Grassroots Railroad Sports?

The #152 in her original, as-built configuration. The tender is the noticeable difference, and actually the one it wears today is the third tender it's had. This is the tender it was delivered from Cooke with, and then at some point, L&N replaced them with slightly larger tenders off of retired GM&O steam locomotives. It wore this tender until retirement in '52, and then sat outside for many years before KRM began their restoration of the engine. After three decades, the GM&O tender was severely rusted out, and KRM wanted added capacity for excursions over L&N/Seaboard rails. They had a tender off of L&N L-1 Mountain #408, so the #408's tender was restored and mated to L&N #152, and it's worn that ever since. The ex-GM&O tender still sits in the weeds at KRM, and the tender shown here is long gone, scrapped by the L&N.

An L&N L-1 Mountain like what #152's tender came from. Although what is interesting is that L&N#152's tender, which came from L&N #408, is of all-welded construction, which was pretty rare on L&N engines. The L-1s were a rather rarely-photographed bunch, despite a class size of 20 locomotives that was rostered for 25-30 years. Like most L&N engines, rather ho-hum in their specifications, with 53,883 pounds of tractive effort from 69: drivers, a boiler pressure of 200 psi and 27"x30" cylinders. They sported an oversized headlamp with the road number painted on the lense, an L&N motive power trademark for their steam locomotives from the 'teens onward.

L&N #152 and Monon #52 at Big Stone Gap, VA, headed back to Loyall, KY with an excursion over the L&N. 

While it's not the mythological "Hudson in a warehouse", a rare, long-hidden, mostly-forgotten New York Central steam locomotive has resurfaced and is headed to the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. It is a 1924-built Vulcan Ironworks 0-4-0 saddle tank that belonged to Merchants Despatch Transportation. Merchants Despatch was a subsidiary of New York Central Systems from 1869 onward, and constructed, maintained and operated refrigerator cars, and later transitioned to being the main car repair facility for the New York Central. This 0-4-0 was used at the Merchants Despatch facilities in Despatch, NY (named for the company, it was later renamed to East Rochester), which turned out dozens of freight cars a day, and locomotives like these were used to move new cars to the yards for outbound delivery, bring in old cars to be repaired, and generally help move materials around the plant. In 1954, as the NYC rapidly modernized and steam was retired, the Merchants Despatch locomotives were also victims of this. MDT #5 was briefly displayed in front of the shops, but then was sold off to scrap metal dealer Rochester Iron & Metal. For many years it was displayed outside the scrap yard’s office on St. Paul Blvd. 

A gentleman by the name of John Virigilio, who had taken up a job as a school custodian after a brief stint with the New York Central as a fireman and brakeman from 1949 until 1954 when diesels replaced steam, took an interest in MDT #5. His family had been collecting railroad artifacts at their farm in Henrietta for some time, with the hopes of someday opening a museum. Virgilio made inquiries with Rochester Iron & Metal about purchasing #5, but the engine was priced just beyond his reach at $3,500.

In 1964, RI&M was closing down its operation on St. Paul Blvd., and considered lowering their asking price for the engine to just $1,250. Virgilio was working as a custodian for the Rush-Henrietta school district at the time, and launched an intense fundraising effort to cover the cost of purchasing the engine. Ultimately successful, MDT #5 was moved to Henrietta by truck on June 17, 1965 and John Virgilio formed the Mortimer Railroad Historical Society, named after the junction of the New York Central, Erie, and Lehigh Valley railroads located behind his home in Henrietta. His private museum opened on June 11, 1966, and a shed was built around the steam engine in 1972 to protect it from the weather and possible vandalism. After complaints from his neighbors and concerns about the security of the collection, public viewing came to an end, and the little steam engine was tucked away and basically forgotten. MDT #5 doesn't show up on any lists of preserved steam locomotives in New York, or on any lists of surviving New York Central steam locomotives.

Virigilio passed away at the age of 91 in 2021, and his son Barry reached out to the R&GV about finding a possible home for his father’s legacy. After touring the museum, Barry and his mother Phyllis agreed that R&GV would be the perfect new home for #5, since the museum preserves the history of the Rochester area and has several MDT freight cars in their collection. The locomotive was safely delivered to Industry, NY, home of the museum, on July 7, 2023 and eventual plans are for a full cosmetic restoration.

The saddletank has been removed for asbestos remediation, and the plan is to eventually have it so that the cab is open to visitors. An operational restoration is out of the picture, due to lack of funds, facilities to service and operate a steam locomotive, and crews educated on operating a steam locomotive.

Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society's Nickel Plate Road SD9 #358 rolled out of Progress Rail/EMD's paint booths at Muncie, Indiana in it's original livery, applied according to the original blueprints in PR/EMD's archives. FWRHS had the locomotive donated to them in 2010, when Norfolk Southern retired it (yes, NS had SD9s around as late as 2010) and since then, FWRHS volunteers have been chipping away at getting the SD9 back into it's original appearance. There was lots of rust and old paint and modifications to undo to get it back into as-built configuration. They've also spent considerable time getting the prime mover, which is the original 567C block with 645 power packs, up and running reliably. While at PR's shops, PR also helped with some slight mechanical troubleshooting, and once it returns to FWRHS's hands, they have some minor electrical work to do before it's up and running. 

The original EMD blueprints for the paint scheme.

NKP SD9s congregated at Dillonvale sometime after the NKP's dieselization.

NKP #358 in her final number and paint scheme before donation to the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. Built as NKP #358 in '57, it became Norfolk & Western #2358 in 1964 in the Pevler Blue livery, followed by the same number but the black and white livery. Then it became N&W #2958, followed by NS #2958 after the N&W/Southern merger. In the 1990s, Norfolk Southern overhauled ten SD9s, eight ex-NKP and two ex-Central of Georgia, into SD9Ms and renumbered them into the 50-series block, with the #358 becoming NS #57. NS assigned the SD9Ms to yard transfers, hump yard service, branch line freight, and eventually rebuilt the #57, and sister ex-NKP SD9M #52, into remote control platforms and sent them up to NJ to work on the Conrail Shared Assets Operations in 2007. As far as most know, they never actually were used at the CSAO territory in Pavonia, and in 2010, NS finally struck them from the roster. NS #52, formerly NKP #349 and N&W #2349, was donated to the Mad River & Nickel Plate Road Museum in Bellevue, Ohio, where it was cosmetically restored to the Pevler Blue N&W #2349 visage, while the #57/#358 went to the Fort Wayne Railroad & Historical Society.

Ex-NKP #358 when it was N&W #2358

My own photo of N&W #2349, originally NKP #349 and NS #52 on retirement, out to the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum in Bellevue, Ohio last summer. I know there were some NKP fans who were peeved that it was restored to N&W Pevler Blue, with the "hamburger" logo, instead of it's original NKP appearance, but the museum does have an RSD-12, a GP30, an S-2 Berkshire, a dynamometer car, at least one caboose and a bunch of freight cars all in NKP appearances, so it's well-represented already at the museum. Plus, the N&W merger was an important part of NKP history.

What's funny is that the SD9s, which were some of the oldest of the NKP diesels, were the last still active on the Norfolk Southern roster. The RS-11s and RS-36s, and the lone C420, were gone in relatively short order. The big 6-axle RSD-12s hung around into the mid-'80s in hump yard service, with some of them being converted to yard slugs. The newer GP30s and the sole GP35, #910 made it until 1991, when they were sold off. The GP30s ended up going to BN, where they were rebuilt to GP39Es and a few of them still survive on the BNSF roster, while the #910 went to Guilford Rail, along with a pair of ex-Wabash low-nose GP35s and a bunch of high-nose ex-N&W/SOU GP35s. Sadly, #212 was scrapped sometime around 2010. There was an attempt to save it, since it was a unique unit on the NKP, and the last new diesel to arrive on the NKP, but the money couldn't be scrounged up in time

Spotting features that indicate this was an ex-NKP unit are the bell mounted in a notch on the side of the short hood, and the filled in notch in the low hood where the headlights were once mounted before N&W/NS moved them up above the windshield.

An ex-NKP GP30 at Brewster, Ohio after the N&W takeover. Again, there are the ex-NKP spotting features of the headlights in the low hood, and the bell mounted in a notch at the front of the low hood.

Believe it or not, this is the same GP30, some 40 years later, on BNSF, still in BN Cascade Green and White. BN had their GP30s rebuilt by a number of companies, and this is a GP39E, meaning the rebuild was performed by EMD. Pretty much any and all traces of it's identity were obliterated, since it appears to have been given a new short hood, and EMD also extensively modified the cab roofline to the point that it doesn't even really look like a GP30 anymore.

N&W #2900, formerly NKP #900, at Bellevue, Ohio, some ten years after the NKP ceased to exist. Again, you can see the notch for the bell and the hood-mounted headlights. Also, as the NKP was mostly flat-running, they were optioned without dynamic brakes, and they also were optioned with smaller than standard fuel tanks. The #900 still exists and is preserved, in NKP appearance, at the MAd River & NKP Museum in Bellevue, Ohio. There are also two more ex-NKP GP30s, #901 and #902, in NKP appearance at the Cincinatti Railway.

