The Harrisburg Circle

Saturday's Main Event was a Baltimore - Harrisburg to Baltimore Circle Trip behind restored PRR E-8 Locomotives. The trip was unusual in that it traveled on both sides of the river between the Shocks Mill Bridge bridge and Harrisburg. Northbound we used the west side and southbound we used the east side.

For those of you not familiar with the former Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) whose trackage we covered, our trip departed at 8 AM and traveled from Baltimore, crossing the Susquehanna River just before reaching Perryville, MD, where it made a "left" turn up along the bank of the Susquehanna River. We followed the PRR's "Port Road" toward Harrisburg. At Shocks Mille we once again crossed the Susequehanna and proceeded north past Camp Hill and through Enola Yard. Then the trip crossed the Rockville Bridge, the longest stone arch bridge in the world, again over the Susquehanna, and then after a brief fueling stop, arrived at the former PRR depot in Harrisburg.

A brief 1.5 hour layover in Harrisburg was followed by a return routing; this time we followed the east bank of the Susquehanna past Steelton to Shock Mill. From that point on it was simply retracing our steps. We arrived back in Baltimore a littler earlier than our schedule 8:00 PM arrival.

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Our Vingate E-8's pause at Harrisburg during the layover.
Photo by Karl Scheetz.