Grassroots Railroad Sports?

On the subject of General Electric products, a rather unique GE C40-8M has been donated to the Alberta Railway Museum by Canadian National. The unit in question, ex-BCRail #4618, is one of the uniquely Canadian cowl-bodied C40-8s. Canadian railroads had a brief obsession with modern cowl-bodied diesels, which included the Bombardier HR616s, the EMD SD40-2F, the EMD SD50F, the EMD SD60F, and finally the C40-8M. The idea was that the full-body gave shelter to crews performing maintenance in cold weather, as well as not forcing crews to walk on potentially icy running boards while the units were moving. To improve rearward visibility, they all included a tapered section of the body that narrower immediately behind the cab, and gradually widens further aft, although the roof remains full-width the length of the locomotive. Since this feature was designed by William Draper, assistant chief of motive power at CN, the nickname for it was "the Draper Taper". Over the years, the numbers of Canadian cowl units have dwindled; the HR616s are long gone, the SD50Fs and SD60Fs are near extinct, a bunch of the SD40-2Fs have hit the scrapyard, and CN began retiring the C40-8Ms en masse recently. Fortunately, CN set aside the #4618 and donated it before they vanished completely.

Another GE Dash-8, BNSF B40-8W #537 was also donated to the Railroading Heritage of Midwest America by BNSF. The 4000hp, 4-axle GE was one of the old ATSF "Super Fleet" units that whisked high speed intermodal trains across the southwest in the '80s, and is still operational. RRHMA plans to use it as a PTC-equipped unit for their steam locomotives, Milwaukee Road #261, UP #5511 and UP #3985, to piggyback off of when they are ready for excursions. The B40-8Ws are definitely a bit odd-looking, with the trucks seemingly overly small in comparison to the bulk of the rest of the unit. From what engineers who operated them said, the trucks weren't just visually overwhelmed, the weight of the wide cabs also overwhelmed the spring rigging and damping on what where the same trucks used under the standard cab B40-8s and these tended to ride pretty rough at higher speeds as a result.

The same B40-8W in it's original ATSF "Warbonnet" livery shortly after delivery. Santa Fe revived the Warbonnet livery in the late 1980s as part of the "Super Fleet" concept, and 83 B40-8Ws were part of the new program. ATSF was the sole purchaser of the B40-8W model, making the #537's preservation noteworthy in that regard.

Railroading Heritage of Midwest America has also gotten UP #6936 back up and running again. The #6936 is the last DDA40X that is intact and capable of operation, and was used by UP on excursions, track inspection runs, and office car specials for years after the DDA40Xs were retired. From what I understand, in later years, UP had a few well-placed employees, primarily UP’s Engineering Department head Bill Wimmer, that viewed the #6936 as a pet and kept the 8-axle 6600hp unit active, but after their retirement it was parked at Cheyenne. Lack of PTC also kept it parked at Cheyenne, along with the executive E9 A-B-A set. National Railroad Equipment, which leases space from RRHMA in the newly-acquired ex-Rock Island Silvis shops, helped to get #6936 up and running again. Among the items addressed were the water pumps, camshafts, rocker adjustments, repair of governors, new batteries, fuel and water hydro tests, and replacement of filters and rubber parts like hoses. The trucks will also soon be getting new springs.

NJTransit unveiled yet another heritage unit: GP40PH-2B #4210 has been repainted into Erie colors. This is not one of the ex-CNJ GP40Ps, but an ex-Penn Central regular GP40 that NJTransit had rebuilt to GP40P standards, with a HEP generator and Dash-2 electrical gear. NJT had had one batch built by Morrison-Knudsen in 1993, which they called a GP40PH-2A, and then had a second batch built by Conrail a year later which they called a GP40PH-2B. This also gives us an interesting never-was look at what an Erie low-nosed EMD would look like, since Erie only bought GP7s and GP9s before the Erie-Lackawanna merger, and post-merger they used the DL&W livery.

Tomorrow kicks off a five-day trip through the Commonwealth of PA. Tomorrow I'll be poking around the various sites in Altoona. Friday I'll be chasing Everett Railroad 2-6-0 #11 from Hollidaysburg to Martinsburg and back. Then Saturday, Reading #2102 will be romping along the Road Of Anthracite from Reading to Jim Thorpe and back. And Sunday will be the Reading & Northern F-Units on a similar trip. Then home on Monday.

Have a fun trip! I'd ask you to take plenty of pictures but I know you will. Looking forward to hearing about your trip.

Lou Manglass

Adirondack Railbike Adventures.  See some sights and get a little exercise.

So, today I made the 5.5 hour drive down to Altoona, PA. Altoona; the heart of the Pennsylvania Railroad. From here, 6,783 steam and electric locomotives, as well as passenger cars and freight cars rolled out of their shops to ply the rails. Started in 1850, by the 1920s, the site consisted of 125 buildings on 218 acres and the shops employed over 16,000 workers. By 1945, the Altoona Works had grown to be one of the largest repair and construction facilities for locomotives and cars in the world, and during WWII the Altoona Works were on target lists of German saboteurs involved in Operation Pastorius. Today, the Altoona Works, while much diminished in size, remain a major component of Norfolk Southern, where they perform the majority of their diesel locomotive overhaul, maintenance and rebuilds, and even a number of the buildings no longer used by NS still exist, either empty or used by other industries. While I couldn't get photos of them, because I was driving on a major road with no place to pull on, the rows of old buildings stretch for miles and there's locomotives parked everywhere.

