The Connellsville Flyer

On April 17, 1999 we chased the Connellsville Flyer from the Mingo Creek Bridge near New Eagle, PA to the Banning Bridge near Smithton, PA.. The train was sponsored by the Orrville Railroad Heritage Society, and pulled by W & LE 3048. It was a dark and rainy day but we enjoyed ourselves anyway, as I'm sure did those on the train. 10 pictures were taken with our new digital camera at High Quality and 3 were taken with our analog camera and scanned. Can you guess which 3? Send some e-mail and I'll give you a clue that will help you find two of them.

mailto:billy@billvons.com

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Click on the images to see a larger photo.

At 1:25 PM this Hi-Railer checked out the Mingo Creek Bridge.
It was 2:35 PM before the train began to curve around the bridge.
Our best estimate is that this bridge is over 140 feet high!
The Highway in the foreground is PA route 88 between Monongahela and Finleyville PA Sorry for the blurred spot on the picture...it was raining.
The train is passing over the curved bridge at Sudan PA (north of the I-70 Bentleyville PA exit)
W & L 3048 on the bridge over Maple Creek Rd just west of Charleoi PA (We tried to get a picture at Twin Bridges Rd but the train beat us there, and we had to hustle to get to Belle Vernon before the train came across the high bridge.)
The train is on the high bridge across the Mongahela River. The bridge to the left is I-70
More of the high bridge..
More of the high bridge. This was the only spot where we saw other railfans.
More of the high bridge..
Slowly crossing the Youghioghenny River Bridge at Banning PA
CSX tracks are visible in the lower left corner. To reach this spot, exit I-70 at Smithton and go into town. Then go straight ahead and keep the river on your right until you reach the bridge after passing through Jacobs Creek, PA
From here the W & LE follows Jacobs Creek to just south of Scottdale PA then turns south to meet CSX at Connellsville. Unfortunately, we did not meet up with the train again. Either we were ahead of it, or behind, but we lost contact.

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