Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Canadian Pacific Kansas City has been testing CP "Royal Hudson" #2816, fresh off of overhaul, out on the Aldersyde Subdivision to get her ready for next year's 3-nation tour, from Canada thru the USA and down to Mexico. The big deal here is that CPKC has equipped it with a Positive Train Control System that is entirely self-contained. The system on UP #4014 piggybacks off of a trailing diesel, but #2816 has everything onboard the #2816 itself, meaning that it could take to CPKC's rails all by itself without any diesels following. Now, I'm not sure how realistic that is, since most Class Is also prefer to dispatch a diesel behind them in the consist for the event of a mechanical failure and to provide dynamic braking. But, it's still a pretty big development, and gives hope that maybe Milwaukee Road #261, Nickel Plate #765, and ATSF #2926 and #3751 might take to the mainline again.

Speaking of ATSF #2926, over the past weekend, it left the spur in Albuquerque where it's restoration has been performed and moved a mile or so through town, over the BNSF mainline and into the Albuquerque rail yard for the first-ever New Mexico Railroad Days, where it was placed on display. The hope is to eventually run it over the ex-ATSF trackage owned by NMDOT between Las Vegas and Albuquerque, over which the New Mexico Rail Runner operates, once they get PTC installed. The downside: they installed the flues back in 2015, and either one year after installation or the first fire-up, whichever comes first, the 15 year countdown to the next overhaul starts. So they've already burned 7, headed on 8, years off their 15 years, and it's just moved around Albuquerque twice at walking pace.

ATSF #2926 posing for a night photo shoot at Albuquerque Yard.

Rolling over the old ATSF mainline on her way to the NMDOT/Rail Runner yard for display.

Managed to snap this photo as the train rolled by in the background. Never heard of them before, its a local Michigan short line around since '92 according to their website.

Lake State took over from the Detroit & Mackinac when the D&M was sold off in 1992. They originally used the D&M's roster of old Alcos, and even went on to later acquire some MLW M420Ws from Canadian National when CN began retiring them, buit in more recent years they've sadly retired them all for EMD products, including some SD70Ms that they got from UP a couple years ago.

Detroit & Mackinac was a pretty neat operation, with a bunch of car-float operations using the SS Chief Wawatam, the last hand-stoked, coal-fired car ferry on the Great Lakes.

D&M had some of those GE-modified Alco Centuries similar to what the D&H and Genesee & Wyoming had at the time as well. GE was rebuilding some older Alcos at their Hornell facility, since they used GE generators, traction motors and cabinets and they were receiving a lot of Alcos on trade-in towards U-boats and Dash-7s. Just like D&H and G&W had C424s with the 2400hp V16 replaced with a 2000hp V12, Detroit & Mackinac had some ex-Pennsy C425s rebuilt with 2000hp V12s by GE Hornell, which they called a C425m.

Speaking of the old GE facilities in Hornell, those are now being used by Alstom to construct the new Acela II/Avelia Liberty sets for Amtrak. Alstom won the contract back in 2016 to construct the new Acelas (the previous ones were built by Bombardier, but Alstom purchased Bombardier) and the new Acelas were to debut back in 2021. There's been some recent photos of them being moved over the LA&L from Hornell and I caught one headed through Utica on it's way down to Philadelphia. Well, according to the Amtrak Office of Inspector General, Amtrak hasn't officially taken delivery of any of the Acela IIs and is refusing to take ownership and is expecting at least another year delay before they enter service.

Some of the complaints are of aesthetic issues, such as misaligned ceiling panels in the café cars and delamination of the floors from the subfloors, which are concerning on brand-new machines, but not serious. Others are much more dangerous, like water drainage between cars causing components that hold the cars together to corrode. Or hydraulic systems for the tilt system already leaking. Or five windows spontaneously shattering without any discernable reason.

Another huge issue is that Alstom has yet to produce a computer model to show how the trainset should operate. The report noted that the computer model was “the first step in a multi-step regulatory process that shows the trainset is safe to proceed with additional testing.” Without the model, the Federal Railroad Administration will not allow Alstom or Amtrak to test the train at its top speed of 160mph, and since Alstom has built more than half of all of the new Acela IIs without a finalized design, it’s possible the builder will have to go back and redo parts of trains that have already been completed. 

