Conrail-owned GE U-Boats running up Schuyler Street, crossing Noyes Street, in Utica, NY on New York Central trackage.
The #2781 is ex-Lehigh Valley U23B #505, with a hasty Conrail patch job on the paint. The #2594 behind it, in Conrail blue, is ex-Erie-Lackawanna.
This track is still active, although operated by New York, Susquehanna & Western. I've crossed it dozens of times on my way to my sister's
Norfolk Southern GP38-2 #5615, on lease to Middletown & New Jersey goes past the old O&W depot/headquarters in Middletown, NY.
The O&W had the station constructed in 1892-1893. At 3 stories and 397 feet long, its the largest surviving O&W structure. After the O&W's finances began to decline, they moved their headquarters out of New York City and into the Middletown building, before abandoning it in 1957. It was then used from the 1970s through to 2004 to host a number of different business before a fire on one end forced it's closures. In 2014 it was listed as a historic site, and in 2017 was sold for $1 to Middletown Community Health Center, who was going to rehab the building to use as their new offices. But MCHC got bought out and their new owners wanted nothing to do with the station. Middletown is against tearing down the building, and is open to offers, but none have come forth and the general consensus is that the building will either fall down soon or be torn down.
A damn shame and a likely tragic end to such a beautiful building. After this is gone, the largest NYO&W structure left will be the old freight house in Utica.
Train wheel's contact patch is about the size of a dime.
Kids monorail inside a department store.
914Driver said:Train wheel's contact patch is about the size of a dime.
Reminds me of when I was a kid. I'd be at the train station every morning when my mother dropped my father off to go to work, and more than once I put pennies on the tracks to be flattened as the train went over them.
A rainbow of colors. A Canadian Pacific Alco FA-2 leads a leased Baltimore & Ohio EMD F7A and a leased Bessemer & Lake Erie EMD F7A through the Quebec St. yard in Ontario. During the 1970s, power-short CP was leasing locomotives from whoever they could get, no matter how old. Chessie Systems had a number of B&O F-units in storage and sent them north. Of the 20 or so, many of them didn't make it past Windsor, being found to be in such extremely poor condition that CP refused them and Chessie scrapped them on the spot. They were literally on their last legs on the way up to Canada.
A B&O F7 keeping a CP RS18 company
Canadian Pacific was also know to "borrow" locomotives. Canadian Pacific and Penn Central jointly owned the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo and used pooled power to operate a pair of freight trains between Buffalo, NY and Toronto. TH&B and Penn Central units that were waiting at Agincourt yard to return to Buffalo were frequently "borrowed" by CP for weekend operations, with CP just careful to make sure they were back by Sunday night for the return trip to Buffalo. Using TH&B locomotives was okay, since they were partically owned by CP, but using Penn Central locomotives without approval was pretty illegal. The Penn was in such disarray that they never noticed though. You would have to be pretty desperate to be borrowing PC equipment, though.
Baltimore & Ohio Bladwin RF-16 A and B-units, along with Baldwin AS16 road switchers, wait at Salamanca, NY
D&H #1216 rests next to Lehigh Valley GP38 #323
After a change in presidents, the D&H let go of the last 2 Baldwin Sharks. Here they are in service on the Michigan Northern turning on the Channing Wye, while a set of Milwaukee Road F-units idle.
Delaware & Hudson PAs and Sharks congregate at Whitehall. The PAs are 2 of the last 4 remaining, and the Sharks were the last 2 in existence. Within a year of this photo, they all left the property, the D&H's new president not being a fan of the oddball antiquated units that the D&H had purchased and lovingly restored.
Scale Test Car - 1957. Used to calibrate RR weigh scales, weighs 80,000 lbs.
Logan, WV speeder shed on what is now CSX tracks.
WM 82 & B&O 6641 at Belington, WV
914Driver said:Train wheel's contact patch is about the size of a dime.
My uncle tells a story about going out to the garage to find his grease gun empty, repeatedly, after making sure it was full.
Confronts his teenage son about it and finally figures out that son had been greasing the tracks where the train stopped about 1/2 mile from their house.
Apparently the railroad would have to send another engine down to hook onto the train and pull it off of the greased stretch of track so it could get started again.
Fun and games in small-town Alberta.
Nick, I don't have anything to add other than I'm really enjoying this thread. It's amazing the amount of background information and knowledge you have on this subject. Please continue!
914Driver said:Scale Test Car - 1957. Used to calibrate RR weigh scales, weighs 80,000 lbs.
There is one of those at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania that was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1891 and wasn't retired until 1989. At that point, Conrail donated it to the museum.
A PRR-owned Baldwin DR6-4-2000 (Diesel, Road, 6 axles, 4 powered axles, 2000hp). PRR was not a fan of the odd "babyface" styling that Baldwin DR-series came with, so they, in conjunction with Raymond Loewy, came up with the distinctive "sharknose" carbody for all PRR-owned DR-series, excluding the DR-12-8-1500/2 "Centipedes". The sharknose was so much better received that Baldwin would make it the body for the later RF-16s. This pair also has the PRR "trainphone", as shown by the handrail-looking antenna along the roof.
DR6-4-2000 (PRR called them a BP-20) #5773 at speed circa 1964. At 16 years old, she's showing her age, and has been reduced down to commuter service on New Jersey on the New York & Long Branch tracks.
Baldwin built two DR-4-4-15 demonstrators with sharknose bodies in '49, after babyface production wrapped up in '48. These two demonstrators ended up going to the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern, where they operated for about 6 years before being sold to the Baltimore & Ohio. The only other railroad to purchase sharknose DR-4-4-15s was the Pennsylvania, who later classified them as RF-15s
In reply to NickD :
I realize there's no money for it, but I sure wish locomotive builders/designers would bring back a bit of style to modern freight locomotives. Not that I find modern passenger locomotives particularly attractive either, but I understand they're mostly the result of wind tunnel testing.
In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :
I can't even really tell the difference between a modern EMD and a modern GE anymore. The safety cab wiped out the difference of pointed hood for an EMD and rounded nose for a GE. And used to be GEs had the hammerhead-style radiators, but now EMDs have that too. It seems to me, that those Baldwin shark noses have to be more aerodynamic than the big flat face on a safety cab EMD/GE, but maybe not.
A Baldwin DR-6-4-1500 in New York Central lightning stripes. These were the last cab unit marketed for passenger service that Baldwin cataloged (After the end of the DR-series, the RF-16s were designed for freight-only). They sold incredibly poorly, with NYC taking 4 A-units and 2 B-units, and Seaboard Airline buying 3 A-units. Yes, they sold less than 10 units total. NYC would later re-engine theirs with EMD 567s, but was still not impressed and they were off the roster by the late '50s.
12.750" bore x 15.5" stroke in an inline-8 with a turbocharger. That's a big engine. Each cylinder was just shy of 2000 cubic inches, with total displacement at 15,831ci.
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