The #900, and RS-3 #544, at Conneaut, Ohio in May of 1963.

NKP GP35 #910 posing for it's builder photo at La Grange in June of 1964. The #910, ordered to replace a wrecked GP9, only worked for the Nickel Plate for 4 months, with Norfolk & Western taking over the NKP in October of 1964. Particularly mind-boggling was that when the NKP ceased to exist, it hadn't been dieselized for even five years, and there were zero-mileage, fully rebuilt S-2 and S-3 Berkshires loitering around at key facilities that N&W was disposing of for the next couple years. Meanwhile, neighboring Wabash, also included in the merger, had been officially dieselized since 1953 (although they'd actually had a pair of ancient Moguls handling a branch line until 1956). The acquisition of the NKP and Wabash and Pittsburgh & West Virginia also introduced an odd situation in N&W's fleet of GP35s. NKP and Wabash had 21 GP35s between them, and they were delivered with low noses and no dynamic braking (The GP35 was when EMD began charging extra for high-nose units, and both railroads operated over pretty flat territory and didn't need dynamic brakes), while Norfolk & Western's were all equipped with high noses and dynamic braking. And then to really muddy the waters, there were two also P&WV GP35s, which had low noses and dynamic brakes, plus an additional eight GP35s were delivered to N&W with low noses and no dynamic brakes, which had been ordered by Wabash before the merger and delivered afterwards.

While NKP #910 was delivered just four months before the NKP ceased to exist, consider Frisco GP50 #3100 here, which was built and delivered in Frisco colors (but BN numbers) after Frisco ceased to exist. Frisco placed an order for ten EMD GP50s (#790-#799) early in 1980, right when the GP50 was introduced, but then was bought out by Burlington Northern in April of that year. EMD had already completed construction and the majority of the painting on the #791 (locomotives are oddly built out of order sometimes), but since BN was going to assign all the GP50s to the 3100 block, they just had the Frisco paint and lettering left on, but applied #3100 to it and later added BN patch lettering on the cab. The remaining eight GP50s were all painted in BN Cascade Green, but the #3100 rattled around in Frisco paint for a couple years before being repainted. As far as I know, it's still running on Genesee & Wyoming's Indiana & Ohio Railway, and hopefully someone saves this unusual unit when it's someday retired. 

BN #3100, with the patch lettering applied on the cab, at Memphis, TN in 1983, along with three of her Frisco-ordered sisters.

The #3100 after being repainted into BN Cascade Green at East Glacier Park, Montana. It's paired up with one of the unique B30-7ABs that Burlington Northern was fond of. The B30-7 and C30-7s normally used a 16-cylinder engine, but GE also offered versions with a 3000hp 12-cylinder engine called a B30-7A or a C30-7A. Burlington Northern, and only Burlington Northern, ordered 120 cabless booster versions of the B30-7A though, which were called B30-7ABs.

The Frisco-ordered GP50s were the only EMD GP50s on the Burlington Northern roster until five years later, when BN ordered another 53 of their own. While the Frisco-ordered units were delivered in the regular Cascade Green, white and black, by the time the BN units were ordered, BN was tinkering with high-visibility orange and black striping on the front of units for better visibility at grade crossings. All the BN-ordered units were delivered with the tiger stripes, which the Frisco units never wore. After a couple years, BN gave up on the tiger stripes, since it was found to not be aesthetically pleasing and it was more expensive to apply, and they eventually were painted into regular BN colors.

Two tiger stripe GP50s bracket a B30-7AB on a hotshot intermodal train out of St. Paul. Two GP50s with a B30-7AB booster in between seemed to be a pretty common combo for piggyback and container trains in this era.

Under a dramatically moody sky, tiger stripe GP50 #3110, the first of BN's GP50s and the first new power since the recession, and SD40-2 #6910 haul a container train through Brookfield, Illinois in 1985.

Another quintessentially 1980s BN photo. In the lead is tiger stripe GP50 #3161, which was one of five ordered by BN with larger cabs to fit the entire crew on the headend, since they were looking to get rid of cabooses. Again, there's that A-B-A set of two GP50s bracketing a B30-7AB, but this one also has a fuel tender between the first GP50 and the GE booster. BN was experimenting with longer runs by hooking special fuel tank cars into the consist, which had lines running to the locomotives to fuel on the fly, allowing them to bypass fuel racks. 

BN #3137 at Chana, Illinois

A GP50, an SD40-2, another GP50, a B30-7AB and a fuel tender cross Java Bridge at Java, Montana, on a frigid March 2, 1989