Huh, I stumbled across this photo, which I remembered being taken but had never seen posted anywhere that I was on. This was from the charter on the A&A, when we got up to the end of the line at North Java (pronounced Jay-vuh, not Jah-vuh). They positioned the two center cabs side-by-side and we all went down for a group photo. That's me at middle left in the dark blue D&H shirt with a hat and sunglasses.
NickD said:Just saw this announcement, regarding FRA grants for rail improvements:
New York - Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Systemwide Tier 3 Clean Locomotive Acquisition
Project (Up to $12,600,000) Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad Corp.
The proposed project involves final design and construction activities to rehabilitate six (6) Tier 0 locomotives to meet Tier 3 Environmental Protection Agency standards. The project aligns with the selection criteria by improving system and service performance as it will help provide substantial operational savings (potential 40 percent to 65 percent reduction in fuel consumption) and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby imparting benefits to the rural New York population communities and rail users that the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad serves. The Livonia, Avon & Lakeville Railroad Corp. is providing a 30 percent non-Federal match. This project qualifies for the statutory set-aside for projects in Rural Areas."The LA&L still uses an entirely Alco roster, and it sounds like a bunch of them are either about to be retired or bastardized beyond recognition. Especially grim, considering subsidiary Western New York & Pennsylvania just unloaded all of their big 6-axle Alcos as well.
Well, I had heard some people saying that maybe LA&L was using the grant to upgrade the big AC6000Ws on the WNY&P, which do all the heavy-hauling on that line, to a higher emissions compliancy (like NS's SD70ACUs) but that was just wishful thinking. It was confirmed that the LA&L's Alcos are living on borrowed time.
Livonia Avon and Lakeville Railroad has been around for 60 years, which is exactly how long the railroad’s locomotives have been running.
“Thankfully, we've gotten almost 60 years of use out of these engines, which is a really good investment,” said Bob Babcock, L A & L president and CEO. “But they're tired. They're old.”
The thick black smoke that pours out once they start rolling is one of the reasons the old ALCO locomotives are being replaced. That, and the fact that replacement parts are hard to come by. It all comes with a cost.
“Engines are anywhere from $3 to $4 million apiece,” said Babcock. “So it's a very expensive proposition.”
L A & L just received a $12.6 million grant from the Federal Railroad Administration. The funds will help the railroad meet federal Environmental Protection Agency standards — one of four dozen short-line rail projects in 36 states receiving a total of $720 million in FRA money, designed to improve railway infrastructure and safety.
“It’s the right way to go,” said Babcock. “We want to be better stewards.”
Babcock says the grant will cover 70% of the cost of six new locomotives. He says trains are already more environmentally friendly than other means of transportation, because it takes dozens of tractor-trailers to haul the same amount of cargo a train can haul. The railroad hopes to have the new locomotives on the tracks within two to three years.
“They're going to be more fuel efficient and environmentally, the engines today are just so much cleaner,” he said.
Sixty years of hauling sugar, grain, steel and other supplies comes with a lot of nostalgia, which Babcock says creates an issue for some.
“This railroad is pretty popular with the rail fan community, because we have the older engines,” he said. “So there are some people that aren't happy with what we're doing. But it needs to happen.”
Just like the current ones, the new locomotives will still run on diesel. Still rolling along, just cleaner and more efficient.
“It’s going to be a really neat project,” said Babcock. “And our team is really excited to do this.”
I did finally find out that LA&L runs Mon-Friday and spends the morning switching at Lakeville and hits the road between noon and quarter to 1. I do have time to burn so I'm going to try and get out there either the 13th or the 20th and catch some stuff in action. They say two to three years before they're fully replaced but better to get it now, in case the timeline accelerates. They've still got some of the ex-D&H C424ms and an ex-LIRR C420.
I have a feeling that a fair amount of Alcos are going to bite the dust from these sorts of programs. Already the LA&L units and the Napa Valley FPA-4s are on the chopping block. Alcos are easy targets, because they tend to cough out a decent amount of black smoke on throttle-up. There's also the fact that parts support isn't the greatest and they're getting up there in age, so when the government comes along and offers a grant for 70% of the purchase price of brand new locomotives, if you're not terribly sentimental, it's hard not to jump at that kind of offer. Still, I wish there was some sort of clause that allowed the units to remain intact if they were going to a museum or other preservation-related purposes. My guess is, they don't want the railroads selling or donating them to a museum, and then leasing them back for indefinite use.
