Saw this on my drive from MSP to Baudette last week and thought of this thread:
Saw this on my drive from MSP to Baudette last week and thought of this thread:
BC&G #13 taking a load of empties out of Dundon and back to Widen
The BC&G met it's end in 1965, as a result of the lumber operations at Swandale wrapping up and Rich Run Mine in Widen closing up. It was reopened in 1971 by Majestic Mining when they began mining coal at Widen again, with diesel switchers operating over the line. Majestic Mining shut it back down in 1985, and it was revived again in the mid-'90s, when the Elk River Railroad purchased the ex-B&O Elk River Line and the entirety of the BC&G, although they only operated it as far as Avoca. The coal was purchased by American Electric Power for their powerplants, but that was ended in 1999, when the coal was determined to be too poor quality. The BC&G has sat dormant since, with there being frequent talks of trying to revive it, but the line was nearly wiped out by flooding in 2016, which put a crimp on that.
The BC&G #4 became a bit of a boomer engine after retirement. Before being purchased by the Buffalo Creek & Gauley, it was constructed as an oil-burning, saturated-steam 2-8-0 for a railroad down in Mexico. For whatever reason, the railroad down in Mexico failed to take delivery of the locomotive, and it was instead converted to coal-burning and sold to the BC&G. After the BC&G closed down, the #4 was purchased by Francis Ede, a car dealer and railfan from Quakertown, PA, who moved it to Reading's Bethlehem Engine Terminal. He ran a sort of low-budget, alternate-High Iron Company, starting with a trip in May 1968 on the Reading, and running in 1969 and 1970 on the Lehigh & Hudson River, Lehigh Valley, and Penn Central, with a consist of Reading round-roof commuter cars. At the same time as purchasing the #4, Paul Hersch purchased BC&G #14 and had it moved north, although it would reach Quakertown until after the Quakertown & Eastern closed down in 1971.
In 1972, Ede sold #4, the Reading baggage car and many of the Reading coaches to Carter-Cash Enterprises, of the late great Johnny Cash and family, for a possible tourist attraction in southwest Virginia near the home of the Carter family of country music fame. That didn't happen, but the equipment was moved to Hiltons, VA on the Southern's Bristol Line around 1974. Beginning in the fall of 1974, the #4 and train ran east from Hiltons on about 10 miles of the Bristol Line as the Southwest Virginia Scenic RR. The SVSR operated again with #4 in 1975 and quietly folded after that. Hiltons is pretty much in the middle of nowhere (beautiful country, but well off the major highways) and ridership wasn't exactly at "Strasburg levels".
After that, the #4 went to Spencer, NC to the North Carolina Transportation Museum. At some point they put it in operation with a makeover as "Southern #604" and ran it until 2001, when a need for extensive boiler repairs kicked it out of service and it simply needed too much work, and money, to make it operate again. It then was sold to Durbin & Greenbrier a couple years ago, with hopes of returning it to operation over the Durbin-Cass line.
Sister BC&G engines #13 and #14 survive as well. The #13 is at Age of Steam Roundhouse, nicely cosmetically restored, and the #14, after a spell at the Wilmington & Western, ultimately ended up as a display piece at Gaithersburg, MD.
Bath & Hammondsport #11 at "Hammondsport, NY" depot. The #11 is actually ex-Bath & Hammondsport but the depot is the Roaring Springs, PA depot on the Everrett Railroad. Riding behind the #11 hanging out the baggage door of their ex-B&LE combine last summer was definitely an awesome experience and the #11 is a charming little machine.
Interesting. Apparently a new tourist line, the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson Railway, is opening this spring, operating over the Corinth-Saratoga stretch of the former D&H Adirondack Line, which was then the Saratoga & North Creek until 2018. They will be using Alco #5, an S1 that was the switcher at the Alco Schenectady plant until 1989, for motive power. Seems like an interesting operation, nice territory up there. And it looks like cabrides over the whole trip will be a regular offering.
The rest of the line, from North Creek up to Newcomb, goes up for auction next month and there is a clause in the trust that whoever purchases it cannot tear up the rails.
