Grassroots Railroad Sports?

The T1 Trust posted a progress report on the #5550 and it's mindblowing how far along they are. Being able to get that complete "coast-to-coast" tender that was stored at Hamburg, NY saved them $3 million and a bunch of time. They did say though, that the next part of the project, casting the frame, is expected to be the longest and most expensive part of the project. They can't even cast it in one piece, like they were originally constructed, because there are only two or three foundries that can do a pour of that size and none of them guaranteed they could get it right on the first, or even the second, attempt. So it's going to be cast in smaller chunks, which also makes it easier to handle and do the finish machine work, and then welded together.

So, Lance Fritz, CEO of Union Pacific for the past eight years, is being ousted at Union Pacific, citing UP's dismal performance over the past couple years. And to be honest, yeah, UP has really underperformed the last few years. UP has ranked the worst in safety, volume growth, and revenue growth. The STB has had to step in multiple times to kick them in the ass and tell them to make emergency deliveries to crucial customers. They've had a bunch of service meltdowns. The whole issue with trains being robbed at the Port of LA was partially UP's fault; they let go of their railroad police to save money.

What's not good? Soroban Capital Partners, a hedge fund that is heavily invested in UP, is the ones ousting Fritz, and they're also citing cost management, EBIT growth, and total shareholder return as their reasons for showing him the door. Even worse, they're propping up Jim Vena to take over. Who's Jim Vena? Well, he was brought in to Union Pacific in 2019 to help the railroad change to a new operating model that relies on fewer, longer trains and significantly fewer employees and locomotives to move freight, but Vena left after less than two years on the job. Before that he was ops chief at Canadian National under.... Hunter Harrison. Yeah, so a hedge fund is putting a worshipper of the Church of PSR, a disciple of Hunter Harrison himself, in charge of UP. One who, at CN, was also very anti-public relations. This seems like a truly, truly bad decision.

In reply to NickD :

I found this part confusing: "Rock Island operations include the Gulf & Ship Island shortline in Gulfport..." That line is currently KCS(or is the CN deal finalized?).

However the details are on Rock Island's site: "Offline customers without direct rail service can take advantage of rail via transload services offered in the Bernard Bayou Industrial Park."

I was curious, because it seemed like this line was basically abandoned & wondered how much money it would take to acquire it(not like I'd have the $$$ regardless). But there had been some work done on it last year, so I wondered if something was up. 

This is nearly the whole line. It goes maybe another 1/2-mile to the right, crosses a busy 4-lane road, and heads into a big Mississippi Power plant. There are remnants & signs of former sidings going to the north off Seaway(I think only 1 still exists), and hints of 1 or 2 that crossed Seaway to the south in the distant path. 

I really don't see that much opportunity here for them though. It's mostly small industrial supply places - I go up there for welding supplies or steel tubing. 
 

Now just to the west & slightly south of where it intersects KCS is another line that goes west about 15 miles to a big DuPont plant. I really doubt RI bought that too though. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

From what it sounds like, Kansas City Southern still owns the line, it's just that Rock Island Rail is the designated operator. If there's an operation that is too low volume or doesn't have a large enough profit margin, Class Is will sometimes farm out operations to a shortline if there's demand from a community or business. The Class I holds onto the rails, so that way they have ultimate control, say a new business is built that spikes capacity and now it's worth it for the Class I to take over. Or, sometimes, after a couple years, they just outright sell the line to the shortline and get it off the tax roll. Reading between the lines on a Railway Age article with the announcement of the GS&I's founding, it definitely sounds like the Harris County Development Commission leaned on KCS to get that line going again. The Bernard Bayou line sounds like it might just be a sales pitch ("Hey, look, we've got transload facilities! Come use us!")

Holy E36 M3, I didn't see this coming. Genesee Valley Transportation has purchased "NKP #190", formerly D&H #18. Yes, that is one of the four Alco PA-4us that the D&H used on the Laurentian and the Adirondack. Doyle McCormack repatriated it from Mexico as a rusted, beat-up hulk and has spent decades restoring it to the appearance of the Nickel Plate "Bluebird" that he rode on as a child. He hunted down the correct trucks from a set of Erie-Builts converted to a welded-rail plant and he sourced a 2000hp 12-251C engine, generator, traction motors, and electrical cabinet from a wrecked BCRail M420B (putting it in a weird sport, historically, since it was built as a PA-1 with a 2000hp 244 V16 and then upgraded with a 2400hp 251 V16, making it somewhere in between the two configurations). McCormack has gotten it real close to being done (cosmetically it's finished, mechanically it just needs that last 10% that takes up 90% of the time) but has apparently decided to part ways with it. So now it's coming east, to former D&H territory, for the Alco Doctor at GVT/Delaware-Lackawanna, where it will be gotten running and it will lead excursions in Northeastern Pennsylvania, including on former D&H trackage operated by DL. GVT officials likened the acquisition of NKP #190 to buying the plane of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to obtain the Spirit of St. Louis of locomotives,” said Michael Thomas, president of GVT Rail. “On behalf of our ownership group and the entire team at GVT Rail, we are ecstatic that Doyle has entrusted us with the stewardship of his great gift to rail preservation.” 

