Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Arriving at the former Erie depot in South Dayton, where passengers were allowed to disembark, get an ice cream and browse a farmer's market, while the motive power cut off and ran around the end of the train. The depot was actually used in the filming of The Natural, starring Robert Redford, and Grand Trunk Western #4070, dressed up as CB&Q #4070, was brought in and used for the filming as well.

The Alco cab units have always had a proud look to them.

Cut off and running around their train at South Dayton. Check out the old milepost left over from the Erie days, denoting that it's 43 miles out of Buffalo. Once upon a time, this line ran all the way down to Buffalo, although south of Cherry Creek has long been out of service. Still, the NYSDOT has given them a grant with the end goal being to replace a switch at the NY&LE's southern end at Waterboro and restore full rail service between Gowanda and Jamestown by, then on to Buffalo (through a connecting railroad) by 2020. Despite the objections of Cattaraugus County (who accused the railroad of proposing the project as a grant-money scam),the state and city of Jamestown announced its support for a feasibility study for the project in May 2017. It's all still in the planning stage, although rehabilitation of the line south of South Dayton has been underway.

The brakie hangs off the side as they back down to the train.

A rather large grain elevator presents an imposing backdrop

This was the shot that I really wanted. The Buffalo & Southwestern Railroad, on its way from Buffalo to Jamestown, crossed under the tracks of the Erie Allegany Division to Dunkirk, NY. For some unknown reason, the B&SW chose to tunnel through the fill supporting the Erie tracks rather than build a bridge for the Erie rails, resulting in this rather short tunnel. In 1895, the Erie bought the B&SW, bringing the line under the Erie umbrella as the Buffalo & Jamestown Division. The tracks over the top are long gone, but NY&LE trains still run through the tunnel, which is a rather short structure known as the Dayton Arches. Access is a little tricky, and I never would have figured it out if it weren't for the assistance of the other guys chasing the train. You had to park on a road that was dead-ended (due to a bridge that was loooong out of service), hike down the driveway to a private camp, then detour off through the woods, and then walk along the right of way. To get the train coming out of the portal, I then had to run along the gauge through the tunnel, which I'll admit was not something I really was fond of. Do as I say, not as I do.

You can see just how short this tunnel is.

I then hurried back to Gowanda to get the train arriving. There's some other derelict equipment loitering around Gowanda, where the engine house also is.

This is one of the high-hood Alco C425s that Norfolk & Western ordered. The N&W actually had examples of both high and short hood C425s, since they had ordered their own 10, and then the Wabash had ordered 8 shortly before the merger, which ended up being delivered to the N&W in N&W paint. This unit was donated, in operational condition, to the NY&LE in 1985, and made an appearance in Planes, Trains & Automobiles in a bright blue and red livery with fictional "Contrack" lettering. There was also a derelict coach mostly hidden by vines that was in "Contrack" paint. Yes, the classic John Candy and Steve Martin film was shot on the NY&LE in 1987. Not sure of the status of the #1013 these days, but I can't find any recent photos of it active.

Boy, this old B&O Alco S-4 (note the more standard AAR trucks, versus the weird Blunt trucks of Oil Creek & Titusville S-2 #75 that I saw the day before) has seen better days. She's mostly being used as a part source for their own S-1, as well as their S-2s down on the OC&T. There was another classic Alco switcher, an S-2, at the far end of the yard, that was even further stripped for parts.

A cool old Penn Central hopper, still in Penn Central lettering.

The old Erie depot in Gowanda. I wish those cars weren't parked in front, but what can you do?

Arriving back in Gowanda.

And cut off and running around the train and back to the engine house.

And then it was back in my car to make the 3.5 hour drive home.

My friends, who are not railfans, and I are headed down for a weekend vacation in Tobyhanna, PA on the first weekend of August, and one of the things I suggested we do was to go visit Jim Thorpe, PA, since there's a plethora of things to do there. While talking with my one friend, I mentioned that traffic in and out of downtown Jim Thorpe can be an absolute nightmare though. Then I had a lightbulb moment and remembered that Reading & Northern runs trains from Pittston, which isn't too far from Tobyhanna, into Jim Thorpe with a five hour layover. I cautiously mentioned it, and was actually told "That actually sounds fun."