This is the locomotive finishing shop turntable. Nothing was coming out or going in, so no photos of anything on the turntable. But there was some stuff to see. Like NS #8130, which was one of the units wrecked in July 2022 at Columbia, SC on train 238, and is pretty far torn down at the moment. Looks a lot better than it did a year ago though. And the #2102, which is an ex-Reading SW1001 that was built in 1973 and is still serving faithfully.

On the right we have the original Altoona Works building, dating to 1850, which is now the Railroader's Memorial Museum. They're the folks restoring PRR #1361 to operation. The building on the left, labeled Altoona Pipe & Steel, dates back to 1905 and was once part of the Altoona Works as well.

GG1 #4913 sits around the turntable at the Railroader's Memorial Museum. She's, uh, rough, but not the roughest GG1 out there. Like, not even in the bottom three.

That cool old building that is now Altoona Pipe & Steel, taken from the pedestrian walkway over the tracks. Coil cars galore.

Note the old boxcar that is now integrated into the building

After standing on the pedestrian walkway for 10-15 minutes, a train came off a spur to the east with a long string of covered hoppers.

That lead unit is interesting. The first noticeable thing is that it has one of NS's Admiral Cabs, which you can tell by the sharper curves on the edges of the noses, whereas the EMD front ends tend to have a bit of a fillet to them. But then, notice that it's missing cooling fans topside and the radiator openings are blanked off. That's because it is what NS refers to as a RP-E4C, which is a road slug equipped with a cab so that it can lead. It's also equipped for remote control operation, and can be paired up with non-remote equipped units to serve as a remote platform, and it is NS LEADER PTC-equipped. NS has fifty of these RP-E4Cs, and most are built off of old GP38s and GP50s, but the last two, #754 and #755, were actually built on newly-constructed frames. 

NS constructed the RP-E4Cs to replace their standard local power combo of two GP38-2s, instead assigning an RP-E4C and a GP40. Despite 1000 less horsepower (two 2000hp GP38s vs one 3000hp GP40), NS says that the new combo makes about the same tractive effort while using much less fuel and reducing maintenance. 

The local was still in sight when a westbound intermodal passed through, with the (original) Norfolk Southern heritage unit tucked back in the lashup. The only NS heritage units I've seen before this were the Virginian one (seen on an overpass over I-60, couldn't stop and get a photo) and the Erie-Lackawanna one (hidden behind a spine car in Reading, and I guess that one was knocked out of service some time after and hasn't returned).

On the way down from the pedestrian bridge I spotted this laying in the grass at the Railroader's Memorial Museum, which is one of the "World's Fair" towers. These were light towers that were used at the 1939-1940 World's Fair in New York, which afterwards PRR dismantled, set up in Altoona Yard and used for night lighting in the yard. There were four of them at the yard up until 2020, when one succumbed to old age and blew down. NS took down the other three yesterday, and is donating all three to the RRM, and this is one of them. The lights hadn't actually been used in decades, but the towers still stood there.

These are the lights at the World's Fair behind NYC Dreyfuss-streamlined Hudson #5452

Hmmm, that looks not unlike the crown sheet and backhead off of a firebox. I wonder if that's off of #1361, which is indeed getting a new firebox.

Back in the car, and this time up to world famous Horseshoe Curve. I wasn't there long and a freight came grinding up the hill. While diesel railroading surely pales in drama in comparison to steam railroading on "The Curve", it's still quite a sight. The trains come from Altoona and they're down on their knees, power roaring away, flanges squealing, as the crawl up past PRR GP9 #7048, and towards Cresson.

And before the westbound freight is clear, an eastbound intermodal drops down into Horseshoe Curve. You can tell the difference that grade makes on the directions, because the westbound was still fighting up hill and the eastbound was down and gone.

The eastbound lead lower on left meets the helper set of SD70ACUs (rebuilt SD9043MACs) on the westbound.

Originally PRR K4s #1361 sat here on display, donated by PRR after her retirement. But in 1985, when the #1361 was removed to be restored to operation, Conrail donated this ex-PRR GP9, after repainting it into PRR colors. When I was briefly here in 2021, the #7048 looked pretty raggedy, but they've since given it a scrape and a repaint.

Another freight then dropped down through the curve, this one with a BNSF unit trailing the lead AC44C6M. What's an AC44C6M? It's an old DC traction C40-9W that was rebuilt by GE to 4400hp, AC traction with a modern wide cab. Wabtec/GE claims a 17% improvement in fuel efficiency, 30% improvement in reliability, and a 55% improvement in haulage capability.

Another westbound freight making the climb.

And another pair of SD70ACUs working as a helper set. These were ex-Union Pacific SD9043MAC "convertibles" (built to 4300hp SD70MAC spec with the capability to be upgraded to 6000hp SD90MAC-H spec, never actually exercised by UP though). The rebuild program featured a complete electrical upgrade, replacing the existing Siemens electrical equipment, including the inverters, with Mitsubishi electronics and the existing cab wass replaced with a new isolated SD70ACe cab along with a number of other smaller changes to the locomotive during rebuild.