Parked alongside the Rockhill Trolley Museum's Liberty Liner. After the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee ceased operation, the Electroliners were sold to the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, where they were repainted and rechristened as Liberty Liners. The one set has returned to Illinois, where the Illinois Railway Museum has restored it to it's original Electroliner appearance, while the other remains in Liberty Liner liver at the Rockhill Trolley Museum.
There's an art to creating a photo charter freight train that doesn't look staged. A big part of it is avoiding "Lionel syndrome": you know, a consist that's one boxcar, one flatcar, one gondola, one tank car, and a caboose, like one of those Lionel starter sets. This one definitely works, with a single boxcar, a bunch of coal gondolas and a caboose.
While I couldn't make it down to PA this weekend, I did go out to Utica yesterday and got a kind of odd grab-bag of shots.
Adirondack #3573 crossing the Utica Marsh with yesterday's Cabin Fever Limited. This is definitely a one-and-done location, because it's a thirty minute hike in and then a thirty minute hike back out. Behind me was a bridge over the Barge Canal and I was hoping they were going to have #3573 running back-to-back with #2400, so that I could wait and snap #2400 coming over the bridge leading. I had seen photos of previous trips running with the two of them, but they only had #3573 on this trip, and the long hood of an M420W isn't particularly interesting. Getting photos of #2400 leading is going to be difficult, because it's facing east at Utica yard, which means it would have to lead a southbound trip to be running short hood forward, and I typically don't get a lot of southbound shots because it ties up the whole day. There is also no wye on the Adirondack (well, there is one a Tupper Lake but it's long out of service and you can't even see one leg) or the MA&N, or even the nearby NYS&W Utica Branch, so it's probably not going to get turned any time soon.
The F-units, all gathered up and still awaiting pickup in Utica. In the rear, in NYC lightning stripes, is the ex-Alaska Railroad F7. In between is an ex-NH/PC/Metro North FL9, and then closest is an ex-GM&O/Metro North F3 (heavily rebuilt by Illinois Central Gulf into an FP10). The F7 and FP10 were primary power for years, but have fallen into disrepair and just don't fit the railroad's power needs. The FL9 never ran on the railroad and was, I believe, just a parts donor and used as the testbed for the new livery. The state absurdly prohibits three-axle trucks on their rails (north of Snow Junction) due to the fact that the one Alco RSC-2 was prone to derailment in the '70s. The reality was that the tracks hadn't had any maintenance in decades and that the RSC-2 was beat to death and had some weird tracking issues, but New York came away with "six axles bad". Since the FL9 has a 3-axle truck in the rear, it fell under that ban. There used to be more of those FL9s that Adirondack had stored at Rome, like three or four more, and I recall walking down from high school and climbing inside of one. Not sure what happened to the others.
From this angle, you can see how much longer an FL9 is than an F3. The FP7/FP9 were four feet longer than an FT/F3/F7/F9, and then the FL9 was yet another 5 feet longer than an FP7/FP9. The FL9 was originally intended as a long-haul variant of the FP9, with the extra five feet being to accommodate an even larger steam generator water tank, and the A1A rear truck used to support that weight. When sales failed to materialize and New Haven needed a dual-mode locomotive that could go into Grand Central without a power change, EMD repurposed the FL9 design to accommodate the electrical gear needed to run it in straight electric mode and hung some third-rail contact shoes off the trucks and sold them to New Haven.
I got adventurous and braved the local constabulary (and meth heads) by walking down to the east end of the yard (not on the right of way or even on the ballast). There may have been a posted sign on the lot I walked on, but it was also thrown off in the weeds and completely faded and peeling, so how was I supposed to know? I had seen something in front of the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern engine house that wasn't one of their big Alco Centuries, and my first thought was that they had brought the ex-Air Force 80-tonner from Rome out to Utica for repairs. But when I got at this angle, I realized it was one of the Lowville & Beaver River 44-tonners, #1951. I'm not sure what it was doing in front of the Utica shops, unless they are planning on getting it running. The L&BR ran from an interchange with the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg/New York Central at Lowville, NY east to Croghan, NY. When MA&N began operating the northern Carthage-Lowville segment of the old RW&O, they also took over operating the Lowville & Beaver River. It was a weird operation, because the L&BR was lightly-railed, had some spindly bridges and some tight sidings. So they would use an MA&N M420W with one of the three L&BR GE 44-Tonners, and the M420W would get the train over the road, and then they'd unhook the 44-tonner and run it down into businesses and collect cars. Between the paper mills closing in Lyons Falls and Beaver Falls and a bridge on the L&BR that was embargoed, MA&N shut the whole thing down. For years, the three 44-tonners, #1947, #1950 and #1951, sat at the engine house in Lowville. The #1950 was eventually sold off to the Belfast & Moosehead Lake, the #1947 has been tinkered with a number of times by volunteers who hoped to run excursions (frustratingly, a vote last November has the entire L&BR and the Carthage-Lowville section of the MA&N being turned into more hiking trails) and apparently the #1951 is down to Utica. Hmm, wonder what the plan is for that.