A rare and unique second-generation diesel is headed to preservation, Minnesota Commercial #50, formerly ATSF #9501. It is an SF30C, which was one of Santa Fe's many rebuild programs to roll out of Cleburne shops, and it is the last surviving SF30C in the US. In '85, as their GE U36Cs wrapped up their first decade of service, they began to show many reliability issues. The late-'60s/early-'70s 3600hp diesels from all three manufacturers were all troublesome machines, with the SD45 being the least-troublesome. So, Santa Fe decided to rebuild 70 of them to extend their lives. The GE FDL prime movers were overhauled and downrated from 3600hp to 3100hp, they were completely upgraded with Dash-7 electronics, GE's Sentry System wheel slip prevention system, muffled exhausts, Dash-8 style noses and air-conditioned cab, and dual fuel fillers that were compatible with both ATSF's fueling stations and Southern Pacific's, since the SPSF merger was supposedly right around the corner. The first few were painted in ATSF blue and yellow, while the middle 44 were painted in the SPSF "Kodachrome" red and yellow, and then the last batch reverted to the ATSF blue and yellow. The SF30Cs were primarily assigned to early intermodal trains for service throughout the desert plains of Arizona and New Mexico, but were eventually also used on other revenue freights systemwide. Although reliable and successful at first, they began to experience problems with rebuilt units similar to what their predecessors originally experienced and the SF30Cs were eventually displaced and retired by AT&SF by 1995 in favor of succeeding types of GE and EMD locomotives such as the C40-8W and AC6000CW.
After retirement, the SF30Cs were sold to National Rail Equipment, where the majority of them were either exported out of the country, largely to Mexico, or they were cut up for scrap. The #9501 escaped either of those fates and was instead sold to Minnesota Commercial, where it became their #50 and has operated happily for many years. Minnesota Commercial is finally retiring the unit and has donated it to the Arizona State Railroad Museum Foundation where it will join other members of its collection in storage on the Grand Canyon Railway in Williams later this year. The group also hopes to break ground for the construction of the new museum in this year after many years of hunting for a site. ASRM Foundation had considered allowing its use by the Grand Canyon Railway for free as work train or back-up power, but the C-C wheelsets would prohibit its use on the sharpest curves in Coconino Canyon. Plans are to restore it to its ATSF blue-and-yellow livery. Unfortunately, this specific loco never sported the “Kodachrome” red and yellow of the aborted planned merger with Southern Pacific, or it would have been restored to that scheme.
Coincidentally, Minnesota Commercial also owns the only SF30B that Santa Fe ever built. The SF30B was constructed from wrecked U23B ATSF #6332 in 1987. It remained after the merger as BNSF 4276 until retirement in 2008 and has served since as MNNR #42. Unlike the SF30C, which was a downgrade in horsepower, the SF30B was an upgrade in horsepower. It had the 12-cylinder FDL cranked up from 2300hp to 3000hp, a similar move to what GE would do with the C30-7A, compared to the 16-cylinder 3000hp C30-7s. It also received the Dash-7 electronics, wheelslip system, and Dash-8 cab and nose, along with being numbered #7200.
Overall the prototype SF30B was deemed a success, however by this time, the age of contracting locomotive maintenance outside of a company had become a way of life, and the Cleburne Shops were closed, leaving #7200 as the only one of her kind. General Electric was contracted to maintain Santa Fe's GE-built locomotives, and this included the SF30B, although the rest of Santa Fe's U23B fleet had been purged from the roster. In order to maintain a general maintenance schedule, the SF30B was renumbered into Santa Fe's fleet of B23-7 locomotives, and given a new number, #6419. General Electric also derated the horsepower of #6419 from 3,000 back to 2,300 horsepower, as GE did not want to be responsible for the possible stress caused by the former high rating. Unlike the SF30Cs, the SF30B was still around for the BNSF merger and was renumbered to #4276 after the merger went through. It was then eventually sold off to Minnesota Commercial, where it is stilling chugging away today. I wouldn't be surprised if it is also donated to Arizona State Railroad Museum as well one day.
An SF30C in the SPSF "Kodachrome" livery leading a consist that includes an F45 through Franklin Canyon in Martinez, CA. SP and ATSF were so certain that the SPSF merger would go through that they began painting units in a common paint scheme, with the SP and SF lettering offset so that they could just add the other two letters after the fact. When the merger was eventually denied, the joke was that SPSF stood for Shouldn't Paint So Fast.
Minnesota Commercial also retains the last two surviving Alco RS-27s. A 2400hp, 4-axle road switcher cataloged from 1959-1962, the prophetically-named RS-27 was a sales disaster, selling only 27 units. Chicago & North Western purchased four of the snubbed-nose Alco, then sold three of them to the Alco-heavy Green Bay & Western to join the one that GB&W purchased brand-new from Alco. The GB&W scrapped the one they bought brand-new and one of of three ex-C&NW units, and the remaining two, #316 and #318, were sold to Minnesota Commercial where they are still in operation today.
