Enjoyed this vintage video. I lived along the TP&W in Illinois when I was in my pre-teen and teen years. During Penn Central’s days, I saw a lot of their power on TP&W trains since TP&W had a power run through agreement with the PC. The power was supposed to turn at Columbus, but the TP&W’s only GP40 numbered 1000 was seen out east as far as Maine! I never saw too much of their Alco’s until CR, then I saw a few here and there! I only remember seeing one six-axle unit, as some places on TP&W were only good for four-axles.

Wow! This PC footage is as clear as my childhood memories of what living in PA was like in 1974.

Wow. ‘74. What a year. Penn Central was struggling, but still trying to serve customers. Great video Ed.

Cool to see some other vintage railfans caught on tape. Nice to see friendly engineers who don't report you to homeland security the second they see you.

I was 7 yrs old in 1974 and I do remember seeing penn central trains and boxcars in my area of Michigan.

This was 40 years ago, I can't believe it. Oh God I want to go back in time !!!

Seeing cabooses made me smile! ^^

NICE!! My Favorite Railroad! And those ALCO's Rule! C-636,C630 and C-628 all represented.

Ed your videos are a treasure trove! Thank you for sharing!

Great shots. Also beautiful color.

Nice movies from the "good old days". Love the Ford vans on the open cars, cabooses, helpers with crew.

Man love watching those PC ALCO's!

Thanks for the interesting train world. 👍👍👍👍👌👌👌

That railbuff in the last seen running towards the camera with a Speed Graphic in his hand is priceless.

Was nice seeing those good old trains, and the 4 tracks. And especially the national limited, with the open top Norfolk and western autoracks

Thanks for the old videos. Zombies.

The Penn Central one of my all-time favorite railroads they got the job done yes long live the Penn Central.

Thanks for posting the big ALCO's ! I do miss those beasts .

Wow this is amazing! Penn Central Alco's and footage of an Amtrak SDP40F! Not to mention all the vintage Leslie and Prime horns! I especially love the SL-4T @1:09! I am speechless, great job Ed!

"Barking" GEs', smoking Alcos' and Pennsy CPLs'. Doesn't get much better than that! Thanks for posting!

"And running towards the 30 yard line for the New England Pats... with Speed Graphic in hand, No. 81... Jim Foamathon!" Excellent!

oh man i recall that mountain when i was 18 got a brakeman job on pc my first trip to altoona from conway yards return trip it was 10 below zero wing blowing & snow the train went in the hole just passing MG tower, had to wale the train and tie down 30 hand brakes the front brakeman did the same on the front part, found a parted air brake hose middle of the train of course got that reparied and going down the west slope the same thing happened, when i looked the shop people same car too brand new out of the shop people failed to lube the air hose ring that rides on part of the brake line so it got stuck and parted the hoses, then had to wait until car men came out from cresson with a lil bit of grease that cured the problem, but man what a night that was a night to remember, frozen body went into that caboose and fell asleep never woke up until we got re crew in pittsburgh, johnny cash was right the good and the bad are are part of a railroad man.

All though the Penn Central videos you caught were few, this one like the others is excellent Ed. I just wish you would have compiled them and created a DVD. I sure would have purchased it. Thank you for sharing

dam i loved the 70s was time to be alive man love them sd40s

Wonderful big Centuries. 😌

Big PC fan. Model it in N scale.I seen Penn Central in southern Ontario when PC was formed in 1969.Lived in Windsor Ontario at the time great seeing black locomotives and jade green cars.This was railroading compared to today ,work for CN rail and boring. Thanks for posting

👏👏👏👏👏 I'm a die-hard Penn Central fan. This film looks like this was just made an award winner in my heart. Most of the trains in this film I have in HO SCALE by ATHEARN. GE U BOATS, SD40 , AMTRAK SDP 40 some of the passenger cars filmed slightly quick! Thanks for presenting this. P.S. I have Atlas HO trains in their CONRAIL days wow the list goes on, thank you PENN CENTRAL & CONRAIL! 👏👏👏👏😀🚞.

Love this!!! I grow up along the PC Pittsburgh main line between Pitcairn and Pittsburgh in the 70's.

It is now Norfolk Southern (Known affectionately as "The Thoroughbred of Transportation"),You now can see a Heritage Unit in PC Colors.

1:36 Alco always had the best bells, hands down.

Oh, I LOVE those big ALCOs!

The Century's were very cool ! I miss em plenty

Yeh, PC was a much derided under-appreciated merger of PRR and NYC (ever read “The Wreck of the Penn-Central”?) I lived along the electrified line in the '60s-'70s...rode the line from Metropark/Iselin to New York City every day for nearly 20 years, took a lot of shots along the way. Then, like the other gent mentioned, it became a hassle with the cops after some terrorist bombings in NY. Love the C630's with hopper empties and C630's pushing up the hill in this nice video, thanks!

Yes definitely The Penn Central I have HO gauge railroad.