I then went on the Reading & Northern passenger department's website, to check ticket prices, and discovered that, every single weekend, from the start of service on Memorial Day weekend to the end of service in early October, is completely sold out. Every. Single. One. I guess ol' Andy Muller knew what he was doing when he decided to offer Pittston-Jim Thorpe passenger service.

After the NY&LE chase, I was talking to the one gentleman, Pete, who had chased that run and I had seen before down to R&N, and he was saying "Oh, I'm sure I'll bump into you again" and I said, yeah, I was considering going down to the R&N around Christmas time, when they are running a ton of different steam and diesel trips all over the system, and that if they ran a steam fall foliage trip from Pittston-Jim Thorpe, I would go ride that. He goes "Oh, yeah, my son and I have wanted to ride on of the Pittston-Jim Thorpe trips, maybe bring my wife along to spend the day in Jim Thorpe." I then told him that they were completely sold out on the regular trips and he was astonished.

The R&N paint shops up at Cresson have been plenty busy lately. R&N has been reactivating more of the "new" power that they bought from NS, as well as getting some of their other older stuff repainted. They've also been chipping away at some of the passenger cars that they've purchased.

SD40-2 #3068 in fresh paint inside.

GP38-2 #2016, masked off and partially painted.

SD50 #5022, scuffed up and ready for masking and paint. This is one of the ex-CSX SD50s that are downrated to SD40-spec. There's some hope that this will get repainted into the "Fast Freight" black, gray and red, like #5018 and #5019. Ex-CSX SD50 #5021, which is also in faded blue and has been stored out of service, has also been moved to Port Clinton and begun receiving work.

And SD40-2 #3062, waiting for her chance.

I am curious when/if the first safety cab power shows up on the R&N. So far they've been content to stick with DC traction motors and Spartan cabs, but the supply of SD40s and GP38s isn't getting any bigger, and their traffic keeps going up. Too bad that NS rebuilt all the Spartan Cab regular SD70s into SD70ACCs (wide nose and DC-to-AC conversion). CN does have the old Illinois Central "Death Star" straight SD70s, but I'm wondering how long it is before those get rebuilt into something else.

As someone put it, the SD70 actually isn't a bad option for bigger shortlines and regionals. The radial trucks make it as kind to the track on sharp curves as a Geep, if not easier.  It has axle loadings that are less than a GP40-2 with the large fuel tank.  And it is more fuel efficient than an Sd40-2 at idle and under power, but makes an additional 1000hp. 

Can't even get a good indication of what an R&N wide-nose would look like from the NS Reading heritage unit, since Norfolk Southern used the earlier "Bee Line Service" livery, rather than the later GP39-2/GP40-2/MP15 livery that the R&N prefers to base their units off of.

I'm curious if we'll get some sort of 40th anniversary celebration, since the Reading & Northern, under the original Blue Mountain & Reading name, was founded in September of 1983. They did have a specially-painted 20th Anniversary SD38 back in 2003, but so far there hasn't been any announcements for this year. It'd be great if they ran a train down the original thirteen Temple-Hamburg segment, but from what I understand, a good portion of that line is out of service and needs rehabilitation.

NickD said:

I am curious when/if the first safety cab power shows up on the R&N. So far they've been content to stick with DC traction motors and Spartan cabs, but the supply of SD40s and GP38s isn't getting any bigger...

