Grassroots Railroad Sports?

This thread is so dang cool.  And I'm not even one of those train dudes either. 

After the flurry of largely unsuccessful experimental trains in the '50s, mostly at the behest of Patrick McGinnis, the New Haven went back to more conventional affairs, preferring just to haul regular coaches with the dual-mode EMD FL9s. But it did get briefly involved with the United Aircraft TurboTrain at the very end of the New Haven's life.

The UAC TurboTrain's underpinnings dated back to the Chesapeake & Ohio's development with Pullman Standard on the "Train X" articulated trainsets. The design suspension arms for each neighboring pair of cars were attached to a common truck between them, as opposed to having a pair of separate trucks for each car. The trucks rode the common curve between the two cars, centered by traction springs that centered the axle between adjoining car bodies, with air springs mounted to the suspension arms to smooth out the motion. The whole design also allowed the cars to be set two and a half feet lower.

United Aircraft dusted off the patents in the mid '60s, and working under a USDOT grant that was part of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965, began developing what would become the UAC TurboTrain. The original design had called for diesel engines in the power car at either end, but since this was United Aircraft and this was also the era where turbines were all the rage, UAC decided to use multiple Pratt & Whitney PT6 turbines for propulsion. The design used two power cars, which also had dome-mounted cabs and passenger seating, on either end with five coaches in between, and the whole affair was rated for 2000hp for a 7-car set.

The sets were completed in earl 1967 and on August 1, 1967 were moved, at regular speed and without passengers, to Providence, Rhode Island in order for UAC Aircraft Systems engineers to tear it down, study it for further development, and then eventual high-speed testing on the PRR's specially-rebuilt track between Trenton and New Brunswick, NJ. During the high speed testing, on December 20, 1967, one of the TurboTrains reached 170.8 mph, which is a world record for turbine-powered rail equipment. On January 1st, 1968, the Department of Transportation officially leased them out to the New Haven, which had been bankrupt since July 2, 1961, for usage. That was pretty short-lived, since one year later, the New Haven was merged into Penn Central. During their first year of operation though, the on-time performance of the Turbo Trains approached 90 percent, and they covered the 230 miles between Boston and New York City. in three hours and 39 minutes. Being transferred to Penn Central ownership was also pretty short-lived, since two years later, Amtrak was formed and the TurboTrains were handed over to Amtrak. They left them on the Boston-NYC run, although they then ran into Penn Station instead of Grand Central Terminal, but Amtrak also tried running them from Washington, DC through West Virginia and Ohio to Chicago. 

The UAC TurboTrains were certainly better than some other attempts of the era, but they still had their issues. The concept of using turbines in railroad applications was a bit naive, and they didn't tend to care for the vibrations, impact and filth of railroads. Compounding that was that the New Haven and Penn Central were pretty apathetic owners early on, and Amtrak shortly after founding wasn't much better. They also burned fuel at a considerable rate, which really hurt them, since not long after they were built and put into service you had the fuel embargoes. Still they reportedly rode better than a lot of the other articulated trainsets of the era, although they were rumored to have a weird ride characteristic while negotiating yards and crossovers, and they were pretty reliable when the maintenance was kept up. Amtrak took theirs out of service in 1976, as they were getting pretty worn out, and placed them in storage. Illinois Central originally expressed interest in them for Chicago commuter service, but then discovered how worn out they were and how poorly they had weathered in storage and backed out of the deal, leading Amtrak to scrap all of theirs.

I remember this thread from before and I may have mentioned before that I worked for AMTRAK PD 1976 through 1982 and was stationed at 30th street for the first 5.5 years or so.  I know that there were one maybe two Turbo liners stored under 30th street away from the common area where loading and unloading of passenger would be able to see.  We used to check on them on a semi regular basis to make sure there were no urban outdoors persons taking up residence,  They were interesting to sit in the engineers seat.  Somewhere in an old trucnk here somewhere I have some pictures of them.