I imagine Genesee Valley Transportation and all their various operations (the Falls Road Railroad, the Delaware-Lackawanna, the Depew, Lancaster & Western, and the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern) will hold out for a while, since they are all-Alco all the way across the board everywhere. They've got a ton of units.
I'm guessing the Western New York & Pennsylvania's 4-axle Alcos will be going fairly soon. They parked the 6-axle Alcos years ago and now have sold them to GVT, they already sold off one 4-axle Alco to Arcade & Attica, and now their parent company (LA&L) is getting rid of all their Alcos. Either they'll be turned in on one of these FRA eco grants or they'll just be replaced with something more mainstream.
Way back when, I worked on tow boats (push boats) on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Power on ACBL's boats was Mostly EMD and Alcos with a couple of boats using German heavy fuel MAKs. I remember those Alcos black stacking when the captain came ahead on them. Super rich until the turbos spooled up. At night you could see fire coming out of the stacks. Thanks for all the railroad info!
NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:Way back when, I worked on tow boats (push boats) on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. Power on ACBL's boats was Mostly EMD and Alcos with a couple of boats using German heavy fuel MAKs. I remember those Alcos black stacking when the captain came ahead on them. Super rich until the turbos spooled up. At night you could see fire coming out of the stacks. Thanks for all the railroad info!
There's still some Alco-powered ships running around, from what I hear. The NASA crawler used with the space shuttles actually runs a pair of 2750hp Alco 16-cylinder 251Cs like out of an Alco C628 locomotive as well. Fairbanks-Morse, of vertically opposed-piston marine engine fame, actually ended up with the rights to the Alco 251 engine design and sells service parts for it. Which is ironic, because Fairbanks-Morse once was a competitor of Alco's in the locomotive market. Alco was shacked up with GE for electrical parts, while Fairbanks-Morse and Baldwin (who used De La Vergne engines, originally of marine usage as well) were paired up with Westinghouse for electrical gear. Fairbanks-Morse quite the locomotive market in the early '60s after little success, largely because their engine design was just too different, while Alco left the market in 1969 after Studebaker-Worthington bought them out and stripped them of operating capital.
The trademark Alco smoke actually typically isn't as bad as most think. In a lot of locomotive applications, it's just a brief belch of gray smoke before the turbocharger spools up. The ones that are pouring out continous clouds of roiling black smoke are usually in some state of disrepair (leaky injectors or turbo seals, or just generally worn-out) but everyone thinks that's normal.
Normal:
Abnormal:
Those ex-Quebec Cartier Mining/New York, Susquehanna & Western/RRPX/WNY&P M636s, like the #638, were worn-out, beat-up junk. I remember reading that NYS&W used to assign way more than were required on their trains because they knew they would lose at least one or two to mechanical troubles and wanted to have enough to make it to their destination.
On tow boats the engines were easy to see and walk around. I always thought the Alcos were a nice looking engine.
In reply to NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) :
They made a nice locomotive. Their stuff tended to generate more horsepower on similar number of cylinders as EMDs, and because they were turbocharged 4-strokes they used less fuel than the blown 2-stroke EMDs as well. And even at a similar horsepower, they generated more tractive effort at lower speeds than EMDs. They were also more ruggedly built than the early GE stuff. As one engineer put it "What Alco made out of brass and steel, GE made out of plastic and aluminum." There's a reason 60 year old Alcos are still kicking around and GE Universal-series locomotives are nearly extinct and almost entirely relegated to museum pieces.
They were undone by the poor reliability of the earlier 244 engine that they rushed to market, as well as poor customer service and product support. There was a comment I read from a D&H employee who said that the D&H stopped buying Alcos and went to buying GEs not because the GEs were an inherently better locomotive, because they weren't, but because GE just had better customer service. And worth pointing out that the D&H served the Alco factory in Schenectady directly as an on-line customer. So when the D&H struggled to get parts and customer service from Alco, and they were right there, that tells you how bad it was for them. And clearly the D&H didn't think too much of GEs, because after they bought their U30Cs, U33Cs and U23Bs in 1967 and 1968, they never went back for anymore. They purchased EMD GP39-2s afterwards, and then when they were given free reign to raid the Conrail cookie jar for more motive power, they grabbed more EMD GP39-2s as well as GP38-2s and Alco C420s.
