Grassroots Railroad Sports?

1890 

Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad “KATY” #311

4-4-0  American

Baldwin Locomotive Works

Number 311 is the engine that pulled the famous "KATY Flyer," a commemorative train which consisted of a unique series of historic railroad cars:  Caboose#1, Box Car #12321, Coach #10 and Flatcar #12145. This unit of engine and cars was named after the MKT's St. Louis to Texas passenger train. The #311 engine was originally built to burn coal, but it was converted to burn oil in 1923 while undergoing an extensive rebuild. Engine #311 is the sole surviving MKT (KATY) steam engine.  The engine is at the St Louis Museum of Transport

Antique train replica.

In reply to 914Driver :

Colebrookdale Railroad has a fleet of "Gothic Era" passenger cars like that. I actually have a ticket to ride aboard their lounge car on April 16th. Hopefully this time a tractor trailer doesn't smack the bridge the week I'm supposed to ride with them

They also have a gorgeous ex-PRR GP9 that is their primary passenger power.

They also have acquired one of the ex-Lake Superior & Ishpeming 2-8-0s (there's literally a dozen of them in various states of preservation) that is going to look great once they get it operational. It ran at Grand Canyon Railroad, and then was sold to Iowa Pacific and they ran it as late as 2013, and it was stored inside from then on, so it's not a complete ground-up restoration. I hope they give it a Russian iron boiler jacket (which is a dark blue) with gold leaf to match their GP9.

The Colebrookdale Geep has a really nice livery. Almost Baltimore & Ohio-ish, but not quite. It's actually a GP10, having been rebuilt by Illinois Central at Paducah for Conrail. Fortunately it was one of the early batches that they produced, which retained the high hood while still receiving all the mechanical and electrical upgrades.

The Colebrookdale Railroad name actually goes back to 1865, when a railroad between Pottstown, PA and Boyerstown, PA was chartered. It was completed in 1869, and immediately leased to the Philadelphia & Reading, which became better known as the Reading Company in 1924. This was a common tactic by the Reading, and presumably other railroads of the era, when evaluating construction of a new branch. They would charter an independent company, lay out a route, then do a bonds sale. If there was enough interest, and enough bonds sold, the Reading would buy any remaining bonds, construct the line, and then lease the line to itself. They constructed the Pickering Valley Railroad, the Perkiomen Railroad, and the Allentown Railroad in similar fashions. While it technically existed on paper as the Colebrookdale Railroad, it was always referred to as the Colebrookdale Branch or the Colebrookdale Spur, and it connected to the Reading mainline at Pottstown. At the end of 1945, the Reading Company officially merged the twelve various railroads that they owned into the company, ending the existence of the Colebrookdale Railroad.

In 1976, when Conrail was being formed, ownership of the line remained with the reorganized Reading estate, since it was deemed as "light density", although Conrail continued to operate it under state subsidy until 1982. It was sold to the state of Pennsylvania in 1982, and the Anthracite Railroad was formed to operate the Colebrookdale Branch, along with the Perkiomen Branch and the Allentown Branch, which were also acquired in a similar manner. In 1989, the Reading, Blue Mountain & Northern (now Reading & Northern) took over as the operator of the Colebrookdale Branch, and they even ran the #425 over the branch at least once, but in 1995 did not renew the option to operate the line. It was replaced by East Penn Railways, and in 2001, Berks County bought the Colebrookdale Branch from the state. In 2007, East Penn Railroad (East Penn Railway was bought out by Penn Eastern Railway, who was bought out by East Penn Railroad. Confusing, right?) bought the branch off of Berks County, but then a year later petitioned to abandon it, on the grounds of it being financially untenable. Berks County instead bought it back in 2009, and in 2010, the Eastern Berks Gateway Railroad was formed to handle freight service over the Colebrookdale Branch, while in 2014, the Colebrookdale Railroad name was revived for passenger service over the rails.

The Colbrookdale Railroad uses the intriguing "The Secret Valley Line" slogan, since it operates through the Secret Valley Natural, Recreation, and Heritage Area along the along the Manatawny and Ironstone Creeks. Although I think Strasburg Rail Road's "The Road To Paradise" is still the top slogan to beat.

