MILEPOST
= EP 38.4
ACCESSIBILITY = EASY
AMENITIES = LODGING, FOOD, GAS
PHOTO ANGLES = VARIED
From left to right: 33A heading west (taken from Columbia-Wrightsville Bridge); the Loram railgrinder working past COLA tower(also from bridge); and H18 passing under the bridge on the Columbia Secondary track.
M3G rOLLS wESTBOUND
PAST COLA
tOWER AS THE SUN RISES 1:15 - 3.98MB
LORAM RAILGRINDER HEADING WEST UNDER THE 462 BRIDGE (PIC ABOVE) 1:34 - 5.0MB
H23 HAULS A TRAIN OF MOW EQUIPMENT INTO COLUMBIA (PIC BELOW)
1:36 - 5.0MB
TWO gP40-2'S AND AN SD40-2 LEAD H18 ONTO THE COLUMBIA
SECONDARY
3:35 - 12.9MB
A lONE GP38-2 LEADS A SINGLE ARMY TANK LOAD 0:55 - 3.0MB
TWO SD80MACS (ONE CONRAIL) HEAD WEST AFTER A CREW CHANGE
2:05 - 6.99MB
RARE AMTRAK EQUIPMENT MOVE IN THE FOG 0:48 - 1.99MB
Columbia is the largest town along the Port Road, and is also roughly the halfway point between Harrisburg and Perryville. There is a lot of railroad history in town, but like most railroad towns, Columbia is a skeleton compared to what it used to be. This was the site of a large yard as well as a roundhouse, a passenger station, an interlocking tower, and the junction of 3 other branch lines (two Pennsy and one Reading). The yard now consists of a maintenance-of-way office and small 1-track yard, the passenger station still stands and is vacant, and the tower is also vacant, being closed down in the late 1980s. Columbia is still a great place to catch the trains, and there is a lot of accessible track and plenty of different views. The COLA eastbound signals are located adjacent to the mow-office, which are on NS property (but can be seen if you are traveling over the river on route 30). The westbound signals, are at the south end of town, but you will notice that they are not position-light anymore. If you follow route 441 from route 30, you will come down right at the tower, and you will notice a single track coming in from the east. This is the Columbia Secondary, which runs to Dillerville Yard in Lancaster. There are only two trains that use this line regularly, one is H18, the other is H23. The H18 is usually around 100 cars and usually rates high-horsepower road units. It normally passes Columbia between 5 and 8PM eastbound, and between 10PM and midnight westbound. The H23 works a few industries along the secondary track, plus the Marietta Industrial, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. There is a dragging detector two miles west at MP 77.7, which will warn of a westbound train. In addition there are also two westbound-only signals that will be called (in order; "C777" and "EY").
If you desire something a bit different from Class 1 railroading, Columbia now has an answer. The recently formed Columbia & Reading Railroad runs a short (under 2 miles) section of the old Columbia & Reading Branch of the Reading Railroad. The line runs a sharply painted Alco S2, which is stored inside a chain linked fence when not in use. The line serves a scrap dealer along Route 462. Like any shortline, they run whenever they need to, usually on a weekday morning.