In reply to NickD :
Man, you're a human encyclopedia. I don't remember the Alcos being down much but every EMD645 boat that I was on had a few spare power packs chained to the wall in the engine room.
Well, at least one of the current LA&L Alcos is being spared the eco trade-in program. LA&L has donated S-2 #72, originally built for the South Buffalo Railway in July 1941, to the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. The LA&L began service on eight miles of former Erie Lackawanna track in 1965 with a GE 44-tonner diesel to handle all trains. As freight traffic grew, the LA&L was looking for something to replace the switcher and purchased an RS-1, #20, was from the Lake Erie, Franklin & Clarion in 1972, which became the LA&L’s first Alco diesel. In 1978, Livonia, Avon & Lakeville sold their General Electric 44-tonner to Cargill in Toledo, Ohio, and purchased the S-2, #72, to cope with increased traffic. On the LA&L, No. 72 was often teamed up with Alco RS-1 No. 20 on heavier freight trains. As additional higher-horsepower units were delivered and traffic levels increased after 1981, the #72 was primarily found in yard service, a role performed until it was retired in 2022. It was announced that it was being donated just this weekend, and it will be rejoining LA&L RS-1 #20, which was also donated to the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum back in November 2016.
This eco trade-in program reminds me too much of "Cash for Clunkers."
The #72 being delivered to Rochester & Genesee Valley this weekend.
TheMagicRatchet said:This eco trade-in program reminds me too much of "Cash for Clunkers."
Basically what it is, just for railroads.
Looking at the list of stuff on the LA&L that's being rendered inoperable/potentially scrapped, there's some real history there. I hope some of it can be saved even just as display pieces. Some of the stuff on their roster:
LA&L C424m #219. I don't believe this has ever run on the LA&L, it's mostly just been a parts donor. The red paint and 300-series number is a giveaway that this is ex-Green Bay & Western, but before that it was the Pennsylvania Railroad's sole C424, #2415, and even earlier than that it was Alco RS-27 demonstrator #640-1. Alco rebuilt the RS-27 demonstrator into C424 spec and appearance. PRR bought it, becoming their #2415, and didn't purchase anymore C424s but did return for 31 of the slightly more powerful C425s.
LA&L C425 #425 is the last surviving New Haven C425, which were the last new diesel locomotives ordered by and delivered to the New York, New Haven & Hartford before it was integrated into Penn Central. There's not a ton of late New Haven stuff preserved, other than U25B #2525 (the U25Bs arrived shortly before the U25s) at Railroad Museum of New England/Naugatuck Railroad. (Maybe RMNE would be interested in it as a display piece)
LA&L #418, which appears to have been parked in the deadline at the shop along with the #319 for the past couple years, is the last remaining Nickel Plate Road RS-36.
LA&L #420 is one of the unusual C420s originally built for Long Island Rail Road, which were built with high-speed gearing, high short hoods with steam generators inside, and long hood forward controls, as well as no dynamic brakes. These replaced a lot of the old Fairbanks-Morses on the Long Island Rail Road and were staple in commuter runs until the 1980s. There's still a couple sitting around but I believe that this is the only one that was complete and operational. There was another at Dakota Southern that was out of service due to a burned-up traction motor, and it escaped the scrapping there and went to Arkansas & Missouri but the report was that they were parting it out to keep their other C420s running.
