The Conrail Historical Society held its first ever Convention in Altoona PA from October 24-26 2008.
It was an amazing time for all who could attend, and hopefully the first in a long line. Relive your weekend if you were there, or check out what you missed with the photos below.
The photos in these galleries are a mix of those from our Convention Staff and those contributed by our attendees, if you have some you'd like to add, make sure to email us.
The Conrail Historical Society, Inc.’s 2008 Altoona, PA Convention was generously sponsored by the Altoona Railroader’s Memorial Museum, Brian’s Model Trains, Cassandra Overlook Motel, Dick’s Train Store, Gallitzin Tunnels Park & Museum, Gene’s Trains, Herr’s Potato Chips, Horseshoe Curve Chapter NRHS, Norfolk Southern Corporation, Pepsi-Cola Bottling, RailPace Company, RSC Equipment Rental and Stroehmann / George Weston Bakeries.
After the membership meeting on friday night, two busses set off for some night photography. We split up into two groups, taking turns at the Railroader's Memorial Museum where Brian Alesin, JB Kerr and Phil Banks ran group flash photoraphy, and at the Gallitzin Tunnel Museum where they had the flood lights on for trains coming out of the tunnels.
Probably the highlight of the convention was the guided tour of NS's Juniata Diesel shops. This facility is the largest heavy repair facility in the world and was a jewel in Conrail's crown. While we weren't allowed to take photos inside the facility, we were able to shoot outside where they had parked the Spirit of Conrail GP38, #2943, for us
Altoona 08 went amazingly smoothly in large part to the amount of preparation that the crew put in ahead of time. These photos are a behind the scenes look at getting ready for the big event.
After the blockbuster stop at South Fork, our tour proceeded on to an afternoon of railfanning the west slope.
Our second stop on the railfan tour had one of the biggest surprises of the weekend. Norfolk Southern parked two blue SD40-2s and an SD80mac for us to inspect and walk through. This was a CR fan's dreams come true.
Saturday morning started off nice and early with our tour opening the park at the famous Horseshoe Curve. We got a little wet thanks to the rain, but it didn't dampen our spirits.
After our Railfanning and Juniata tours, the group returned to the Altoona Railroaders Memorial museum for lunch and a demonstration by the Conrail Elkhart wreck derrick. A few of us also headed off to the Altoona Association of Model Railroaders' multi-scale layout.
While one tour group went through the Juniata shops, the other group watched trains from the famed "Rose" bridge over the east end of Altoona's yard. Rose is an NS recrew point where many trains stop and swap crews for their journey east to Harrisburg or west over the mountain.
