CRHS to run excursion in June, 2012!

Marysville, PA – Today, January 29, 2012, the Conrail Historical Society, Inc is proud to announce its mainline rail excursion for 2012. On June 16, 2012 The Susquehanna Limited will take to the rails out of Washington, DC bound for Harrisburg, PA.

The excursion is planned to leave Washington and head north up Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor which is one of the busiest pieces of railroad in the USA. The Northeast Corridor will take us through Baltimore and suburban Maryland until we reach the town of Perryville. It’s here the great part begins. At Perryville, the train will head north along the banks of the Susquehanna River along Norfolk Southern’s Port Road. The Port Road is considered “rare mileage” as no passenger trains currently use the line except for the occasional chartered train. The line runs along the rivers’ edge most of the way and is slow, winding railroad which will give you chance to relax and enjoy the scenery. We cross the river at Shock’s Mills over a bridge built by the mighty Pennsylvania Railroad and continue up the west bank of the river to our first very rare piece of the trip.

It is quite infrequently that passenger trains get to travel through Enola Yard. Once the largest classification yard in the world, Enola now serves Norfolk Southern classifying trains that come in from east and west. Our train will travel through the yard at very slow speed so that you can really take in how large this historical place really is. Just on the north end of Enola in the town of Marysville is Rockville Bridge. The Rockville Bridge was built for the PRR and has the distinction of being the world’s longest stone arch railroad bridge. Crossing the bridge offers unsurpassed views up and down the river valley.

Now again on the east bank of the river, the train will pass Harrisburg Intermodal Yard. This yard is used to load highway trailers onto railroad cars to continue their journey. This is a highly environmentally friendly way to move freight and removes many semi-trucks from nearby Interstate 81 and other US highways.

Once past the yard, we will pass historic HARRIS Tower, the Pennsylvania state capital building, the City of Harrisburg, and Amtrak’s former Pennsylvania Railroad station. Inside the station, you’ll be able to catch a glimpse of another relic of days gone by, a former PRR GG1 locomotive and caboose.

In Harrisburg, We’ll once again go off the beaten path and head east towards Middletown. In Middletown we’ll pass the Middletown and Hummelstown Railroad and Middletown’s former Railway Express Agency depot and then begin our journey south on the Roy Branch.

The Roy Branch is named after the town that is at it’s northern end, Royalton. This is some very rare mileage indeed and will take us past farm fields as we work our way south to Columbia, PA. It’s here we’ll re-join the Port Road for our trip back to Washington.

Our train this time will be made up of 12 Amtrak passenger cars that are climate controlled and offer bathroom facilities in each car. Also on our train are a pair of café cars that will be serving continental breakfast, snacks, drinks and CRHS merchandise. At the end of our train will be our “First Class” private cars “Kitchi Gammi Club” and “Warrior Ridge”. These cars are well cared for classic lounge cars from the golden age of rail travel and will offer our first class passengers a hot lunch, complimentary breakfast items and snacks, and beverage service all day. Pulling our train will be a pair of 1950s streamlined diesel locomotives dressed in their Pennsylvania Railroad paint scheme. These units are babied by their owners and although over fifty years old, are capable of whisking our train along at speeds of up to 90 mph!

Our trip website (www.crhstrips.com) has all the information you need to book your tickets, and they may be ordered by credit card or via US Mail with check or money order. Tickets are $172.50 for coach and $400-$425 for First Class. Included in the price are a commemorative trip book with route guide and a box lunch for coach passengers and a trip book and hot food for First Class. Trip shirts are also offered on the website for preorder and will be delivered onboard the train. Should you have any questions about the trip, please contact info@TheCRHS.org and a member of our staff will get back with you as quickly as possible.

Thank you and welcome aboard!

Will passengers be allowed to board at Baltimore or Perryville?

Alexander,
Perryville, No. Baltimore, Maybe. We're not enthralled with a B'more stop, but may add one. If we do, people will be welcome to get on/off at whichever they like. If we do add it, I'll let everyone know.
Russ

Is there any possibility of adding an observation car to the end of the train that we can purchase tickets to ride?

Jim, I'm afraid not. When you do an excursion with the E8s, Bennett Levin's 120 goes on the back. It's one of those rules that just isn't broken.

Thanks!
Russ

Well, heck, we Baltimorons aren't exactly enthralled at the prospect of having to make our way down to D.C., on Amtrak fares or paying expensive parking downtown, just to come back up right through a station many of us can walk or ride a bus to get to. >;-)

I know your hands are pretty much tied to what Amtrak will let you get away with, but at the same time, in Britain excursions such as this would make multiple stops at passenger stations in "easy-mileage" territory before diverging to the rare mileage. If this trip were being run in Britain, there would probably be stops at BWI, Baltimore, and Perryville--however, you could also connect across a platform at Perryville from an Amtrak train from the north, so...

Alexander,
I completely agree. Having just gotten back from the UK, it's amazing how great their rail preservation scheme is. I mean over there, you say "I wanna run a steam special with the Tornado" and they say "Ohhhhhh Steam!". Here they'd say "a what?"

Anyway, I'll talk to em this week and see if we can make it happen.
Russ

Russ,

We've discussed this before. In a previous trip CRHS jammed 120 people into SEPTA commuter cars with 3-2 seating, no bathrooms, and a number of people not even having a window. I think it is inexcusable that CRHS is not offering even a small ($10) discount to those of us who suffered through that fiasco of poor planning. The line about the trip being in a different market is BS, many people in the Delaware Valley will travel to DC or Baltimore to ride this trip. All in all a $10 discount wont make or break me or many of the folks who support your trips but it would be a good gesture to make amends for such poor planning on the Philadelphia trip. It would be the right and fair thing to do.

Alexander, talked about it and we are going to add a Baltimore stop. The website will. E updated at some point over the next day or so to allow the choice of one or the other. Thanks for the suggestion.

Tom- I can appreciate your point of view and I think if I had been crammed into one of those Septa cars, I'd feel the same way. Heck as the Onboard Service Manager, I was afraid to go back there as the trip went on. When we discussed this a few weeks ago (the CRHS Board) we decided to not do a discount for our septa riders from the last trip because most (note most) of the riders are not railfans and doubt that they'll ride a trip from further away that is mostly the same route. The folks such as yourself who would ride again are few because of it being a different market, but generally understand that even though a potential discount may only be $10-$20, that's $10-$20 that isn't going to painting our caboose or restoring our camp car or re-decking our flat car. I'm sorry this isn't the answer you wanted, but it's the decision we've made after much discussion. I'd like to see you on the trip so you can see how much better we've done this time, but if you choose not to, I can certainly understand.

Thanks!
Russ

I hadn't seen the Baltimore information added to the CRHS website but was wondering if the price for those who boarded there would be the same?

Joshua

Joshua, the price is the same. You pick your boarding location when you order your ticket.

Thanks!