LA&L #421, #422, #423 and #424 were all ex-Delaware & Hudson C424ms, and the last of those still in existence. These had originally been Phase I C424s belonging to Reading and Erie-Lackawanna, which had been traded in to GE by Conrail in the late '70s. D&H needed more motive power and worked out a program where GE would rebuild them at their factory in Hornell, PA and replace the 2400hp 16-251s with 2000hp 12-251s (less maintenance, better fuel efficiency, and they didn't need the horsepower) to call them a C424m. These did time on Maine Central/Springfield Terminal during the Guilford era, and then were eventually sold off to LA&L in the late '80s/early '90s when D&H was sold to Canadian Pacific. Any of these would be right at home at Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, since they were built for Reading and Erie-Lackawanna and ran on the D&H (all three railroads are in PA and aren't strongly represented in the museum collection) and were rebuilt at Hornell, Pennsylvania, plus the RRMoPA is all static display.
Also donated at the same time as the #72, and to the same place, was LA&L's ex-Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh caboose, an ex-Milwaukee Road V-plow that was built from a retired steam locomotive tender, and an unusual work car made from a cut-down refrigerator car
LA&L #20, their old RS-1, already at the Rochester & Genesee Valley Railroad Museum. It is operational, but is in need of new batteries, and if you think that car batteries are expensive, fresh batteries for a locomotive are on the order of about $5000.
On a more positive note regarding Alcos, Catskill Mountain Railroad, who predominantly operates with an ex-GM&O RS-1 in New York Central-esque colors, won the Ulster County Tourist Attraction Of The Year Award for 2023. I'm sure that really grates on some of the folks at Ulster County, since the county tried a bunch of really nasty underhanded tricks to get rid of the Catskill Mountain RR a couple years back.
CMRR operates over the former New York Central Catskill Mountain Branch, which had previously been the Ulster & Delaware Railroad. Ulster County ended up with the line from MP 2.9 to MP 41.4, a total of 38.6 miles, for $1.5 million during the Penn Central estate lquidation. The county had the goal of resuming freight service and initiating a tourist train, since the line had ceased passenger operations on March 31, 1954, and freight operations on October 2, 1976. In 1982, Ulster County leased its entire line to the CMRR and on August 9, 1982, CMRR began operations out of Phoenicia, using track cars and trailers to haul tourists and tubers three miles along Esopus Creek to Mt. Pleasant station. In 1986, Ulster County reconnected the line with Conrail at Kingston. The railroad purchased a variety of second-hand locomotives, coaches and freight cars which were shipped by rail to Kingston. Some of the equipment was refurbished and used immediately, while the rest sat in storage until needed. Also in 1986, the CMRR signed its first multi-year lease with Ulster County, for five years, and began switching freight for the Kingston Recycling Center as well as operating tourist train service from Phoenicia to Mt. Tremper, New York.
In 1991, he railroad entered into a 25-year lease with Ulster County in and began working to restore the crossing over Route 28 in Mount Pleasant to extend their operation. The railroad hoped to put the entire line into service to be able to operate from Phoenicia to Kingston. The project received approval and after about ten years, public funding was provided to complete reconstruction of the crossing and installation of warning lights and gates. The new crossing was put into service in October 2004, offering the railroad its first significant expansion. In 2007 the railroad began track repairs in Kingston to Washington Avenue in and in late 2009, the railroad opened more track west of Washington Avenue and off ered additional seasonal service throughout that year. From 2007 to 2009, close to two miles of track had been rebuilt in Kingston, from Cornell Street to the foot of Bridge C9.For three years, the CMRR worked to complete the rehabilitation of Bridge C9 over Esopus Creek in Kingston. The bridge was opened for service on December 7, 2012, enabling track rehabilitation westward with Route 209 being the first destination. Route 209, MP 5.42, was reached on September 21, 2013, and Hurley Mountain Road, MP 5.94, was reached on November 16, 2014. Similar to the Adirondack Railroad pre-2019, the railroad was operating out of two separate locations, connected with out-of-service trackage in the middle, with hopes of restoring the entirety of the line.
Things started to fall apart in the 2010s though. In 2011, Hurrican Irene wiped out Campground Curve on the Phoenicia end of operations, as well taking out three of the four spans of Boiceville Trestle on the non-operating segment near Cold Brook. The washout was repaired but disrupted operations for the majority of the 2011 seasons. On November 2012, Ulster County informed the CMRR that several repair projects had been approved by FEMA, including restoration of the Boiceville Trestle, but the county informed CMRR that they were holding the funds hostage unless the railroad agreed to terminate its lease from Kingston to the Ashokan Reservoir. The county also began trying to terminate the CMRR's 25 year lease early in 2013.
