NS & LVRM Near Former Bethlehem Steel, Railfanning Bethlehem, PA 5/5/25

Shooting Lehigh Valley Rail Management has been on my list for quite a while now, so with a day off and knowing they'd being using both of the former PBNE MP15DC's, I decided to finally take the ride out to Bethlehem to pay them a visit. While coming into town I took note of the time and realized I could probably squeeze in Norfolk Southern's H75 as they had most likely not left Allentown yet. It was just after 7AM, and I had about an hour until LVRM would start their day anyway. Sure enough not 15 minutes later I heard the 75 call JU and they were on their way up the Cement Secondary. After that came figuring out what LVRM would do first. I ended up on the South Bethlehem Greenway where I found the morning crew drilling out plastics hoppers to bring back over to the North side. Once that was finished, they spotted two loaded center beams at Eastern Engineered Wood Products and began working another plastics customer near the lumber yard. I could tell things were beginning to get a little monotonous, so I broke off for the NS side for a little while. I was able to get the H65 leaving Allentown with work to do around Bethlehem, followed by the 269 and then 18N with NS 1070 leading. As the afternoon LVRM crew went on duty I went back over to the other side of town to find them. Usually their first task is bringing down the container traffic from their intermodal terminal at the top of the hill for interchange with NS in the River Yard, which is where I'd find them. After getting a few shots of them building the train for NS, I hopped over to the Fahy Bridge for a view of River Yard with the iconic former Bethlehem Steel stacks standing in the background. The LVRM crew would meet NS 260 in the yard, the job tasked with bringing in traffic from Harrisburg and turning back West with the outbounds. Once the 260 cut away from their train, LVRM would couple up and drag the inbounds up the hill to be unloaded. I ended the day with LVRM notched out at the top of the grade as they returned to their yard. Enjoy!