The Horseshoe Curve
ALTOONA — The sound starts as a low moan from somewhere around the mountain.
“Train's coming,” says Joanne Brown.
She and her husband, Sam, are “escaped Californians” with a home in South Dakota. As retirees, they have been traveling the United States in an RV for 16 months. And now, in early fall, they have come to Horseshoe Curve — “World Famous Horseshoe Curve,” as the old postcards always said.
On any day in good weather, you'll find travelers from seemingly everywhere standing by the fence here to watch the freights coming down the line, from Chicago in the west and Philadelphia in the east.
The curve was a mid-19th-century solution to the problem of how to get a railroad over the Allegheny Mountains. It was the engineering marvel of its time, the three years' work of 450 Irish laborers who, using nothing but picks, shovels and black powder, carved a ledge onto the side of a mountain and then laid 2,375 feet of track along a steep grade.
Even now, it inspires the wonder of rail fans to see both the front end and back end of a long train as it grinds and screeches around the perfect U-shape.
“Which way?” Joanne Brown says of the coming train.
“From the strain, I'd say uphill,” Sam Brown replies.
The leaves of the heavily forested Alleghenies, which sit in lumps across the horizon, have started to turn. A reservoir for the nearby city of Altoona lies below, in the cupped hands of the surrounding hills.
The low moan becomes a rumble as the twin diesel locomotives of a Norfolk southern train come around the base of the curve.
The rumble becomes a roar as the black diesels work their way upward, pulling flat cars, each stacked with two truck trailers, one atop the other.
The roar becomes thunder as the train reaches the main viewing area of the Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark, where an inclined railroad was built in 1992 to ferry visitors up a 122-foot cliff to gain a close-up look.
The train buffs crowd the fence. The engineer waves.
“I don't know what it is, but I have loved trains since I was a kid,” Joanne Brown yells above the noise.
“The railroad people call us foamers,” Sam Brown says.
“Because we stand by the tracks and foam at the mouth,” Joanne laughs.
