The best thing about today is something you can't observe on the trail without knowing some history. But my friend Irene is also a railfan (train nut like me), and she'd taken me to this place years ago and explained to me what I was seeing.
OK, so you are sure not going to see this scene any more. This is the great horseshoe curve at Swain, NY on the Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern RR. (photo owned by Jim Gelser, and taken from the Allegany County Historical Society page.)
Almost every bit of this structure is now gone. Actually, after the age of this photo, the trestle around the curve was filled with gravel so it became a berm. After the "death" of the railroad in 1947, that was removed to open up the low area that had been below the trestle for farming.
You can still see the abutments that carried the curve over the Erie RR tracks. In the picture above, the Erie is in the bottom of the cut that appears as a line of trees at the lower third of the photo. Here is Marie walking by the southern abutment.
How about a map to help? The orange line is the trail. You can see the track of the horseshoe curve as the half circle that spans the low (white) area just above left center. The magenta > shows where the historic photo was taken- opening to the view of the curve. The yellow line is where the abutment above is located. As the trail angles southeast, it follows the rail grade and climbs. The trail follows the rail curve all the way around the toe of the hill before taking that abrupt turn east.
However, the bridge or trestle, whichever it was, at the blue line is totally missing. So the trail has to dip down more gently to cross that creek and climb back up to the grade. Here's where the missing bridge should be.
The bench for the rail bed is impressive, with huge blocks of shale defining the cut wall.
The Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern went from Brockway, PA, to Wayland, NY. Its primary uses were to move coal and passengers. Despite the huge amount of infrastructure and cost to cross many hilly areas (or perhaps because of those needs), it declared bankruptcy after six years. It then operated for another 42 years and gained the dubious distinction of having one of the longest bankruptcy proceedings in railroad history.
I'd also like to call attention to one really nice piece of trail today. Railroads need a grade of about 2% (occasionally steeper grades are found, but special applications of locomotive power or ingenuity have to be used to get up them). Trail standards are 10% grade. Believe me, there are plenty of places where the grade is steeper than that on the trail. I had to climb out of one gully today on all fours. But the standard is 10%. This piece of trail, working its way up the hill in Rattlesnake Hill Wildlife Management Area, is expertly constructed: benched trail at a 10% grade with a slight outslope on the tread for water to run off. Kudos to the FLTC for building this great set of switchbacks to start this 600-foot climb.
The day ended with the last hour featuring horizontal snow and cold temperatures. Not wonderful, but better than horizontal rain. As always, Marie collected me and took me back to Sunny for dry clothes and a hot meal.
Miles today: 15.9. Total miles so far: 1827.8