The delapidated building to the right is the former NYC/PC/Conrail yard tower at the east end. There's also an NYO&W freight house towards the middle, and a DL&W/E-L freight house at the west end.
A derelict Conrail Trailvan lurking in the weeds. The Conrail lettering is just barely visible.
What the hell is this homely thing lurking behind the MA&N shops? It's an M420TR, built by Montreal Locomotive Works. It was an end-cab switcher body that was an MLW M420W running gear, intended for transfer service, and they only built two of them, both for the Roberval & Saguenay. I've seen brief mentions of the #27 on the Railroading Rambler Facebook page over the years, and it's often people asking what the story of it is followed by people going "Don't want to talk about it online, lot of bad blood." From what I've been able to dredge up from mentions here and there, this was bought by the Adirondack Railroad back in the early 2000s. It was tied up in some sort of legal trouble, to begin with, but they got that sorted and it was moved out to Utica. As I understand it, it was sold as being "ready to run" and on arrival, it's condition was found to be quite different. It had several bad sleeves and power assemblies in the engine, the turbocharger was junk, and it had never been properly winterized and had suffered freeze damage. They tinkered with it in hopes of getting it running, and then threw in the towel and sold it to MA&N, who has been parting it out for their M420W #2042. MLW later sold a M420TR-2 (weirdly EMD with that -2) to the railroads down in Mexico, and they bought 15 of them, but those have all been scrapped. The other Roberval & Saguenay M420TR, #26, was being used up to the Orford Express in Quebec, but that operation closed down in 2020 due to the the pandemic, with no word on what happened to the #26.
Also, check out the cool V-plow with the sharks teeth paint behind the #27. I didn't realize the MA&N had a V-plow and I don't think they've used it any time recently. Any photos I've seen of them fighting snow have them using the Jordan Spreader.
A shot of Utica station from trackside. These station once served three Class Is (New York Central, New York, Ontario & Western, and Delaware, Lackawanna & Western) and had 20 tracks. Today it's down to Amtrak and Adirondack Railroad and has three tracks, two for Amtrak and the other for the Adirondack. Still an impressive structure. The walkway over Track 1 and Track 2 is new construction. Originally there were tunnels under the tracks to the various platforms.
The eastbound Lake Shore Limited arriving into Utica with two P42DCs and Viewliner and Amfleet coaches, all things that will supposedly be going away in the near future.
Westbound CSX container train passing the stopped Lake Shore Limited. There was almost a non-stop flow of CSX container trains yesterday while I was there.
On the way home, some road construction sent me on a detour and I went past the curiously named Stop Seven Road (to add to the strangeness, other signs have it as Stop 7 Road). Kind of a weird name for a road. I turned down it and went in search of something.
That, right there, is the roadbed of the former New York, West Shore & Buffalo. It was purchased by the New York Central in 1887 under orders from J.P. Morgan to settle the rate war that New York Central and PRR were waging against other, with the PRR using the NYWS&B and the New York Central constructing the Southern Pennsylvania Railroad. The NYC made the New York, West Shore & Buffalo into the West Shore Line and largely used it as a freight line. But in 1907, the New York Central electrified a portion of it, from Utica, NY to Syracuse, NY, with a third-rail system to operate interurban cars under the Oneida Railway Company name. The road name comes from the fact that the crossing in Westmoreland was the seventh stop on the Oneida Railway Co., so the road simply became Stop Seven Road. The West Shore is long gone, with electric interurban service ending in 1930, but the roadbed is still identifiable.
An old postcard showing the interurban cars at Utica for the inaugural trip. Third-rail interurban cars were exceedingly rare.
And another at Sherrill.
An old photo at Vernon
And artwork showing the Oneida Castle station. This was a fascinating structure, with turreted towers and two levels. The top level served the West Shore/Oneida Railway Co., while the New York, Ontario & Western passed under the West Shore at a 90 degree angle.
Well, that's awkward: Spain officials quit over trains that were too wide for tunnels
02Pilot said:Well, that's awkward: Spain officials quit over trains that were too wide for tunnels
That happened here in the US but it was back in '36. The Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac ordered some 4-8-4s from Baldwin and either they sent the wrong specs to Baldwin or Baldwin just didn't pay attention to the details, because the resulting engines were delivered and the RF&P found that they were several inches too wide to properly clear the tunnels in Washington nad they had too heavy of an axle-load to traverse the Long Bridge. These two factors forever consigned the engines to the Virginia side of the river and freight service. Although they were pressed into emergency passenger service on occasion, they always stayed on the south side of the river. One can only wonder how they were delivered from Baldwin to the RF&P at that time. Two years later, Baldwin delivered another batch of 4-8-4s that fortunately could operate into Washington.
Another similar example, and an even more ridiculous "doesn't meet spec" situation. Amtrak just announced their new deal with Siemens Mobility (boy, someone at Amtrak has to be getting kickbacks from Siemens) for 83 new Airo trainsets. Within a month, the Amtrak Office of Inspector General announced that the Airo program was already behind schedule by 6 months and was going to go $42.5 million over budget. The reason?
