Grassroots Railroad Sports?

The rarest machine be on the BN roster were the two Alco C415s that were from the SP&S. Part of the Alco-GE split had been due to GE's frustration with Alco in not pursuing EMD into the 1200hp-1500hp switcher market. Even Baldwin, Lima-Hamilton and Fairbanks-Morse had offered 1200hp switchers, but Alco was content with the 1000hp S-2/S-4, while EMD ran away with sales of the SW9, SW1200 and SW1500. Alco would actually backtrack with the 800hp S-5 and 900hp S-6. Finally, in 1966, Alco introduced a 1500hp switcher, the C415, but it was a weird not-quite-centercab switcher. Offered with three different cab height options, multiple truck options, different speed gearing and even an optional steam generator. But the unique V8 251 engine had harmonic issues, the odd layout had poor weight balance over the trucks that made them prone to wheelslip, and the high cab floor caused issues with engineers judging distances to cars when switching. The C415 flopped, hard, selling just 27 units. GN and NP purchased two for SP&S, and reportedly had more C415s and C636s on order, but Alco closed their doors before building them. In fact, Alco had orders for over 100 units when they went out of business, but Studebaker-Worthington had stripped Alco off the operating capital that they needed to purchase materials, forcing them to cancel those orders.

BN #9901 on the Chicago-Aurora commuter run. The #9901 is the first of the twenty-five E9Ams that Morrison-Knudsen rebuilt for BN. BN selected the best of the E8s and E9s in their pool, M-K upgraded the E8 engines to E9 spec, overhauled the electrical systems, and swapped out the steam generators for Head End Power generators to work with the new bilevel commuter coaches.

In reply to NickD :

That's a really cool trestle. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

That's the Keddie Wye, which connected Western Pacific's Feather River Route and Inside Gateway line. There is also a tunnel immediately off the one leg of the wye

What a weird combo. An SW1500, an E-unit, and an F-unit booster

Well.....E36 M3.

Five years after the merger, and F45 #6608 is still hanging onto it's Big Sky Blue livery. The two F45s are joined by an Amtrak SDP40F at the Interbay roundhouse 

A helper set drifts back east after helping a heavy westbound freight up to Summit, Montana while an eastbound freight passes by

Two ex-Northern Pacific RS-11s, one still in NP black and yellow, are paired up with an ex-SP&S C424 at BN's Hoyt St. Yard in downtown Portland, OR between assignments. Since SP&S was the one Alco heavy railroad in the BN merger, the NP RS-11s and RS-3s were reassigned from the Duluth area to Vancouver, WA after the merger. The Alcos remained active for the first 10 years or so of BN's existence.

Contracted to Amtrak, Burlington Northern NW2 #517 switches a cut of passenger cars, including a BN business car, at Amtrak's Union Station on the American Bicentennial, July 4th, 1976, in downtown Chicago, Illinois. BN #517 is the former Chicago Burlington & Quincy #9220, built by EMD in August 1946.

The Belknap Street engine facilities in Superior, Wisconsin. At first glance, the #1365 really doesn't seem noteworthy, but actually it's a rare "GP5". Great Northern traded in sixteen EMD FTs to EMD, who reused the engines, generators, and traction motors in a GP9 shell. Since it has the early D12 generator and D37 traction motors, the engine's output remained at 1350hp. While EMD simply called them a GP9M, GN nicknamed them a GP5, since they were less powerful than the 1500hp GP7. By this point the #1365 had received a chopped nose as well. While no as-built GP5s remain, there are incredibly still a few, believed to be six, on BNSF's roster, although you'd be hard-pressed to recognize them. In the '90s, BN had Morrison-Knudsen rebuild numerous GP5s, GP7s, GP9s and GP18s into "GP28Ms", which were a ground-up overhaul with updated control stands, Dash-2 electrical gear, new dynamic brakes, and engines uprated to 2000hp with 645 power packs.

A Cascade Green C636 looms over a GP35 at Portland. The C636 was a big bruiser of a machine, but they were pretty unloved. None of the big 3600hp locomotives from the big three manufacturers were perfect, they were just too much power for the tech of the era, but the C636 was probably the worst of the bunch. ATSF was all sorts of interested in a cowl-bodied version (like an F45 or U30CG) but then when the demonstrator burned down a traction motor on three of the four test runs, their interest quickly waned. They had traction motor problems, they had electrical fires from the aluminum wiring that GE and Alco both tried to use in the mid-'60s, there were issues with the 251 engines at those power levels. The C636s would pull like a bastard when they ran, but they rarely ran. Illinois Central bought six because they offered more pulling power than an SD45, and it was a shock because I was pretty much an all-EMD show, and they immediately hated them. They were either stored or leased out as much as possible.