Regarding the Reading Company, I recently learned that all 1306 miles of rail that it operated were within a 115 mile radius of Reading, PA, which is kind of a mind-boggling statistic. While considered a Class I then, the consensus is that by today's standards, due to its short reach and the fact that it didn't leave the state of PA on its own rails, the Reading Company would be a regional railroad.

Sixty-six years ago today, the New York, Ontario & Western made it's final run and filed for abandonment, one of the first American Class Is to throw in the towel. Always a financially frail railroad that was barely hanging on, the O&W was derisively nicknamed the Old Woman, the Old & Wobbly, and the Old & Weary. In later years, when it tried to use "New, Young, Out & Working" as a slogan no one was fooled. It was given the damning pre-mortem eulogy of "This road really starts nowhere, goes nowhere, avoids all large industrial centers, and ends nowhere," by A.V. Neusser and C.E. Pearce, from the article "The NYO&W," from the August 1942 issue of Trains Magazine, and even railroad president Robert Fowler was also noted to have publicly wondered why the railroad was even built and why, after entering bankruptcy as the New York & Oswego Midland, it hadn't been allowed to stay there. Historians widely agree that the O&W was simply a railroad that shouldn't have been built. The Great Lakes traffic at the port of Oswego never materialized as envisioned, and when the anthracite mines failed, the highways stole the milk traffic and folks from New York City started heading to more exotic locales than the Catskills for vacation, no amount of rapid dieselization, Central Traffic Control, and rebranding as a bridge line could save it.

O&W FTs at Cadosia, NY, one year after the shutdown, awaiting their fate.

More NYO&W FTs stored on the Erie in the summer of '57. Following the shutdown, the FTs remained here until 1967 when most were acquired by the New York Central as trade-in units on new GP40s. In addition, four other units, an A-B-B-A set, were sold to the B&O.

An amusing anecdote regarding the NYO&W's Class W Consolidations, nicknamed "Long Johns". When the ICC passed a mandate that required stokers on locomotives that carried 190,000 lb or more of engine weight on their drive axles. The Class Ws fell under that mandate, but the NYO&W was cash-strapped and couldn't afford to retrofit 26 locomotives with stokers. Their response was to tinker with the spring equalization and to move the two single-stage air compressors out from under the running boards and up onto the pilot deck. The changes did get the axle loadings under the ICC limit, but the reconfigured "Long Johns" were prone to derailing the rear axle when reversing, and it likely didn't please the firemen who would rather not be hand-bombing the engine. The twin single-stage air compressors also highlight another unusual idiosncracy of the NYO&W. With plenty of grades on their route, they needed more air capacity than a single single-stage air compressor could offer, but they didn't care for cross-compound air pumps because if it failed, you lost all air. But they also weren't going to spend the money for two cross-compound compressors, so they made do with two single-stage compressors.

Cars are tough enough, but if I wanted to do a train, the Hudson J3a 4-6-4 sends blood to all the wrong places.

A Western Pacific freight comes off the Highline and begins heading west to Portola at the Keddie Wye, behind an impressive lash-up of F-Units: F7A #922-A leads the train, followed by F3A #926-A still wearing passenger colors and nose logo, then two F7 or F3 B-units, another A-unit, a B-unit and another A-unit. F3A #926-A is a stranger in a strange land, as it was originally built as New York, Ontario, and Western #503. After the NYO&W's 1957 abandonment it was purchased by WP, along with another O&W F3A, for the Sacramento Northern, which was a WP subsidiary. It eventually was transferred to the Western Pacific when the SN's corporate identity began to fade into the parent company's, first as #801-D and then renumbered to #926-A in 1968. Sadly, it was retired in 1970 and traded into EMD towards GP40s. Pity since there are no preserved NYO&W or Sacramento Northern covered wagons around.

NickD said:

A Western Pacific freight comes off the Highline and begins heading west to Portola at the Keddie Wye, behind an impressive lash-up of F-Units: F7A #922-A leads the train, followed by F3A #926-A still wearing passenger colors and nose logo, then two F7 or F3 B-units, another A-unit, a B-unit and another A-unit. F3A #926-A is a stranger in a strange land, as it was originally built as New York, Ontario, and Western #503. After the NYO&W's 1957 abandonment it was purchased by WP, along with another O&W F3A, for the Sacramento Northern, which was a WP subsidiary. It eventually was transferred to the Western Pacific when the SN's corporate identity began to fade into the parent company's, first as #801-D and then renumbered to #926-A in 1968. Sadly, it was retired in 1970 and traded into EMD towards GP40s. Pity since there are no preserved NYO&W or Sacramento Northern covered wagons around.