On top of all that, because the Acela IIs are continually delayed, Amtrak is spending considerable amounts of money keeping the 20 year old original Acelas in service. The original Acelas are now an obsolete design, so they have four sets out of service that they are cannibalizing to keep the other sixteen up and running.

So, Sunday was the Finger Lakes Railway excursion from Syracuse to Auburn over the old New York Central "Auburn Road" (originally the Auburn & Syracuse Railroad). I had bought a ticket to ride the first train and then intended to chase and photograph the second trip. Syracuse is an hour away and I had a ticket for the 12:30 trip, so I left home at 10:45am, since most places want you there 15-30 minutes ahead of time. I get to where they're boarding, the Legrand plant on Boyd Ave. and there's plenty of cars in the parking lot, but seemingly no railroad employees and no Budd RDC on the siding. Huh, that's weird. Also, the only parking was the Legrand parking lot, which had a sign saying that non-employees would be towed. I decided to check my e-mail and see if it says where to park, and I see that the trip wasn't at 12:30, it was from 11:00 to 12:30. Sonuva... Well, there goes my chance to check off riding rare mileage. And while I like riding RDCs, they aren't the most photogenic. Oh, well, I'll still get the shots, and since they aren't back yet (because excursions inevitably run late) I figured I'd try and catch them coming back. So I drive down to the Coppertop Tavern on Milton Ave, park in the back of their parking lot, and go wait trackside.

It's around 1pm and I see lights in the distance, and the light pattern doesn't quite match an RDC. Huh. I'm sitting there, waiting and waiting and they're approaching really slow (the track here isn't particularly great, lot of spikes popped up out of the ties) and I hear it and it doesn't sound like an RDC either. RDCs use Detroit 6-110 motors, which sound like a lot like a Detroit 6-71 or 8-71. This was much slower and deeper. Maybe a freight move? Although it'd be weird to be moving freight on a Sunday and on the trackage that you're using for excursions as well.

Well, they clear the bridge, and it's one of their GE B23-7s, painted in New York Central lightning stripes, with three NYC-painted coaches, and a second GE B23-7 on the tail end, running push pull. Cool. With them having last run excursions in 2013, and the leasing of the RDC, I had just kind of thought the coaches were out of service or had been sold off.

The B23-7s are neat-looking machines, with the little flared radiators and Universal-style short hoods, and they look good in the Finger Lakes paint. They'd be a little more photogenic without the remote control antenna masts and gear on the front ends, but that can't be helped. The #2309, which was leading east is actually ex-Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe (talk about being far from home) and also did time on the Ohio Central, before coming to Finger Lakes Railway.

The #2304, which led west, actually began life on Southern Railway, and was once set up with a high nose and Long Hood Forward controls. It got a chopped nose and was converted to Short Hood Forward at some point on the Norfolk Southern (although they just flipped the control stand, and didn't move it to the other side, so the engineer sits on the left), then did some time on the Great Miami Railroad in Ohio, and then spent some time down on the Reading & Northern, during the era where they flirted with GE Dash-7s (from 2000 to around 2002-2003).  According to an R&N hogger, the #2301, as it was numbered on the R&N, was retired in either 2002 or 2003. "I remember it was winter time. We were approaching CP Dupont southbound and got a ground relay, we looked back from the front unit and the 2301 had flames and smoke shooting out from one of the traction motors. The copper windings inside the motor melted together and the axle locked up. Later the B Team came down and pulled it back to Pittston with that axle sliding the whole way. Both this one and the #2300 were on the "too be retired" list due to the arrival of the SD50's." Clearly, that wasn't the end of the #2300, because Finger Lakes brought her back to life. The #2300 he referenced was another ex-SOU/ex-NS B23-7 that still had the high hood when it arrived on the R&N, but had the hood chopped by RMDI when they were still around and were using the old LV facilities at Coxton Yard. The #2300 also ended up on the Finger Lakes, as their #2305.

