Much greater appreciation of the twists and turns in this part of the NE RR corridor. Especially, from the Engineer perspective at Bridesburg and Frankford turns where there have been accidents.
I watched this video quite a bit over the years. I had to come through and applaud you for not only filming this steady, but for incorporating chapters. As far as filming goes, I mean, it boils down to the discretion of the crew. Some are against it, others are more lenient. They don't owe us railfans anything, other than courtesy and getting us to our destinations safely. Even if the person was off duty, they're still an employee at the end of the day.
I had no idea Metroliners were still in service in 2022! Evidently Amtrak yanked out the motors and started using them as cab cars for locomotive-driven trains in the late '80s? Anyway, thanks for posting this video and for adding timestamps. Excellent content.
This is the POV that would sell a LOT of passenger travel and does - why don't passenger trainsets mount a 4K camera in their noses and run the feed over onboard wi-fi?
I think Amtrak do have video cameras mounted on the front end of their trains. They seem to function like dashcams that records the footage should an accident or incident take place. Videos of incidents such as the 2015 derailment at the Frankford junction came from those. The quality of those cameras seem kind of iffy though, and they're certainly not used to provide a video feed for the enjoyment of passengers and railfans alike. I do hope that before Amtrak can ever get their hands on better cameras, they should first clean the windows on the trains. I actually shot my video in full HD rather than 4K and processed the footage aggressively because the amount of dirt and debris on the windows. Had the video been shot in 4k it's just gonna show more of the dirt.
Enjoyable throwback - rode Penn Stn to Hbg every few weeks in '02-'03. However, nowhere near 125mph - made it a bit disappointing instead of just cool. You might consider taking that out of the title. Thanks
Nice, pre-cab car days. I'm sure the engine change is Philly made it a bit longer. The top speed on the stretch of track in the video is 125, so of course the train wasn't traveling at that speed the entire video. There's curves & other factors. Like, the train isn't going 125 at Frankford Jct or Zoo Interlocking. Plus, it's zoomed in, it's going to look slower than how fast the train is actually moving.
The engineer will have a timetable of speeds with him work zone speeds can be as low as 10 up to about 50 to 60 MPH depending on a number of factors, some work zones speed is track speed 100 to 125mph. As for the engineer knowing when he is clear some work zones will have a Green R sign or they know their train is so many feet in length and can judge base off that.
During my train ride down from New York to Philadelphia, they did not lock the door on the back end of the cab car. I got into and rode in the cab car the whole time and I wasn't asked to leave. Most of the passengers in the cab car seemed to be deadheading train crews though, with most of them NJT employees that got off in Trenton. Unlike them, the Amtrak crew actually didn't mind my filming. Later in the day, during my return trip from Philadelphia to New York, the Metorliner Cab Car on the rear end of the train was locked and passengers couldn't access it. So I don't know if there's a official policy on barring passengers from accessing the cab car, and if there is, I don't know how strictly and consistently enforced it is.
I usually ride in the Metroliner Cab Car whenever I take the Keystone. Perhaps it's the case that almost every time I did it was either during the rush hour when the train is extremely packed or in the middle of the day during the weekend when it's also somewhat packed. Never had a case where the cab car was locked.
I rode that train on the passenger side of that partition door and had no radio in my possession. The engineer in the cab probably had a radio though. I just didn't hear anything from it.
You won't hear the defect detectors on that section of the corridor.detectors are directly monitored by the dispatchers.because it is so busy on that section,can you imagine several trains calling in the detector info all at the same time?if the dispatchers catch a defect,they will give that particular train a red signal on the cab signal,making the train come to a complete stop and contact the crew.
To be fair the 125mph is the top speed the train could reach during this trip, not the speed I could confirm that it had indeed reached with myself on board.
Thanks for the suggestion. I actually ended up with the composition I got because the camera I used for this only had a 24-70mm equivalent lens instead of something with more telephoto reach. It wasn't completely zoomed out but it was pretty close. So I figured it might look better if I kept the outline of the front window in frame instead zooming in a little more only to cut off the upper and lower bits of that window. Obviously it would've been better if I was allowed to set the camera up a little closer to the front of the train the way we could on some commuter trains. But the engineer didn't allow that.
@@Shuotography I have shot a lot of septa Silverliner 5 head end rides and I was an acceptable distance from the window I didn’t have to zoom all that much and got a decent shot
@@3985uprr Yeah I've watched some of your videos shot on board the Silverliner 5. Those are nice. In comparison to the silverliner 5s, the Budd Metroliners are set up pretty differenty, since they keep the passengers further back from the front end of the cab car. I could've used some digital zoom or cropped the footage, but then that would probably degrade its quality. I didn't wanna do that because the raw footage I got was in pretty rough shape due to the dirty windows I shot it through. Plus the Metroliner seems to shake and bounce at speed, so zooming in will exaggerate that. Obviously moving forward I can always try to set up a similar video differently and see how it goes. Thanks for your input.
The problem with zoom is it eliminates the sense of speed in the video. You could be doing 100 mph but the video will make it look like you're crawling.