When Alco rebooted their product lineup in 1963, with the Century series, the RS-27 was replaced with the C424, which was a much better-received machine. PRR had bought the first RS-27 demonstrator and actually sent it back to Alco to have it rebuilt into a C424.
The #316 in it's Green Bay & Western days. Funny that C&NW couldn't get rid of them fast enough, but they lived long lives on the GB&W and are still kicking on the Minnesota Commercial.
This angle shows the weird little bay windows that the GB&W added to the cabs of their Alcos so that the engineer could look forward and backward without having to open the window in those cold Wisconsin winters.
Soo Line, not a railroad typically associated with Alcos, owned just two RS-27s, which, to reduce costs, used rebuilt machinery from traded-in RS-3s, including main generators, auxiliary generators, eddy-current clutches, traction motors, and air compressors, along with various electrical equipment. They quickly earned the rather unenviable name of "The Dolly Sisters" for the amount of time they spent up on the Soo's shop dollies for repair, and were forbidden to travel much beyond a short radius of the shops. According to a former Soo employee "From day one, a new officer beginning work on the power board was continuously reminded to NOT TO RUN THE "DOLLY SISTERS" ANYWHERE OTHER THAN THE ST.PAUL TRANSFER so the mechanical department could babysit/repair them when they broke down(and they did regularly). These units were not liked by crews or just about anyone else on the SOO. There were no tears shed they departed Shoreham for Chicago and Pielet Brothers to be scrapped. I can only recall seeing them one time operating back to back and as usual one was shut down because it couldn't stay running."
Another dissatisifed latecomer Alco purchaser was Illinois Central. Long an all-EMD railroad, probably due to EMD's LaGrange factory being an on-line customer of the Illinois Central, it's unknown just what exactly possessed Illinois Central to go purchase six C636s from Alco in 1968, especially when EMD had their equally powerful SD45 out already. Doubly cursed by being a very late Alco product and oddball units on the roster, the six C636s were immediately reviled. Electrical fires, reliability woes, poor ride quality and derailments from the Alco Hi-Adhesion trucks ensued. The Alco Hi-Ad truck had odd damping characteristics and on the Illinois Central's rough tracks of the era, they would get into a resonance where they would get swaying side to side and, on at least one occasion, flop right over on their side. Delivered in '68, they were mostly used in the Paducah area but were stored as reserve power or leased out as much as possible. Photos exist of them already on the deadline by '74, and they were officially stricken from the roster in 1979 after the entire group was permanently parked in 1977.
Fully half of IC's C636s arriving in Louisville in 1972.
Tickets went on sale for Reading #2102's debut excursion from Reading to Jim Thorpe and back today. $100 for coach, and they go up from there.
I've decided to go down, but I'm not going to ride. I'm going to chase the excursion. It's cheaper and I really want to see #2102 go pounding by at track speed. My guess is that trackside is probably going to be mobbed with people.
It's amazing how many of the different whistles in that video are on Reading & Northern #425, and that's not even all of them. I know for a fact she's worn a shop-built 3-chime, a CNJ 3-chime, a PRR single-chime "banshee", a Reading 6-chime, and a Southern Ps-4 long-bell 3-chime as well. And I'm sure there have been others. I'm not sure if they own all those whistles or if some of them are provided by people. If you own a whistle, be it an original that grew legs and ran away from the dead line or a modern replica, a lot of times you can call a railroad and offer to let them use your whistle on their locomotives for a weekend or a year or a couple years.
From what I understand, R&N is a bit more respectful of the #2102's Reading heritage, since they operate quite a bit of Reading trackage, and has no plans to paint it blue or make other cosmetic changes like they have done to the #425. Also, in the past, the #2102 only wore a Reading freight single-chime "hooter" or a Reading passenger 6-chime. In service, the first twenty T-1s (#2100-#2119) were freight engines, while #2120-#2129 were built as dual-purpose engines but all of them wore the freight hooter. It wasn't until Reading revived them for the 1959-1964 Reading Iron Horse Rambles that the #2100, #2102, and #2124 were equipped with the 6-chime passenger whistle. On doubleheader trips, they would often reinstall the freight whistles on one of the engines, and on at least one trip the #2102 borrowed the whistle off Baldwin #60000, the triple-cylinder, high-pressure, experimental 4-10-2 entombed at the Franklin Institute. In the #2102's later excursion career out in Ohio, it was also known to use a whistle that was supposedly off of New York Central 4-6-0 #1234 and was lent by a railfan who had bribed an NYC employee with a box of cigars to remove the whistle off the #1234 and give it to him when he was retired. How true that is, and where that whistle ultimately ended up, is a mystery, but according to those who heard it, it was a very unique deep, steamboat whistle.
