorp hasn't heard of the US Constitution's First Amend as it relates to free speech. If Mr. Sifakis' written statements were factual or personal opinion, they have no legal right to stop him and his actions are not civily actionable. Issuing a C&D for that...give me a break. Only way they can act on that is if he is making intentional false statements of fact. Even so, Pioneer would probably be considered a 'public figure' in which case they'd have to prove that Mr. Sifakis acted with 'actual malice' (he knew he was stateing non-facts) which is impossible to do (unless he admits it).

Continuing this thread, three years after the last post!

Does anyone know if any of the F-units are still in Gettysburg?
Im going to be in Gettysburg next month, and would like to see the F-units, if possible..

While researching the Gettysburg railroad, I cam across these very interesting reviews of the former tourist train:
http://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_R ... vania.html

thanks,
Scot

The only F-unit I recall seeing lately is a patched out Algoma Central unit. GP-10 #107 and #1001 also run on the line. It is all freight traffic at this point though. Passenger scenic trains quit running a few years ago though.