Allen’s blog of trivial stuff

All of a sudden WordPress won’t let me update existing postings, so I’ll continue in a new one…and hope it lets me save.  Update: it appears that it is just that one posting, because I was able to come back into this one and add this sentence, as well as access older postings.

April 26 (Tuesday; took afternoon off)

Started at the New Freedom lot and had a marathon walk down to the Bentley Springs parking lot in MD.  Distance from the historical sign at Bentley Springs back to my vehicle at New Freedom was 5.54 miles, for an overall distance of almost 11.1 miles.  So I did 10+ miles at one time PLUS broke my personal record.  That was a little too much: I was walking MUCH slower on the way back and I ached all over for a day or two.  Quite a difference in MD as virtually all signs of any railroad are gone, unlike in PA, although the old white mile posts are still present.  Some of them show two numbers (32 on one side, 105 on the other, or some much larger number) and I’m not sure what the second number is. 

April 10

Started at Railroad parking lot, which is right at mile marker 3.  Went up to mile 5 where I stopped the previous weekend, then down to mile 1.  The area around New Freedom is rather interesting.  There are a few other places where two tracks are present, but only for short distances.  When approaching New Freedom Station, there are up to five.  According to a sign there, New Freedom was the intersection with another east-west railroad.  But on the south side of New Freedom there is NO track at McCullough Street for a short distance.  At some point I accidentally reset the odometer on the GPS, but going exactly from mile 3 to 5 then 1, it was eight miles.  Actually, I went a few feet south of mile 1 to see what was on the sign there…it indicated that point was Summit Grove (?), the highest point on the railroad, at 827 feet, or something like that.

This was also the very first time I saw any activity on the railroad…but not a train.  Around mile 4.5, coming back toward Railroad, a line of six to eight little yellow railroad-wheeled carts came up the tracks.  Everyone was very friendly…each one waved as they went by.  Then a minute or so later was an orange one, followed by a 50’s-era truck which had its rubber wheels replaced with railroad wheels, which was followed by a modern (Ford?) truck with its normal tires but these little “training wheels” on the front (and back?) that probably keep it on the track.  I didn’t think anything at the time, but on I-83 I saw a yellow SUV pulling one of these, and then put the pieces together when I saw the same SUV with an empty trailer parked, along with a number of other trailers, around the New Freedom Station area.  I don’t know who these people were…I tried to see some sort of logo on these carts but didn’t see anything.  I initially thought it was some maintenance people, but it was just way too many and the carts seemed to be too small to carry passengers and equipment.

April 3

Started at Glen Rock parking lot, then up to the bench at approximately mile 8.3 I last visited a few weeks before.  (Cold, nasty weather…)  Turned around at mile marker 5.  Total distance: 6.17 miles.