This lash-up *almost* looks on purpose livery wise.

In reply to 914Driver :

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a serious attempt to recreate a Hudson. Maybe the T-1 Trust's successes will kick off one. Although between the two extinct signature NYC locomotives, the Niagara is probably the better choice, due to greater pulling power. But, seeing how many big Northerns there are that are all dressed up with no place to really go (SP #4449, SP&S #700, N&W #611, SSW #819 when it was operational), perhaps an F-12 Ten Wheeler, a K-11 Pacific, or H-10b Mikado would make the most sense.

At the ripe old age of 106 the Arcade & Attica has finally gotten it's first road switcher. Actually, it's even older if you go back to it's predecessor, the narrow-gauge Tonawanda Valley Railroad, which was built in 1880. The A&A dieselized in 1941, but it did so with a single GE 44-tonner. It purchased another 44-tonner in 1947, and over the years has also acquired a 65-tonner and a 50-tonner that was ballasted to 65 tons. It actually brought steam back in the '60s with the purchase of a 2-8-0 from Boyne City Railroad and a 4-6-0 from the Escanaba & Lake Superior. But through it all, it never owned a road switcher, nor a diesel not manufactured by GE. All excursions and freight service have been handled by the aging center cab GEs or steam power. But yesterday it was announced that Arcade & Attica has purchased Western New York & Pennsylvania #406. WNY&P is a former D&H Alco RS-3u, the chop-nose RS-3s that they fitted with 2000hp 251 V12s. Particularly interesting was that while it's final number with the D&H was #506, it also was #1976 for a while. Yes, this is the former D&H Bicentennial unit. It was originally RS-3 #4112, then was rebuilt to RS-3u #1976, then was renumbered to D&H #506, then was sold to the Tioga Central as they're #506 (still in Bicentennial colors in 1990), then G&W bought the Tioga Central and purged all the Alcos and it was sold to the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville and was their #506, and then went to the Western New York & Pennsylvania and became their #406, where it was repainted into the WNY&P black and yellow.

That RS-3u should look pretty good once it's repainted in the Arcade & Attica orange with black

I am a little concerned at the news that the WNY&P is selling off one of their four-axle Alcos though. A few years back, the WNY&P was an all-Alco/MLW operation. They had big ex-Cartier Mining M636s and an M630 for heavy road jobs, and they had a bunch of four axle power, like C424s, two C430s, an RS-18u, and an RS-3u for local jobs and switching. It was also a pretty railfan-friendly road, you could get a waiver to walk around the property, and you could call ahead and get the schedule and assignments that they were running for the day. They got a new president and I listened to a podcast with her and they asked her about the Alcos and the answer was "Oh, they're great, they're hard workers and they've got a lot of character. They're not going anywhere. We've got a lot of parts and the know-how to keep them running, and they're such an ingrained part of the company personality." Within a year, they purchased a bunch of big GE AC6000CWs off of CSX and put the M636s and M630s out to pasture, stopped issuing waivers, and will no longer give the duty board to anyone who calls. The 4-axle stuff is still running around in local service, but part of me worries that them selling the #506 is maybe the start of the 4-axle stuff getting parked too.

I will say though that those AC6000CWs look pretty awesome.

One of the parked WNY&P six-axle Alcos, C630M #630, is ex-Arkansas & Missouri, which is another All-Alco bastion that has fallen. Once upon a time, it was common to see a solid 5-unit set of C420s working away on the A&M but in recent years, they've wittled down their Alco fleet to just ten units and those are mostly just assigned to the occasional excursion, with big SD70MACs taking over the road duties. Lake State Railway, which used the old Detroit & Mackinac rails, had an all-Alco/MLW collection but retired the last of them in 2011. Going even further back, you had the Kankakee, Beaverville & Southern, but the 2002 purchase of six GP38-2Ms pretty much chased the Alcos off the properties there. The Livonia, Avon & Lakeville is still holding on as an Alco standout (actually the parent company of the WNY&P and the Ontario Midland), and of course there are all the various Genesee Valley Transportation companies (Depew, Lancaster & Western RR, Falls Road RR, Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern RR, Delaware-Lackawanna RR).