Of course, the D&H faithful are already screaming "Cut those dorky numberboards off and repaint it to D&H colors." Personally, I'm just glad that I'll get the opportunity to see an operating Alco PA without having to travel all the way across the country.

We've now got Reading & Northern running trips out of Scranton's backyard, from Pittston to Jim Thorpe. Now GVT/Delaware-Lackawanna is talking about running trips out of Scranton over the old D&H Penn Division using an Alco PA. Boy, Steamtown NHS is really getting their thunder, what little of it there is anymore, stolen. They run an 0-6-0 around the yard occasionally, and even less frequently take a trip up over D-L rails to Moscow with said 0-6-0 or an NKP-painted GP9. Oh, and a good chunk of the museum has been closed since last fall because the heating system failed. And it gets $6 million of federal funding a year.

Stumbled across this neat photo of strangers in a strange land: those are ex-Erie-Lackawanna C425s at Burlington Northern's Interbay roundhouse in Seattle, Washington with a BN (ex-CB&Q) GP30 for company. They were on their way up to British Columbia to new owner, BC Rail. The story is that E-L purchased 24 of them in 1964, and they had some sort of 15 or 20 year financing on them. Well, along comes Hurrican Agnes in 1972, which sinks E-L, and now the government is looking at putting E-L into Conrail. Whoever the financing company was for the locomotives doesn't like something about the wording of how equipment will be conveyed into Conrail (if I had to guess, they were afraid at how debts were being absolved for the founding companies and were worried their locomotives would get taken by Conrail but they wouldn't get the rest of their money) and so they put their foot down and say that those C425s will not be conveyed to Conrail. BCRail at the time was, after decades of poor financial health, experiencing a renaissance and needed more power, and those C425s would work nicely. In the lead-up to C-Day, the units were marshalled west to E-L's Brier Hill Shop and company material such as radios, fire extinguishers, tools and extra knuckles, etc., were removed and the units departed Brier Hill for Chicago on March 30, 1976 so as to be off the property prior to C-Day (April 1st, 1976). They then worked their way west on Burlington Northern trains, still in E-L colors and numbers, then went north to Canada.

From what one source says, E-L had really neglected them in the 12 years of ownership, and by the time they got to their new owner, BCRail had to do quite a bit of maintenance and repairs to them before putting them into regular service, which brought the overall cost to within a stone's throw of just outright buying new units. The lead unit of the four is #2456, which was one of a handful that ended up going back southeast to central New York and is now in it's original number and very similar GVT corporate livery as Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern #2456, and operates just a stone's throw from the old DL&W/E-L Utica Branch. E-L #2453/BCR #803, E-L #2455/BCR #805 also made the same journey, and a couple BCRail M420Ws also made the voyage with them

A couple points that someone made about Doyle Mccormack selling the Alco PA and possible reasons why:

One, McCormack turns 80 this year. Rather than tinkering with it on his spare time, it can go over to D-L, where the Alco Doctor, Don Colangelo, and his boys can get it running hopefully relatively quick and it'll run in his lifetime.

Two, also related to age, making the move now allows him to have a say in the locomotive's future. No sitting around, rotting away, while the family and caretakers debate over what will become of it. That's the proper way to preserve a legacy. 

Three, the Oregon Rail Heritage Foundation has their two big steam locomotives, SP&S #700 and SP #4449, and recently acquired Polson Logging logger Mikado #2 and Mount Emily three-truck Shay #1, which has taxed their indoor storage and he has had to move NKP #190 outdoors.

Also, today is the 53rd anniversary of the Burlington Northern merger. On March 2nd, 1970, the CB&Q, Great Northern, Northern Pacific, and Spokane, Portland & Seattle were all merged to form Burlington Northern. There had actually been two previous attempts at a merger, in 1927 and 1955, but they finally succeeded in 1970. Unlike the Penn Central merger two years before, the Burlington Northern merger was pretty seamless, and was an example of a megamerger done right. Part of that has to do with the fact that GN and NP had co-owned both the CB&Q and the SP&S for almost half a century, so they were already pretty well coordinated.

A neat photo taken in the early days of Burlington Northern, with a U-boat from the three major partners: NP, CB&Q and GN. 

NickD said:

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.