In reply to 68TR250 :

Yeah, definitely and interesting design, with passengers and the engineer sitting up in the dome over the power cars. The TurboTrain probably would have been better received if A) it hadn't spent the first years of it's life running for New Haven and then Penn Central, and B) if they had kept the diesel engines from the original C&O design patents. Alan Cripes, who spearheaded the program, actually did try marketing a diesel-powered variant later on, called a Fastracker DMT but nobody bought in.

The big issue though was the lack of operational flexibility it had. If you needed more capacity, you couldn't easily add cars and change the length. Amtrak had the same issues with the later French-built Turboliners. The Turboliners were actually quite well-liked on some of the western runs and revived service on a couple of routes, to the point where they were frequently sold out. That forced Amtrak to run second sections composed of F40PHs with Amfleets, and if you're going to run one train of F40s and Amfleets, then you might as well run both with conventional equipment and avoid the specialized maintenance of the turbine-powered stuff.

Tickets went on sale this morning for NJTransit's 40th Anniversary Express excursion, held in conjunction with NJTransit and the United Railroad Historical Society of New Jersey on September 30th. 

The trip will depart New York Penn Station behind NJT's PRR GG1-inspired ALP-46A #4636 and head down to South Amboy, where there will be a photo opportunity of the recreation of the South Amboy engine change, with PRR heritage unit being swapped out for double-headed F40s, the last two F40s still in regular service on NJT. The train will board again at South Amboy to continue the trip and passengers will have a rare opportunity to ride around the Bay Head “loop track” as the train turns around to head back north. The train will pause and passengers will disembark again for a gourmet catered lunch in Bay Head, with photo opportunities of the head of the train. From Bay Head, the train will run non-stop to Newark Penn Station. At Newark, passengers will disembark again for a photo stop in the station. Those who choose to may complete their journey there. The remaining passengers will board again for the remainder of the trip, concluding at historic Hoboken Terminal.

Along with the ALP-46A heritage unit and the two F40PHs, the consist will include a number of conventional Comet V coaches, as well as New York Central round end observation car Hickory Creek (owned by URHS of NJ), New York Central Tavern-Lounge #43 (also owned by URHS of NJ), Juniata Terminal Warrior Ridge (ex-SP, rebuilt into a pseudo-PRR car by E. Bennett Levin's Juniata Terminal) and Pennsylvania Railroad open platform observation #120 (also owned by Juniata Terminal, reserved for VIPs).

Sound interesting? Well, unfortunately, all the tickets sold out in under 30 minutes, so you won't be able to ride.

It is weird to think of F40PHs being rare, historical units that people are clamoring to ride behind. They were a brilliant locomotive though, proving that the EMD 40-series locomotives were some of the greatest ever designed. They just did everything right. 

Hickory Creek and Tavern-Lounge #43 are certainly going to be busy next month, since they are headed out to Chicago on the tail end of the Lake Shore Limited on September 17th to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the redesigned 20th Century Limited, which those cars were used on. They then are coming back for use on the NJT 40th Anniversary Express. I also have a suspicion that on the week in between, on their way back east, they're going to be used by Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society for a weekend. FWRHS posted a clip from the old NYC promotional film "New York Calling" last night with the caption of "Something special is arriving soon..." There's all these people saying that they're bringing #765 east for a 40th anniversary excursion on Metro North or that FWRHS is buying one of the two NYC Mohawks to restore, but I think they're pretty far offbase. Really confirming my theory is that URHS of NJ commented on the same post saying "This is going to be so good."

The final two operating F40PHs (technically F40PH-2CATs) in revenue service in September of 2020. The pair don't see much use anymore, so you can see all the railfans in the foreground getting photos of them. I will say, the NJT "disco stripe" is a terrific livery.

The two F40PHs mostly handle non-revenue moves, like MoW service or light equipment moves, or function as protection power, like this photo of one of them helping an ailing Siemens PL42AC.

The two NJT F40PHs in ballast train service.

