I spent Columbus Day weekend scootering around the mountainy bits of central PA, and made a fabulous railfanning discovery. This, friends and train nerds, is the Cassandra Overlook.
I had been hanging about in Gallitzin and then in Cresson, on the west slope of the Allegheny Front, watching some trains chug up and down the hill on their way east towards Horseshoe Curve or west towards Johnstown. And I bumped into some other rail fans, and one of the guys told me about this outstanding spot for viewing trains rolling up and down this long hill. Well, before you could say Norfolk Southern there was a convoy on down through Lily and to the tiny town of Cassandra, which offers a nice welcome to rail fans.
One of my shots from the Cassandra Overlook
The Overlook is actually an old bridge leftover from the Allegheny Portage Railroad (you can visit the historic site in Gallitzin) and pressed into service today as a train-viewing platform. You get views of a 3-mile long straightaway looking southwest, and of a picturesque curve looking northeast. To find the overlook, head into Cassandra, find Main Street, and travel more or less east on it until it dead ends. At the dead end you’ll find a small parking area, and of course the tracks and bridge and likely several other rail fans.
An intermodal train heads up the West Slope.
-Jen