@Tsukuyomi456 ohh when did they change that? Or is it only when the cab car is leading on the NEC? I have yet to ride the Keystone into New York and see 125, that's why I'm curious?
@@RyanHatterer-Ryanns999 I'm not certain, but I did confirm it last month when I took the keystone from Harrisburg all the way to New York Penn, my speedometer app did clock 125 for a good bit of it. Alas I do not recall which way the train was oriented. In the future Amtrak does want to upgrade the Keystone Corridor to 125 mph where they can, and I can't wait for that!.
@Tsukuyomi456 I agree with that the Keystone can be upgrade in some spots to at minimum 120. I'll have to definitely check next month, I go up to NYC monthly for business thank you
Much greater appreciation of the twists and turns in this part of the NE RR corridor. Especially, from the Engineer perspective at Bridesburg and Frankford turns where there have been accidents.
Don't know if 9646 is the original number. But that cab convert dates back to the Penn/Central days, wow.
I watched this video quite a bit over the years. I had to come through and applaud you for not only filming this steady, but for incorporating chapters. As far as filming goes, I mean, it boils down to the discretion of the crew. Some are against it, others are more lenient. They don't owe us railfans anything, other than courtesy and getting us to our destinations safely. Even if the person was off duty, they're still an employee at the end of the day.
That old PRR Mainline was just made for high speeds.
*Timestamps*
*Amtrak Northeast Corridor*
00:14 Trenton Transit Center (Amtrak: Limited Acela Service, Vermonter, Cardinal, Carolinian, Crescent, Pennsylvanian, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Palmetto, Northeast Regional; NJT Commuter Rail: Northeast Corridor Line; SEPTA Regional Rail: Trenton Line; NJT River Line; NJT Bus: 409, 418, 600, 601, 606, 608, 609, 611, 619, 624; SEPTA Suburban Bus: 127)
02:02 *Morrisville-Trenton Railway Bridge*
02:29 _CSAO Morrisville Line and NJT Morrisville Yard Leads Split_
05:20 Levittown (SKIPPED)
07:27 Bristol (SKIPPED)
08:15 _Connection to Bristol Industrial Track Splits_
08:56 Croydon (SKIPPED)
09:57 Eddington (SKIPPED)
10:35 Cornwells Heights (SKIPPED)
11:52 Torresdale (SKIPPED)
13:29 Holmsburg Junction (SKIPPED)
13:32 _Bustleton Industrial Track Merges_
14:04 Tacony (SKIPPED)
15:10 Bridesburg (SKIPPED)
17:11 _Frankford Junction (Atlantic City Line and Delair Branch Merge with Northeast Corridor)_
20:24 North Philadelphia (SKIPPED)
20:41 _SEPTA Chestnut Hill West Line Merges_
22:29 _Delair Branch Splits_
23:56 _Zoo Interlocking (CSX Harrisburg Subdivision/High Line, Amtrak Northeast Corridor, Amtrak Keystone Corridor, and SEPTA Central City Commuter Connection Interchange)_
26:53 _LEFT: Penn Coach Yard_
27:56 William H. Gray III 30th Street (Philadelphia) Station (Amtrak: Acela, Vermonter, Cardinal, Carolinian, Crescent, Palmetto, Pennsylvanian, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Northeast Regional; NJT Commuter Rail: Atlantic City Line; SEPTA Regional Rail: All Lines; SEPTA Rapid Transit: Market-Frankford Line and Subway-Surface Trolley Lines @ 30th Street; SEPTA City Bus: 9, 12, 21, 30, 31, 42, 44, 49, 62, LUCY; SEPTA Suburban Bus: 124, 125; Martz Trailways; Megabus: M21, M23, M29, M30, M31, M32, M34; NJT Bus: 313, 315, 316, 414, 417, 555)
Ah man, that brings back some memories from college and grad school days - Bristol to 30th and back to Bristol!
I had no idea Metroliners were still in service in 2022! Evidently Amtrak yanked out the motors and started using them as cab cars for locomotive-driven trains in the late '80s? Anyway, thanks for posting this video and for adding timestamps. Excellent content.
Enjoyed the ride!
This is the POV that would sell a LOT of passenger travel and does - why don't passenger trainsets mount a 4K camera in their noses and run the feed over onboard wi-fi?
I think Amtrak do have video cameras mounted on the front end of their trains. They seem to function like dashcams that records the footage should an accident or incident take place. Videos of incidents such as the 2015 derailment at the Frankford junction came from those. The quality of those cameras seem kind of iffy though, and they're certainly not used to provide a video feed for the enjoyment of passengers and railfans alike. I do hope that before Amtrak can ever get their hands on better cameras, they should first clean the windows on the trains. I actually shot my video in full HD rather than 4K and processed the footage aggressively because the amount of dirt and debris on the windows. Had the video been shot in 4k it's just gonna show more of the dirt.