What followed was an ugly saga, as the county tried to oust the CMRR out of both end of the line. They refused to release the funds to rebuild the western end unless they agreed to terminate the lease. They made claims that the railroad wasn't performing appropriate track maintenance (volunteers cut brush and fixed tracks to extend their rail rides, and also rehabilitated a bridge at a fraction of the cost that the county estimated, but were prevented from performing flood repairs due to the funds being held hostage), was operating without insurance (no validity to the claims, as proven repeatedly by the railroad's lawyers), that the railroad was going to move a passenger car into Kingston and sand blast off the lead paint in the middle of town (said car was stored well outside of Kingston and there weren't even any intentions of performing a restoration on the car). At one point, Kingston mayor Shayne Gallo went down to the city highway deparment and parked a dumptruck on the train tracks (a felony that he didn't even get a slap on the wrist for). The whole time, County Executive Mike Hein was pushing for conversion of the entire line into a trail. Of course, in typical fashion, the politicians tried extending a "compromise" that really wasn't a compromise for the county, but was just to make them look good and force CMRR into an untenable position that would set them up to fail (CMRR would lose the Phoencia end and trackage in Kingston, a new operator would have been sought for the Phoenicia end and that operator would have been financially responsible for removal of the tracks between Mt. Tremper and Kingston, as well as conversion to a trail and maintenance of the trail)
In the end, CMRR won a bit of a pyrrhic victory. They held onto their lines in Kingston, and have continued to extend that, but they lost the Phoenicia end, and the rails through Ahsokan Reservoir (considered the most scenic part of the line and long the goal for CMRR to return to operation) all the way to Phoenicia were lifted to be converted into a trail. Still, CMRR is holding strong, with ridership having gone from a total of 8,039 in 2008 to 46,745 last year. The railroad also continues track work heading west to where the trail takes over in Ahsokan Reservoir, in hopes of providing train trips to the trail and back. And this year they were voted Tourist Attraction of the Year (pity Mike Hein wasn't re-elected in 2019 so that he could be forced to present the award). The only thing that worries me is that their new lease ends December 31st of this year. Hopefully this award will give them more leverage in renegotiating the lease.
NickD said:NickD said:Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:In reply to NickD :
Wow, I didn't realize it had a cosmetic restoration. I expected it to be similar condition to the ones you posted above.
So, just heard that the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern Mikado, #300, that is on display at Hattiesburg, Miss. and formerly owned by Fred Kepner, has been sold to Valley Railroad of Connecticut. They sent some guys down at the beginning of this month to tear into it and make an evaluation of it's mechanical condition. I'm curious to see what they find, since it's been sitting outside in humid conditions for 50 years with it's boiler jacket and asbestos(!) lagging in place. I also know there are some parts like, like some of the side rods, that are missing. It's been sitting in literally the same exact spot since it's donation and the only work done to it was the painting that the city received permission from Fred Kepner to perform. Definitely an odd choice, since the Valley Railroad already has three operational steam locomotives, and this one is halfway across the country from them and likely in very poor condition. But, since it's one of the Kepner collection locomotives not in Oregon, it's up for sale and probably is being offered cheap.
The tale of this poor locomotive continues to get stranger. The city of Hattiesburg has now filed a temporary restraining order against the Valley Railroad and a petition for a declaratory judgment.
The crux of it is that Hattiesburg was under the impression that the city owned the locomotive. Fred Kepner bought the engine from the Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern in 1968 and at that time, Kepner was granted permission to keep the locomotive in the B&HS engine house in Hattiesburg, but subsequently he had to move out when that house was demolished. Kepner then appealed to the Mississippi Great Southern Chapter of the NRHS to store the locomotive, and at that time the locomotive was moved to the present location on Alabama Great Southern Railroad property. Hattiesburg, Mississippi then bought out the property in 2000 and is laying claim to the locomotive, claiming that they assumed the locomotive was abandoned.