And, that supply of older EMDs is about to get a lot smaller, thanks to Genesee & Wyoming. The EPA filed a suit against G&W and won, resulting in the G&W having to scrap or upgrade 88 locomotives across their various operations. The G&W wasn't maintaining some of their emissions-compliant locomotives to the standard they were supposed to, or they weren't documenting that maintenance. (Or, from what some ex-G&W employees are saying, it could very well be both. Apparently the G&W was quite proud of not doing any maintenance until things broke.) The EPA caught on and filed a suit and won, and part of G&W's punishment is that they have to purge a bunch of the older Tier 0/Tier 1 gross polluters. This includes a bunch of old GP7s and GP9s, SD7s and SD9s, the B23-7 Super 7s, SW9s, SW1000s, SW1200s, GP40s and SD40-2s. The EPA says locomotives cannot be sold or donated for preservation and instead must be “permanently destroyed". The prime movers have to be disabled and they have to be sold for scrap, although parts can be retained as service parts for other locomotives, or the frames can be retained if G&W rebuilds the locomotive to Tier 3 or Tier 4 emissions standards. 

This replacement of these locomotives is expected to cost G&W over $42 million, plus another $1.35 million fine. It also is going to have ripples on the used locomotive market, driving up price of good secondhand shortline power. I've seen some people crabbing about the EPA, but the important thing to remember here is that G&W knew the rules and either chose not to play by them, or has sloppy record-keeping that opened them up to this lawsuit. Also worth pointing out that G&W chose not to fight the suit, which means they likely knew the EPA had them dead to rights. The fact that none of them could be donated to museums sucks, but I wonder if maybe the EPA thought that G&W would donate them to museums and then lease them back to get around retiring them. Granted, G&W has never been that preservationally minded to where they might have donated them to museums. After all, they owned the only two RS1325s ever built and were planning to scrap them both, despite them still being operational and in good condition, until preservations stepped in and secured their safety.

Perhaps the saddest loss is Portland & Western SD7 #1501. There aren't a ton of preserved SD7s, and this one still wore (very faded) Southern Pacific "bloody nose" livery, including the Roseville division lettering on the cab, and still retained the full SP lighting package.

Another confirmed fatality on the Portland & Western is GP9E #1801, an ex-SP GP9 that wears Southern Pacific "Black Widow" livery, albeit not original paint. That was applied by Willamette Pacific when they owned the line, before G&W bought it out and renamed it to Portland & Western. 

P&W SD9 1852 is also another ex-SP refugee slated to be a scrap casualty

The retirement of those old EMD "Cadillacs" (the SP slang for an SD7 and SD9, since they were heavy, built by GM, and had terrific ride quality) on Oregon lines ends about 70 years of tradition. Pretty much on delivery, SP sent the new 6-axle EMDs up to the PNW to operate on their variety of branch lines. Solid blocks of three, four, sometimes even five, "Cadillacs" threading their way through the wilderness were a staple even up until the end of SP in 1995.

Three SP "Cadillacs" cross a wooden trestle at Sherwood, Oregon, USA in July of 1990 with the Newberg Turn

Four SP SD9s, with McCloud River SD38-2 #38 cut in behind the lead unit, charge up Rice Hill on SP's Siskiyou Line with an eastbound lumber drag headed to Eugen, Oregon. The McCloud River unit was headed to Eugene for SP to perform heavy repairs at their shops.

SP SD9 #4396 heads for the mill at Seghers with the Hillsboro Roustabout, caught here at Hillsboro, Oregon

SP #4333 and five other SD9s roll along the Yaquina River at Elk City, Oregon with the Toledo Hauler on February 15, 1992

Two SP SD9s slog out of Hugo, Oregon with a train of what looks like wood chips, headed for Glendale.

Five SD9s arrive in Newberg, Oregon

SP #4326 and five sisters are a couple of miles into their trip to McMinnville as they crosse Milwaukie, Oregon's Kellogg Lake. The #4326 became Willamette Pacific #1851, which then became Portland & Western #1851 when G&W took over, and is one of the locomotives slated to be scrapped.

Yes, some of the old Cadillacs were given the Southern Pacific Santa Fe paint, eleven of them in fact. One of the lucky eleven is parked at Brooklyn Yard in Portland, Oregon.

Another one of the "Kodachrome" SD9s soars out over a wooden trestle in Newberg, Oregon, just two months before SP sold off the Newberg Branch and it became Willamette Pacific.

SP #4377 is leading a train through Albany, Oregon on the Brooklyn Subdivision. You can see how the upper set of lights have been removed and the openings blanked off.