I went a little ways back along Milton Ave and set up along the side of the right of way. For people not familiar with Syracuse (I imagine most reading), Milton Ave is a damn busy road, but there was about 10 feet between the ditch and the RoW. I'm standing there, in the wind and cold, wearing a black leather jacket with a camera, and I see a police officer coming down the road, slow way down, look at me and turn down a road to my left and I'm thinking "Well, I'm about to have my first run-in with the police while railfanning." Fortunately he didn't come back.

The #2304 leading, headed west.

And the #2309 in the trailing position. Unfortunately the leaves weren't great this year, and the insane wind and rain we had this weekend really wiped them out.

Passing by the old Auburn & Syracuse/New York Central "Martisco" station, a contraction of Marcellus and Otisco. The Auburn & Syracuse had bypassed Marcellus directly, but built this station 2 miles out of town and it was originally named Marcellus Station. The New York Central had their own Marcellus Station, and by the time they took over the old A&S, it was being operated by the Marcellus & Otisco Lake Railroad. Rather than confusingly having two depots with the same name, NYC changed the old A&S depot name to "Martisco". There was a 2-mile electric railroad chartered to provide service from Marcellus to the A&S Marcellus depot, but it was never completed and the Marcellus Electric Railway never operated a single train. The tickets had mentioned a thirty minute layover at Martisco for coffee, cider and donuts, but they came wheeling through here, so I figured they'd stop on the return trip.

Taken in Camillus. Because I hadn't ridden the first trip, I had no clue how far into Auburn they were actually running, like if they were just going to the town limits or going right into town, so I was trying to just barely leapfrog them.

By this point they had technically entered Auburn and had reduced speed considerably. I caught them crossing by at this farm

I thought about going to another spot, but decided to wait here for the return trip. Not a bad call, since they went up about one crossing further, then stopped and returned. Around this time, the sun also went away, and it started raining really heavy, on top of the wind that never really let up.

The weather was lousy, so I went back to Martisco and decided to wait it out. I figured they would stop here, which would lend for some nice photos, but just like how the RDC was swapped out for B23-7s and coaches, must be the stops at Martisco were also scrapped, because they wheeled back on by headed east. Check out the nose of the '78-'79 Dodge Magnum poking in on the left! Sure wish those cones hadn't been there, but I wasn't going to move them.

Heading back by, running along Milton Road. I got rain on the lens when they were approaching, but the nice thing about diesels running push-pull is that you can shoot them coming and going and you can't really tell. The small unguarded crossing that the head end is headed over is for the fittingly named Box Car Lane.

Arriving back at Legrand. The rain had stopped and the sun was back out.

A shot of the #2304 as they were unloading. Boy, the matched paint on all the cars and locomotives did make for a nice consist to photograph.

Finger Lakes Railway #2304 as it looked when it was back on the Reading & Northern. The red, black and yellow paint was a holdover from when it had lived on the Great Miami Railroad, and Andy Mueller left the paint intact, since he felt it matched the Office Car fleet nicely.

How it looked when it began life as Southern Railway #4016. Worth noting that this is the back of the locomotive, since Southern had them set up as Long Hood Forward.

According to R&N historians, there were the two ex-Southern B23-7s that are now up on Finger Lakes, a B30-7A (like a B30-7 but with a 12-cylinder engine instead of a 16-cylinder), and a trio made of two C30-7 and one C36-7. The C30-7A had exactly one day of service, it went out on the Crestwood job and died while switching up there, and the other GEs were on their way out, so it was never fixed. The #8011, a C30-7,  was "a piece of crap, it never ran right, constantly in the shop, it finally blew a piston out through the side doors up near Penobscot", while C30-7 #8082 "wasn’t a bad unit", and C36-7 #8505 was "the best one of the three black GE’s and went almost everywhere on the system". The #8082 and #8505 were drained and put into storage over the winter of 2003/2004 but the #8082 wasn’t completely drained and suffered a freeze crack somewhere. The #8505 was used again in the spring of 2004 when traffic picked up again but developed a bad water leak near Barnesville and died. It was taken back to Port Clinton dead and it went back behind the shop. Soon after they were sold and shipped out.