The other side of the story is that Fred Kepner passed away in October 2021, and this is the reason his sole heir is now trying to sell the locomotive. The heir secured an agreement to sell Kepner's collection of locomotives to the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad (which is a nonprofit). At this point, the Valley Railroad Company seems to have asked OCSR whether they could buy it, and had the locomotive assessed for restoration potential. Deciding it was a candidate, Valley has contracted to buy the locomotive, with the intent to move it to the Valley's shop in Connecticut (this is where the CT comes into it) sent a mechanical crew to Hattiesburg to determine whether it would be viable to restore the engine to steam operation.
The city's claims on the locomotive get really murky, with them making multiple contradictory claims all at once. They simultaneously say in the same press release that they thought the locomotive was abandoned and that it fell into city ownership as a result, that they thought it came with the property when they purchased it, that they didn't own it or know who owned it, and that one-third of the interest of the locomotive had been held in the trust of a woman who recently passed away and the city purchased that portion of the interest from that estate. Like, pick a story and stick to it. You can't claim you own it, you didn't think you owned it, and you thought you owned it all at the same time.
There's also some other weird contradictory statements in their release. For example: "As I understand, the locomotive has been at our train depot for over 50 years and many generations have come to identify that locomotive with our downtown and train heritage." But yet in those 50 years, you never once attempted to figure out who actually owned it, and also, if it is such an important part of your city, why was it rotting away until a couple years ago? Also: “The City of Hattiesburg would like to request that the locomotive be transferred to the City of Hattiesburg’s ownership. By doing so, the city would then be in a legal position to expend public funds on the locomotive and begin to develop a preservation plan for the train. As a public entity, we are eligible for several preservation opportunities, that, as a privately owned train, the locomotive has never qualified before.” That sounds like they are admitting that they don't own it, and it's also weird that they said they can't legally spend funds on the locomotive, but then go on to say they spent $50k on it having it painted a couple years ago and a bunch of money on the display and don't want the locomotive to leave after that. Also, why were you spending money on something you weren't sure you even owned? It really just seems like they are grasping at straws, especially because the claim of 1/3rd ownership only surfaced recently after it came out that someone was looking at purchasing the locomotive.
I have to wonder, if the 1/3rd ownership that Hattiesburg claims is valid, is the 2/32rds ownership that Valley Railroad purchased from the Kepner estate enough to allow them to still move and restore the locomotive. And if the city is that upset that "their" locomotive that they either don't own at all or only hold a 1/3rd ownership in, is being sold, then they should just buy it out from Valley Railroad. The city can either buy out the Valley Railroad 2/3 interest and own the locomotive with full title, or the Valley Railroad, can try to cut a deal with the city, to either buy the city 1/3 interest or cut a deal in which the city leases the locomotive to the Valley Railroad. If the court rules in favor of Hattiesburg, then there also exists the potential that Valley Railroad could go after the Kepner estate for damages if the estate claimed that they owned the full title to the locomotive. A messy situation, regardless, and likely one that will tie up some time in the courts.
Well, this bizarre tale finally came to it's conclusion. Chancery Court Judge Chad Smith ordered the train to remain in place, stating that Bonhomie & Hattiesburg Southern #300, was a fixture on the property when the city purchased the train depot in 2000. In addition, any future claims of ownership by any other entities are barred by law (which seems absurdly heavy-handed).
"In the 22 years since the purchase of that land (at the depot), Valley’s communication (to the city) in 2022 regarding removal of the locomotive was the first notice to the city regarding any outside claim of ownership of the locomotive,” Smith’s order states. “The record shows no situation or event which required the city to claim ownership.” In March 2022, the city filed a petition for a declaratory judgment, temporary restraining order and other measures against Valley Railroad Company regarding the locomotive. The suit claims that on June 26, 2000, the city acquired the property on which the train is located from the Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company. The suit states that there is no indication anywhere on the site that the train belongs to anyone other than the City of Hattiesburg, at least since the city acquired the property in 2000.
So, basically, as far as the court is concerned, the #300 was never sold to Kepner by the B&HS (despite Kepner's estate apparently having 2/3rds title to the locomotive) and that the city acquired it when they acquired the property from Alabama Great Southern Railroad Company. Seems pretty flimsy and really shady, but what the judge says goes.