Just curious regarding our local municipal electric utility (Vinton, IA) that maintains as many as 3 diesel gensets that sure look like locomotive power units with the rolling stock removed, permanently installed in a building.
Normally, they source power from the utility grid, but there have been times when those transmission systems have gone off line, and they are then able to isolate themselves from the grid and fire those units up.
Is something like this a known fate for some diesel equipment?
In reply to Karacticus :
It's feasible on a technical level. In 1998, Canadian National purposefully derailed some M420Ws that were nearing retirement to use them for power generation in cities that were struck by ice storm. It's a lot easier with anything newer than around 1970, since they use AC alternators and then use an inverter to power DC traction motors or just power AC traction motors. New Haven also had an DL-109, actually the last surviving DL-109 at the time, that they were using an engine and generator to power up a section of third-rail for testing third-rail shoe designs for the Dan'l Webster lightweight trainset. Sadly, it got cut up during the Penn Central era after some attempts to save it. I've also heard of locomotives being used to function as an air compressor in a pinch. Central Railroad of New Jersey supposedly had one of their unique double-ender Baldwins walled up inside of their shops with a single engine running the locomotive's air compressor, and it survived long after all the other Baldwin DRX-6-4-2000s had met their maker, although didn't make it into preservation. Illinois Railway Museum said that their NYC S-Motor electric had good air compressors on board (and several blown traction motors) when it was donated and they had a shop that lacked it's own air source, so they put a pantograph on the roof of the S-Motor so it would work with their catenary and then would move it over near the shop under its own power, hook air lines up and be able to perform work in the shop. Eventually the remaining functional traction motors burned up, and IRM got a big compressor for the shop, and that arrangement came to an end.
I've never heard of retired locomotives being converted to generator sets though. The big issue is railroads aren't afraid to rebuild, and they usually don't get rid of perfectly good equipment, and stuff that they retire is frequently cannibalized. Look at how there are still 50-60 year old GP38-2s and SD40s rattling around on Class 1s. To convert one to a generator set would mean a railroad would have to have retired a locomotive with a good primer mover and a good generator, which would be pretty rare. Even if it had burned up traction motors, they would likely either rebuild it or yank the engine and generators and set them aside as donors.
Caterpillar and Cummins and Detroit Diesel do produce some skid-mounted engine/generator combos that can be used for retrofit kits for locomotives or as standalone generator sets. I wonder if that's what they have.
Reading #2102 at Gettysburg, PA on one of the original Iron Horse Rambles in 1962. The T-1s wore workaday black in their original careers, but were tarted up a bit for the Rambles. I believe this is the color scheme R&N is returning the #2102 to.
Taken at the Reading's locomotive shops in Reading in 1985. That's the #425, in her original high-headlight, all-black look on the left. Reading #2102, freshly arrived, is in the center. And on the right is the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society GP30 #5513. The RCT&HS used to lend out their diesels for excursions over Reading & Northern, but I'm not sure if something happened between the Historical Society and R&N, or the Historical Society's collection is no longer roadworthy. All I know is, that hasn't happened in a long time.
The same photoshoot, with the Anthracite Railroad Historical Society's CNJ RS-3 #1554, the #2102 and PRR E8 #5706. The R&N in the early days had a pair of ex-PRR E8s, the #5708 and #5898, done up in Tuscan Red and gold stripes. At the beginning, Andy Muller had dreams of the Blue Mountain & Reading, as it was originally called, being a revival of the PRR's Blue Mountain Branch, and that was why the passenger cars were painted maroon. They also had shirts and hats with a PRR G5 Ten-Wheeler issued for the first excursions, and there were plans to restore LIRR G5 #35. Those plans never came through, and the railroad eventually took on more of a Reading look. The two E8s were sold off and while the #5898 still runs, in PRR colors no less, on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern, the #5706 ended up in Southern colors with the innards gutted and had a huge hole chopped in the side when it was converted to, no joke, a chapel in Alabama. The #5706 was getting cut up for scrap, last I heard.
Reading #2102 and Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern #425 doubleheading at Shoemakersville, PA. The #425 is in it's original appearance, the blue paint didn't come until much later, and the centered headlight is fairly recent. From what I've heard, I wouldn't hold my breath to see this sight again. Andy Muller isn't a fan of doubleheaders and he says that the pair of them look stupid together, with #425 being so much smaller.
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