An on-going and continuing (slowly, but I'm getting there) series combining my two favorite hobbies: trains and geocaching. I have loved trains (full-sized) since I was a little kid, my grandfather worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad, my great-uncle worked for the PRR, my uncle works for Conrail now, and so on. It's pretty much in my blood. I love to film trains and post them to my YouTube channel - and wanted to highlight some of the areas where I like to watch trains.
Near GZ is one of my favorite places to watch trains after work. This area had been taken by another nearby cache, however, since that one was archived, I decided to roll in and put a new cache in. And what a place! Morrisville, like so many towns between Boston and Washington DC, is home to Amtrak's Northeast Corridor (NEC) - the busiest rail line in the USA. Morrisville is a unique place in that you can see as many as four different railroads running here - not only that, but you can also see two different rail lines. That's right, two different ones. Up above you and on the other side of the fence is the NEC itself. From GZ you can see one of the former Pennsylvania Railroad's signal towers, active and in use today, helping to signal trains going into Trenton, NJ. Down the hill, and literally in the street, is a rare stretch of "street running". A couple of times daily, Conrail will bring freight cars full of corn syrup down to the old Staley plant nearby (see "Where I Watch Trains #2" for more) and will run down under the NEC and down the middle of the street for a short period.
Now I mentioned four different railroads up on the NEC - you'll see Amtrak trains, you'll see SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority) as they head towards or from the Trenton, NJ station stop, you'll see New Jersey Transit trains heading to or from their car shops in Morrisville from Trenton, and you'll see Conrail freight trains (represented by some combination of Norfolk Southern/CSX diesels) approach and stop on the bridge, in order to switch tracks and head into the Morrisville, PA Conrail yard.
One of my favorite spots, which is marked by a waypoint, is down by the river, you can get a great view of the beautiful 1903 stone arch bridge that carries hundreds of trains daily.
Enough about the trains, though (I can't believe I just typed that). You're probably here for the cache. Well, it's definitely not near the train tracks - there's a tall fence separating GZ and the NEC itself, and there's no way I'd go near it anyway. It's definitely camoflauged a bit (well at least the container is). But it's big enough for some swag and TB's, if they're properly sized. Be careful of muggles at the dog park, there's almost always some there! Same for people fishing down by the river, just use a little bit of stealth and you should be fine.