Enjoyable throwback - rode Penn Stn to Hbg every few weeks in '02-'03. However, nowhere near 125mph - made it a bit disappointing instead of just cool. You might consider taking that out of the title. Thanks
Nice, pre-cab car days. I'm sure the engine change is Philly made it a bit longer. The top speed on the stretch of track in the video is 125, so of course the train wasn't traveling at that speed the entire video. There's curves & other factors. Like, the train isn't going 125 at Frankford Jct or Zoo Interlocking. Plus, it's zoomed in, it's going to look slower than how fast the train is actually moving.
What’s the maximum speed for work zones and what indicates that they are past that point?! Sorry for the dumb question😅😅😅
That, I'm actually not sure. I didn't ask the engineer in the cab about it.
The engineer will have a timetable of speeds with him work zone speeds can be as low as 10 up to about 50 to 60 MPH depending on a number of factors, some work zones speed is track speed 100 to 125mph. As for the engineer knowing when he is clear some work zones will have a Green R sign or they know their train is so many feet in length and can judge base off that.
I once read somewhere (i think it was a forum?) that passengers weren't allowed in the Metroliner cab cars? Is that not the case
During my train ride down from New York to Philadelphia, they did not lock the door on the back end of the cab car. I got into and rode in the cab car the whole time and I wasn't asked to leave. Most of the passengers in the cab car seemed to be deadheading train crews though, with most of them NJT employees that got off in Trenton. Unlike them, the Amtrak crew actually didn't mind my filming.
Later in the day, during my return trip from Philadelphia to New York, the Metorliner Cab Car on the rear end of the train was locked and passengers couldn't access it.
So I don't know if there's a official policy on barring passengers from accessing the cab car, and if there is, I don't know how strictly and consistently enforced it is.
I usually ride in the Metroliner Cab Car whenever I take the Keystone. Perhaps it's the case that almost every time I did it was either during the rush hour when the train is extremely packed or in the middle of the day during the weekend when it's also somewhat packed. Never had a case where the cab car was locked.
Nice👍♐♐♐♐♐♐♐
You passed 10 dragger detectors, silence. Got your radio turned off?
I rode that train on the passenger side of that partition door and had no radio in my possession. The engineer in the cab probably had a radio though. I just didn't hear anything from it.
You won't hear the defect detectors on that section of the corridor.detectors are directly monitored by the dispatchers.because it is so busy on that section,can you imagine several trains calling in the detector info all at the same time?if the dispatchers catch a defect,they will give that particular train a red signal on the cab signal,making the train come to a complete stop and contact the crew.
Very nice, but with all respect not looking mote than 100mph at most.
To be fair the 125mph is the top speed the train could reach during this trip, not the speed I could confirm that it had indeed reached with myself on board.
Perhap the window should be cleaned for better views.
possibly, but do know that the most important window is the engineer's, not the center one this was filmed from.
I see more of the car interior than I do of the railroad. You should zoom in to eliminate as much of the interior as possible
Thanks for the suggestion. I actually ended up with the composition I got because the camera I used for this only had a 24-70mm equivalent lens instead of something with more telephoto reach. It wasn't completely zoomed out but it was pretty close. So I figured it might look better if I kept the outline of the front window in frame instead zooming in a little more only to cut off the upper and lower bits of that window. Obviously it would've been better if I was allowed to set the camera up a little closer to the front of the train the way we could on some commuter trains. But the engineer didn't allow that.
@@Shuotography I have shot a lot of septa Silverliner 5 head end rides and I was an acceptable distance from the window I didn’t have to zoom all that much and got a decent shot
@@3985uprr Yeah I've watched some of your videos shot on board the Silverliner 5. Those are nice. In comparison to the silverliner 5s, the Budd Metroliners are set up pretty differenty, since they keep the passengers further back from the front end of the cab car. I could've used some digital zoom or cropped the footage, but then that would probably degrade its quality. I didn't wanna do that because the raw footage I got was in pretty rough shape due to the dirty windows I shot it through. Plus the Metroliner seems to shake and bounce at speed, so zooming in will exaggerate that. Obviously moving forward I can always try to set up a similar video differently and see how it goes. Thanks for your input.
The problem with zoom is it eliminates the sense of speed in the video. You could be doing 100 mph but the video will make it look like you're crawling.
The keystones are limited to 110MPH
That's only between Harrisburg and Parkesburg, on the Northeast Corridor they're permitted to do 125mph
@Tsukuyomi456 ohh when did they change that? Or is it only when the cab car is leading on the NEC? I have yet to ride the Keystone into New York and see 125, that's why I'm curious?
@@RyanHatterer-Ryanns999 I'm not certain, but I did confirm it last month when I took the keystone from Harrisburg all the way to New York Penn, my speedometer app did clock 125 for a good bit of it. Alas I do not recall which way the train was oriented. In the future Amtrak does want to upgrade the Keystone Corridor to 125 mph where they can, and I can't wait for that!.
@Tsukuyomi456 I agree with that the Keystone can be upgrade in some spots to at minimum 120. I'll have to definitely check next month, I go up to NYC monthly for business thank you
Ride from the a$$ view going backwards.