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Conrail Buffalo Line Courtesy Conrail Inc.

Conrail Buffalo Line

Buffalo Line Timetable

Empty coal train UFS-709 crawls under the classic Pennsylvania Railroad position light signals at McElhattan, PA. UFS is an empty coal train from Pennsylvania Power & Light's Montour generating station at Strawberry Ridge, located on the Watsontown Secondary. Many trains on the Buffalo Line are assigned SD40-2's as power, UFS is no different with 6399, 6402, and 6404. This UFS is headed north to Keating, where it will deliver it's empties to R.J. Corman, to be reloaded somewhere in the Clearfield area. Approximately half of the coal destined to Strawberry Ridge is via Keating from R.J. Corman.

Trains on the Buffalo Line are often easy to chase. We caught UFS at Lock Haven, PA - five miles west of McElhattan. UFS posed alongside Nittany & Bald Eagle GP-8 #1601. NBER owns most of Lock Haven yard, which is the north end of NBER's operation. Nittany and Bald Eagle runs southward to Tyrone on CR's Pittsburgh Line. The NBER handles the other half of Strawberry Ridge coal, which originates on the former Monongahela Railroad, and travels via the Pittsburgh Line to Tyrone. From Tyrone to Lock Haven, loaded UFS trains operate under Conrail trackage rights over NBER; from Lock Haven they run southward on the Buffalo Line to Strawberry Ridge.

Once again, we caught UFS-709; this time at little Farrandsville, PA. Farrandsville is the site of a few old houses and a Dragging Equipment Detector. Just south of here is the Queen's Run Bridge, an impressive truss bridge crossing the Susquehanna River.

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