When Lori Lindsey bought a tavern in New Mexico in 2007, she acquired the restaurant, the museum and the steam locomotive parked and abandoned in 1959 when the mine was shut down and abandoned.

What an awesome "find." 769 has a proud history with the Santa Fe and the mining company as its only owners. According to Wikipedia it may have an operational restoration in the future. It also appears to be the only one of its type and manufacture left in existence. 

Lou Manglass

It's unfortunate that the #769 wasn't left in the enginehouse where it was left after the mine closed. Long after it was abandoned by the coal operator and a tavern sprang up around it, the tavern owner (or at least one of the previous ones) had it dragged/towed outside as a "tourist attraction."

I would not put too much stock in the idea of an operational restoration. The #769's smokebox is rotted out from it not having a cap over the stack and the tender reported has some cracking. The wheels are also buried in about a foot and a half from sand from flooding over the years, which one has to wonder if it got high enough to fill the journal boxes with sand and water. I also guarantee there's still asbestos lagging under that boiler jacket, and with an engine that old, you can get into lap-seam boilers and staybolt patterns that aren't FRA legal either. There's also currently a sort of murkiness as to whether the loco is part of the tavern or a supposed "museum."

The woman who owns the tavern, and possibly the locomotive, says that she wants it restored to operation, but also that she doesn't have any money, so she's hoping someone else will come along and fund and perform the restoration. She's also hoping that Nevada will just rebuild the old Madrid line to Waldo. And when I say rebuild, I don't mean throw down some new ballast and ties and rehabilitate old existing track. There's literally nothing left, no gravel, no ties or plates, no spikes, no ballast, and a few structures have even been built on the old right-of-way. Add to that the fact that there's no facilities of any sort at Waldo or Madrid, nor does she own any passenger equipment, and Madrid is well out of the way, and the whole thing looks like a pretty big long shot.

There was talk of, after restoring the #769, leasing it to the former Santa Fe Southern, now Sky Railway (under George R.R. Martin's ownership with Geeps painted like wolves, I'm serious) but supposedly they found that Sky Railway's infrastructure isn't robust enough to support a steam locomotive, even one as relatively small and light as a pre-war Consolidation.

CSX has rolled out CSX #1850, the L&N heritage unit. The available photos aren't great, but give the general gist of it. Like the Seaboard Systems unit, the whole thing just kind of looks like the old Yellow Nose 2 livery at first glance.

In reply to NickD :

I saw one of the Sky Railway engines when I was last in Santa Fe. They are not any more attractive in person.

In reply to 02Pilot :

Yeah, it's, uh, very George R.R. Martin.

When it was announced that he was buying the Santa Fe Southern I joked that the man would rather revive a defunct railroad than finish that book.

NickD said:

CSX has rolled out CSX #1850, the L&N heritage unit. The available photos aren't great, but give the general gist of it. Like the Seaboard Systems unit, the whole thing just kind of looks like the old Yellow Nose 2 livery at first glance.

I like that a lot better than the Chessie System one. 

Have you heard if they're planning a C&EI version. 

Speaking of C&EI, I found these 2 pics in an old family photo album. They're almost certainly from the Wellington, IL area. 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

NickD said:

CSX has rolled out CSX #1850, the L&N heritage unit. The available photos aren't great, but give the general gist of it. Like the Seaboard Systems unit, the whole thing just kind of looks like the old Yellow Nose 2 livery at first glance.

I like that a lot better than the Chessie System one. 

Have you heard if they're planning a C&EI version. 

CSX has been mum on just how many heritage units they are painting, and which railroads they are going to have. On one hand, they could just consider C&EI, and likewise Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis and Monon, as part of the L&N system, since L&N had merged in the entirety of the NC&StL and the Monon, and their half of C&EI (MoPac got the other half) before they became part of Seaboard Systems. On the other hand, I have heard rumors that they are going to do an NC&StL unit, and if they're going to do that, then there's no reason for them not to do a C&EI or Monon unit.

I really like the C&O one. Photos of it are pretty rare so far though.