I did have to laugh at this line "“The city has used time, money, labor, and resources to maintain and preserve the locomotive from weathering, secured the locomotive from unwanted visitors, promoted and presented the locomotive to the community, and preserved and restored the Locomotive for the past twenty-two years, and is the only party that has been openly exhibiting ownership of the locomotive.” Considering what the locomotive looks like, and the fact that they haven't even bothered to remove the asbestos, I don't know how they could keep a straight face while saying that.
Having been skunked on acquiring B&HS #300, Valley Railroad has instead announced that they are purchasing Frisco 2-8-2 #1352. This is one of six Mikados that Frisco created during WWII by rebuilding a batch of older Consolidations. The rather severe neck-down from the boiler courses to the reused smokebox is a giveaway that it was a rebuilt engine. They also gained the typical Frisco appliances of a Coffin feedwater heater (you can see it's draped over the smokebox ahead of the stack), Nicholson thermic syphons, a Duplex stoker, and a Franklin trailing truck booster. The Frisco had a line from Amory, Mississippi down to Pensacola, Florida, where bridges restricted steam power to Consolidations. The rebuild, and the added trailing truck, gave a more powerful engine without increasing weight on the drive axles and running afoul of weight limits on that line. The 1350-series Mikados were fairly small as far as Mikes went (the Frisco had some real monsters in the 4100-series) but it's still quite a bit bigger and heavier than anything that Valley Railroad has at the moment.
I don't predict that the #1352 will be running any time soon though since the photos I've seen of it in recent years indicate a condition that could be kindly described as rough. It was donated to Kansas City after retirement and displayed at Swope Park, where it was subject to several floods and vandalism. The KC Park Board wanted #1352 removed, and in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was donated to the Smoky Hill Railway and Historical Society, who removed the locomotive from the park and relocated it to an industrial park in Riverside, Missouri where it again suffered flooding on more than one occasion. The financially distressed SHR&HS sold the locomotive again to Ted Lehman in 1995, who moved it to Rural, Illinois for storage. American Steam Railroad Preservation Society purchased the #1352 in 2008 with the hopes of restoring it to operating condition. However, after partially disassembling it at a facility in Taylorville, Illinois, the ASR purchased Reading #2100 in 2015 and put the #1352 on a backburner. It's in pretty sad condition after so many years of neglect by it's previous owners.
At the end of the day, it makes a lot of sense for ASR to throw in the towel. They've got plenty on their plate with #2100, and the statement they had made that revenue trips from #2100 would pay for #1352's move and restoration never made much sense. You don't use one locomotive to pay to restore another, you use your revenue to keep that locomotive running. The sale of #1352 can help push #2100 over the restoration finish line. Meanwhile, Valley Railroad continues to increase their ridership and there is talk of extending the line back to Middletown, which means having another engine (and one that's much more powerful than anything else on their roster) is a big help. They have three steam locomotives, but with two operating at one time, if you have the third down for maintenance and an issue crops up with the other two, you find yourself short on power. I imagine if they restore the #1352, they'll likely dump the trailing truck booster and maybe the feedwater heater, since they aren't working the engines that hard and those add considerable expense and maintenance time to keep working. And, of course, the good news is that the long-neglected #1352 gets a new lease on life.
Over the weekend was the state model train show out to Syracuse, so my father and I went on Saturday. I didn't take a ton of photos, but I, and pretty much anyone local, got a huge laugh out of this model that included the famed Onondaga Lake Parkway 10'9" railroad bridge that has been struck 49 times since 2012 alone.
I also took the opportunity to peruse for rare books and managed to score a copy of John Taibi's "Silver Rails Through The Heart Of The Park" for $100. Not bad considering it's easily the most complete collection of photos and info on the New York Central Adirondack Division (it's nearly 800 pages) and was $115 new and they only printed 600 copies.
Particularly surprising was that Friends Of The Cumbres & Toltec had a booth there. Hard to imagine sending guys from Chama, NM to Syracuse, NY to do a recruiting pitch. And, boy, did they hit me up. Basically explained that you can fly out, volunteer on restoration projects for a week and then ride for a significantly reduced price. As the one gentleman put it "You;d be the second youngest guy there, I guarantee it. My son is the youngest, he's about 10 years younger than you." A trend I'm hearing a lot.
