In the late spring of my sophomore year of high school, Peter McGilligan and I set out early one morning from his place in NJ to chase the recently-rerouted D&H manifest pair over the Buffalo and Sunbury lines. Follow along as we chased the 555 up to Taylor, and the 556 south to Bloomsburg. 555/556 were the old D&H PYRP/RPPY running from Potomac Yard in Washington, DC up to Rouses Point, New York, hauling mixed freight – particularly newsprint, kaolin, and other commodities between Canada and the southeast.
For most of my childhood – the 80s and 90s, these trains ran via Allentown, where they had to “run around” the train, putting the locomotives on the opposite end, due to the configuration of the tracks there – there was (and is) no direct south-to-west move possible there. These trains were always my favorite, because they would always bring a crazy variety of motive power. In the late 80s it was the NYSW operation of the D&H via the trustee, and then once CP took over it seemed like “anything goes” motive power wise. For a few years in the early CP, the decision was made to route these trains over the Sunbury Line instead of via Allentown. A small group of CP SD40-2s were equipped with the necessary Harmon Ultra Cab cab signal system needed to operate over cab signal territory south of Harrisburg, PA.