According to the new Office of Inspector General report, within weeks of the deal being inked delays began. In one example from the report, Amtrak waited three months after signing the contract with Siemens before its food and beverage personnel reviewed the design of the proposed food service car. They found that the initial design lacked the necessary food storage space to accommodate longer trips and required additional space for customers to stand and move through the car. As a result, Amtrak initiated a change order to redesign the café car, which increased program costs by $42.5 million and will delay the delivery of the first trainsets by nearly six months, the report said.
It'd almost be amusing if it wasn't our taxpayer dollars being wasted.
Another example of equipment that didn't quite fit was PRR's ridiculous S1 class 6-4-4-6 Duplex. Originally intended as an 80"-drivered 4-4-4-4 Duplex, it somehow morphed into a 6-4-4-6 with 84" drivers before construction began. Intended as a streamlined flagship locomotive, the result was a locomotive that was too heavy and too large to fit over quite a bit of the system. It didn't fit in any of the roundhouses or on any of the turntable, it couldn't negotiate the tracks into Pittsburgh station, and the PRR had to borrow the CB&Q's wye to turn it at Chicago. They extended the one roundhouse stall at Crestline to fit the #6100 and added a run-through track on as well, since it didn't fit the turntable. Even when using the wyes to turn it, it was prone to derailing due to the long rigid wheelbase. Constructed in 1939, it was placed in service in 1940, rapidly bumped down to secondary trains between Crestline and Chicago, and was out of service by 1945. There was reportedly discussion of preserving the locomotive, but the PRR's fortunes were headed downhill in 1946, and the S1 was a big, heavy locomotive that would fetch a hefty chunk of scrap metal. In 1949 it was scrapped, after a disappointing 5 year career. If I had to guess at the 4 year wait before it being removed from service and being scrapped, I would guess it had to do with waiting for the equipment trusts to run out (1949 was the ten year anniversary of construction). Ahhh, how much happier would the PRR have been if they simply would have built an 80"-drivered Northern in the vein of the UP FEF-3 or the New York Central S-1b and called it a day?
Another engine that was a bit too big for the railroad that owned it was the Chicago Great Western's 2-10-4s that they purchased in 1930. An uncharacteristically large locomotive for a rather unassuming, and nearly forgotten, railroad, the big 2-10-4s drastically improved freight speed and tonnage over the CGW but came with their own logistical headaches. Among them was that they could not enter Kansas City, because the Missouri River bridge at East Leavenworth, MO could not support the 2-10-4s. They had to be cut off there, and then their old light Mikados had to handle the train for the 27 mile run to KC. Also, one of the big newcomers was placed on a siding to let another train by and, while standing still, rolled over on it's side. There were places where passenger trains went 'in the hole' when meeting freights because light siding rail could not cope with the big 2-10-4s. Also to help pay for these huge engines, a lot of employees lost their jobs. The shop force at Oelwein, Iowa was reduced. The Terminals at East Stockton, Illinois and Conception, Missouri were closed. Even the operators at the various coal chutes were reduced to just one man. These bigger engines hauled more cars, which resulted in fewer trains so the trainmen and enginemen took a hit. A CGW engineer by the name of Frank Anderson was asked by a superintendent named Charlie Foster what he thought of the new 2-10-4 that he was wheeling. Anderson's reply was "I don't." When Foster asked "Whats the matter with them?" Anderson's reply was "They pull too many cars."
In reply to NickD :
It's our kids, grandkids and great grandkids money. We can barely pay the interest on this nonsense.
In 1956, the PRR was forced to lease ATSF 5011-class 2-10-4s for use in coal service between Columbus and Sandusky. The PRR was experiencing a motive power shortage, since they had parked a lot of motive power during the Great Depression and some of it had never been returned to service and fallen into disrepair from decades of storage, and the new Q2 Duplexes had all been knocked out of service with issues with the boilers cracking in 1952, spreading the remaining I1sas and J1s thin. Eleven of the big ATSF Texas types were run northeast to Columbus, where ATSF put them into coal drag service. One of the issues that the PRR had though, was that while their Columbus roundhouse could accommodate I1sas and J1s, the leased 5011s were several feet too long for the turntable. The Pennsy's solution was to bolt angled rail extensions onto the turntable that cleared the tracks around the pit. The 5011s would have their oil and water cisterns run almost empty, and then the rear truck of the tender would be carefully backed up onto the extension and they would be turned and then pulled forward into the roundhouse.
The other big issue that the Pennsy had was that the 5011s were all oil-fired and the PRR's motive power was all coal-fired, so the PRR lacked the infrastructure to fuel the the leased engines (they were also leasing RF&P 4-8-4s and 2-8-4s and Reading T-1s on Lines East, but those were all coal-fired and not an issue.) You can see in this photo, to the left rear, they had a string of tank cars parked along the ready tracks as oil storage for fueling the engines. Also, to the far left, you can see the strings of dead motive power, waiting for the cutting torch.
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