An E9Am races out of Chicago with a commuter train, while a Precision National leaser GP7 shoves an Amtrak train back into the station.

Two BN F45s are on the head end of the North Coast Limited at Carkeek Park along Puget Sound in Seattle. Amtrak was having their derailment issues with the SDP40Fs and BN banned the SDP40Fs from their rails as a result. So, BN was substituting two F45s for power, with a steam generator car made from a converted E-unit booster to heat the old passenger equipment

Quite a lash-up of EMD power on this piggyback train. There's two SD45s, two GP35s, a GP30, an F7, and another unit I can't quite identify. The second SD45 has big Hustle Muscle lettering on it, which was originally Great Northern #400, the very first SD45 that EMD built. Great Northern gave it the nickname, and at railfan's request, BN reapplied the name when they repainted it into Cascade Green. The Hustle Muscle is still around and has been restored to GN colors and is in excursion service on the North Shore Scenic Railway.

1902 Sterand locomotivew car in Missouri.

A fascinating video that Railroading Rambler (based locally out of New Hartford) did of interviewing Jay Winn. I'd heard the name Jay Winn before, but I didn't realize that he too was local, also based in New Hartford/Utica area. Winn is a pretty famed photographer, audiographer, and model train builder, although he admits he hasn't done any photos or recordings since around 2002, because "everything looks the same now". He recounts some pretty fascinating tales, including riding in a cab of an NYC Niagara moving through Utica Yard in what had to be about the last steam locomotive to go through Utica, seeing the last NYO&W train, riding in both the the D&H PAs and the D&H sharks, "buying" an Alco RS-3 from D&H, a high-speed disembarkment of the ACL's Silver Meteor, and railfanning at Hoosac Tunnel. Winn was the guy who designed the livery for the D&H's RF-16s using a set of scale models. A buddy who worked at Colonie shops called him and said "Look, we just bought two RF-16s and we don't know how to paint them [Remember, D&H never owned any cab units until 1967 when they bought the PAs] so whip up a couple proposals to present." So Winn made three, one using the Altschul Blue livery they were using on freight power at the time, one using the ATSF-based Alco PA livery, and a third that was NYC lightning stripes (the RF-16s were ex-NYC) using D&H colors. 

NickD said:

Holy E36 M3, I didn't see this coming. Genesee Valley Transportation has purchased "NKP #190", formerly D&H #18.

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.

So, as someone pointed out, Doyle McCormack likely had the contract worded so that GVT has to leave it in NKP colors at least for a certain amount of time. Even if there isn't some sort of contract, it'd be pretty foolish to take a freshly repainted unit that doesn't run and make repainting it into a different livery a high priority. While the NKP didn't operate in Scranton, I did remember that Steamtown NHS does have an NKP Berkshire, #759, and an NKP GP9, #514, so there's definitely potential for some neat photo opportunities.

There are also the "DL&W" A-B-A set of F3s (actually ex-Bangor & Aroostook) at Steamtown, one A-Unit belonging to the Tri State Railway Historical Society and the other A- and B-Unit belonging to the Anthracite Railroads Historical Society. The DL&W and NKP interchanged at Buffalo, with the the Nickel Plate even operating out of the Lackawanna Terminal in Buffalo, and the two railroads jointly operated Hoboken-Chicago passenger trains. Not to mention the Lackawanna and Nickel Plate operated numerous run-through freight trains as far back as the 1890s. The Nickel Plate-Lackawanna Dispatch was the preferred route for shippers of fresh meat and dairy products all the up until the 1960s. So, it's highly likely that you would have seen NKP PA-1s and DL&W F3s near each other at Buffalo.

Mack made its first rail car in 1903, the oldest rail car maker in the country.

914Driver said:

Mack made its first rail car in 1903, the oldest rail car maker in the country.

I like how it's very obviously one of their trucks with a different front axle and different rear wheels. Mack also tried to crack into the locomotive market with some small industrial switchers. They did better than, say, Ingalls Shipbuilding, but that was still a tough market, with GE, Plymouth, Vulcan, Porter, and Whitcomb all fighting for market share.