That kid on the bike is in his 50's today .Love the video thanks for sharing

I grew up with this as my back yard. My Grandfather worked in AR. Yes I agree that is one of the first things I thought was about how grown up that area is now it's unreal! I've taken a machete to the rocks there at Benny countless times in the past 10 years. This is great footage of Benny with all 4 tracks and that signal tower and all those tele poles!

0:41 transporting getaway vans we see in 70s and 80s movies! 0:52 caboose days

Love the great flashback!

Nice old video. I have many fond memories of railfanning at Benny and the surrounding area back in the 1970's.

Me I wish I could go back. Ed K.

Thanks ed for the rail operatioms film when the hill still was a 4 track main.

Excellent captures! This video makes me nostalgic for the Penn Central.

Great Video! I loved seeing those old Penn Central diesels. MTH Electric Trains should produce more Penn Central diesels.

The old Penn Central boy that was the days. Now it's Norfolk Southern's

An excellent video. ♡ T.E.N.

thank U very much for sharing that Gem... Amicalement de France. Aldo Bordeaux

What a GREAT classic post. I was 4 when this was filmed and loved every second of it. Thanx for sharing. Didnt like it, Loved it.

Wow, for 1974 that's pretty amazing video and audio quality!

Great work Ed, amazing!!

Nice video. It would be great if there were more videos of them days. Thanks for sharing.

Very cool classic video I really enjoyed it! I just recently watched a 28 minute long film that was used to convince the government to bail out the Penn Central also from 1974 , showing how decrepit it's tracks and rolling stock had become since filing bankruptcy. I must say alot of the trackage in this film looked pretty good! And the locomotives seemed to have newer coats of paint on them.

Thanks airing the outstanding vid.Bliss

I miss these days of railfanning. Todays class I's are bore me.

very interesting

EK, you've posted so much amazing footage. Really great! Thanks.

Excellent footage and quality! thank you

Awesome!! Man i'd love to go back in time with today's camera and sound recording tech and really get the sound of these things! Great Vid!

Great to see all these video's on National Train Day

wow cool to see this never got to see the trains running there

I remember "Benny" well. My buddy and I camped out there in '80 and '81.

Nice! I want to go back in time!

2:35. Now that's beautiful 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸❤️❤️❤️

Those whistles though

Great and unique video, Ed! This will be my first ever KZfaq comment, big train lover! Subscribed :)

Didn't know Penn Central had SD40's, but there are two of them pushing on that first train.

This must’ve been videotaped with an early portable camcorder from the early 1970’s.They were pretty rare back then .Only tv stations and studios had them

That road the kid is riding his bike going under the flyover at 3:17 leads to Sanker Town.

The 3 leading units are GE. I'd say they are U33C models.

The old Penn Central 1974.

never cared for PC but i'd gladly watch this over stupd csx or ns any day of he week

thank's for that fantastic video

Lyon, Whoops! We are wrong! I just looked it up on Fallen Flags. Both 6096 and 6051 are straight SD-40's. You can look at telling photos of both engines on the website.

How about those open autoracks! Man would vandals, and "sharp-shooters" have a field day with whatever was on one of those today!

I believe you're half right. The last unit is #6051 and the unit in front is #6096. Both have the extended rear porch found only on the Dash-2's I would say the two trailing units are Dash-2's.

wild to think that at this time, 'tales from topographic oceans' by Yes was still a brand new album

Great video!

I'm an avid fan of PC.Soon to join the PC R.R.Historical Society.

Very good !

Excellent

Hey I'd rather see them or Conrail compared to how they got it now! Nice Video Ed!

Awesome!!!

Ah, good old Penn Central. The video showcasing how good of a railroad they were when in reality they were a terrible railroad. Don't get me wrong I like Penn Central, I just hate how bad they were doing.

Beautiful quality for fucking 1974

Love it!

The black paint job on Penn Central possibly was to symbolize the dark times in America especially in the 60s and 70s, and then later it became blue with Conrail. But the track did look like it was fairly maintained back in those days.

WOW WOW WOW!!!

1:09 nice Leslie.

The sounds sound dubbed in

my uncle ed was born. in the 50s. one video of Norfolk and western diesel freight. he got. hr got permission and the ok to hope up top a box car! to film it!

This looks better than the average amateur video available at the time. Give us some background as to the production equipment and techniques.

Awesome retrospective..enjoyed very much..man that PC stuff was dark and dreary

tough curve

Ex-New York Central Railroad's Water Level Route.

Do you think the 9/11 fiasco is the reason for more security? What a joke! Great video by the way!

What kind of camera was used to film the scenes back in 1974 because the footage isn't like 16 millimeter or 8 millimeter film seen in say Charles smilies films of the same era the film is more like the kind you would see in the 1980s or 90s

Open car transports OMG

SL4-T Amtrak horns

So this is just video no sound?

Is the audio exact?

What's the "pole" for at 4:22?