Even more intriguing was the Adirondack Railroad's booth. My father and I went over there and they had a sign that they are looking for volunteer conductors and engineers. That got my father's interest and we struck up conversation with one of their engineers, Larry Girard. According to him, they unexpectedly lost 4 engineers this year alone and he's the youngest at 73 years old. My father went "Well, I retire next year and I'm 65. You're willing to train and qualify someone?" He got a very enthusiastic yes. And now I'm thinking I might hit them up. I'm quite a bit younger and I wouldn't mind training and being an engineer for them a weekend a month. I had just assumed that operating crew was like firemen, everyone wants to drive the truck, no one wants to fight the fire. I assumed that if I volunteered, I'd get stuck being a car host, and I am not car host material. Hell, I'd even be okay with playing brakemen.
I spent some time looking at the Adirondack Railroad volunteer form last night. I also had to go over to drop something off at my parents and my father, in conspiratorial tones, went "Don't tell your mother, but I've been thinking on that volunteer offer."
I keep hoping that they'll get one of their New York Central RS-3s up and running. Historically, in the diesel era, Alco RS-3s were the power of choice for trains headed up the Adirondack Division. When the Adirondack Centennial Railroad/Adirondack Scenic Railroad/Adirondack Railroad opened in 1992 (the Centennial name was to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Seward Webb's Mohawk & Malone Railroad opening, which became the Adirondack Division), they had New York Central RS-3 #8223, in it's original NYC livery and number, as some of their earliest power. Unfortunately that was a case of it was owned by a separate group and leased by Adirondack Railroad, and the last time the #8223 ran was back in 2014, before some dispute between Adirondack Railroad management and the #8223's owners took place. The #8223 sits in Utica Yard, slowly getting scruffier looking, wearing MRLX reporting marks. The rumor was that it was headed to Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley, but now it's supposedly tied up in some legal debate preventing it's move. The equipment is always the big loser in those sorts of situations. I've heard those in the know say do not expect the #8223 to ever operate over Adirondack's rails again, but then again, as long as it's still at Utica, maybe there's hopes they'll patch things up and it'll operate there again.
They acquired a second NYC RS-3, #8255, around 2017 from the Midland Railway down in Baldwin City, Kansas, and this was considered a big score because there are records that it actually operated over the Adirondack Division when New York Central still owned it. They shipped it up to Thendara and it apparently has run on the Otter Lake train a handful of times, but is mostly parked in the engine house up there. From what I hear, it needs some debugging before they run it regularly and they have the parts but never have the time. It'd be awesome if they could get that running for 2025, since that marks the 60th anniversary of the last NYC run over the Adirondack Division, which was handled by RS-3 #8265.
Some good news for NYC fans, the very first S-Motor built and the last surviving T-Motor, long neglected in the woods on Beacon Island, were safely loaded aboard tractor trailers and are on their way to Danbury Railway Museum for cosmetic restoration. These electric locomotives, along with an Alco RS-3, a GE U25B and a bunch of ex-D&H passenger cars, were owned by an NRHS chapter, which shuffled them onto the property of a power plant at Beacon Island and essentially abandoned them there. When it was announced that the property would be undergoing major industrial redevelopment, it was assumed they would end up being scrapped, due to numerous obstacles with moving them. Danbury Railway Museum, which had quietly purchased them back in 2013, stepped up and was able to move them out of immediate harm so that they could be disassembled, loaded onto tractor trailers and moved to the museum for cosmetic restoration. I personally had long assumed that these were goners, due to the situation, so I'm pleased to be proven wrong.
Metro North, who is celebrating their 40th anniversary, has released the third of four planned heritage units, P32AC-DM #211. The first two were painted in the original Metro North "beach ball" livery and the Conrail blue and yellow commuter livery, and the #211 wears New York Central's passenger lightning stripe scheme. I suspect the fourth unit will be painted in a New Haven livery, probably the McGinnis orange, white and black (I wouldn't complain if they chose one of the less-represented liveries though)
They already have at least one P32 engine painted in the NH black and orange, and have for years - I've seen it countless times on the Hudson Line. There's also one of the BL20s in the same scheme.
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