Winter Train

With hands steady on the throttle, the engineer of a PRR T1 Duplex carefully leads one of many of Pennsylvanias Blue Ribbon passenger trains eastbound down the famed Horseshoe curve as another passenger train heads westward up grade. A recent snowstorm has dumped fresh snow on the ground and has since cleared, giving way to a moonlit sky. The T1, washed in Pittsburgh before being assigned to the train, reflects the snow on her skirting.

During this time, after WW2 to the mid 1950s, some two dozen passenger trains made their way around the curve, the majority at night. The Pennsy handled some 2 million passengers around the curve annually, nearly 5500 passengers daily! Today, the only passenger train to follow this route is Amtrak s Pennsylvanian. Far from that 2 million mark.