So, I found the answer to what the story is with L&BR #1951. With the impending abandonment of the L&BR and conversion to a trail, they loaded it on a rollback and moved it down by truck to Utica for assessment for a return to service for switching cars at Utica yard. I'm kind of amazed that it's move largely flew under the radar.

Also, ahead of the truck, you can see MA&N #2454, formerly E-L #2454/BCRail #804, which was assigned to the north end operations up at Carthage. I think the #2454 will be hanging around at the Carthage engine house in hopes of some sort of resumption of services on the Newton Falls branch. That line served the only industrially-zoned area in the Adirondacks, the paper mills at Newton Falls and the mines at Benson. The paper mill and the mines closed up, which idled the line, but the state has been trying to woo industries into building up there, and part of that was completely rehabilitating the line from Carthage east to Newton Falls. It hasn't seen any service runs other than car storage though.

One of my favorite pieces of Burlington Northern rolling stock were these 1890s-era outside-braced wooden cabooses from CB&Q'S Texas-based subsidiary, Fort Worth & Denver. Such a hilariously incongruous mix of old construction and "modern" corporate iconography.

In reply to NickD :

It's pretty crazy that a wooden caboose that old could remain in service so long. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

My guess is that it was a case of railroads were pushing for crew reductions and weren't interested in building new cabooses (cabeese?) if they were potentially going to be ditching them in the near future. 

Burlington Northern #6462 at the yard in Klamath, Oregon in a prototype livery. CB&Q ordered 15 SD45s in 1968 and with the Burlington Northern merger already approved, they were delivered in a unique paint scheme that was potentially going to become the Burlington Northern look. Fortunately this didn't become the actual BN livery.

In reply to NickD :

Looks similar to the Go Transit Livery from the 90's

(tried to add a photo but refuses to link)

Another BN oddity, E7A #9920. The stainless-steel side panels are a giveaway that the #9920 is formerly a CB&Q unit, and BN painted the nose with Cascade Green with white stripes. The #9920 was the sole E7 to be repainted to BN colors. Only a year after BN's formation, Amtrak took over intercity passenger trains, with Amtrak taking no E-units older than an E8, and BN picked the 25 best E8s and E9s to send to Morrison-Knudsen for rebuilding into E9Ams for their commuter operations. 

An ex-SP&S Alco C424 leads two SD45s in two different Great Northern liveries and a third SD45 in BN Cascade Green.

An ex-NP SD45 leads one of the CB&Q/BN SD45s and an ex-CB&Q GE U-Boat out of St. Paul at Dayton's Bluff on trackage shared with Milwaukee Road, Rock Island and Chicago & North Western.

Two ex-CB&Q GP30s and a GN GP30 and either an SDP40 or SDP45 congregate at Savanna Yard in Savanna, IL. The flat end of the long hood on the unit in Big Sky Blue is a giveaway that it's a passenger SD unit. Rather than the typical angled hood end of EMDs, the passenger models had a squared-off hood end to accomodate a steam generator.

Great Northern, and subsequently Burlington Northern, had a run-through agreement with freight trains over Western Pacific's "Inside Gateway" line. After the BN merger, BN would intentionally assign their more problemative motive power to these trains to make WP crews and shop forces have to deal with them. In this instance, there's three GP35s, two ex CB&Q and one ex-GN, and a single ex-SP&S Alco. The SP&S Alcos frequently drew this assignment.

Four big Burlington Northern 6-axle Alcos get their sand bunkers topped off by Western Pacific crewman at Stockton, California, having just come off of a run-through freight.

The #6401 is an ex-Northern Pacific SD45, still in NP freight colors, while the GP30 in Cascade Green is an ex-Great Northern unit. Both are at the Interbay roundhouse in Seattle.

I'm curious what chain of events led to an entire lashup of power running long hood forward over the former SP&S. Did somebody forget to wye or turn the power on a turntable? And, oh, what a lashup it is. A repainted ex-GN GP9 leads another ex-GN GP9 still in Big Sky Blue, followed by a pooled power Western Pacific GE U-boat in the awesome silver and orange livery, and then one of the ex-SP&S Alcos. Photo was taken on the north bank of the Columbia River in Whitcomb, Washington.

A run-through train on the Western Pacific at Keddies, CA. One of the ex-SP&S Alco C636s is in the lead, with a WP U30B and GP35 in tow, and then another ex-SP&S Alco, in BN colors bringing up the rear. The WP GP35s were interesting tales of what could have been. WP originally ordered GP30s from EMD, optioned with high hoods and the big Pyle National "Golden Glow" headlights, to be delivered in WP's orange and silver livery. The order was late in the GP30's life cycle though, and EMD instead offered to build GP35s instead. Then, EMD informed them that the high hood would be an extra-cost option moving forward, so WP went with the short hood. So I stead of getting the very last GP30s, WP got the very first GP35s.