Grassroots Railroad Sports?

The ex-L&N U25B was a bit of a touchy subject. Originally built as L&N #1616, it then moved onto the Family Lines/Seaboard Systems roster and became Seaboard #1616. Then Seaboard and Chessie merged and it became CSX #3416. It was the last operating U25B on the CSX roster, and in 1991 hauled it a train into Baltimore, was unhooked and then run over to the B&O Railroad Museum, where CSX donated it to the museum. The B&O Railroad Museum, which had stopped being a corporate-owned museum and had become an independent non-profit in 1989, decided to move it's collection towards collecting primarily B&O pieces, and wasn't interested in an L&N U25B, especially since it came from the other side of the family (and even that didn't mean stuff was safe, since the museum got rid of a C&O SD18 around that time). They used it for a while to switch stuff around the property, but after a while decided to lease it to Tennesee Valley Railroad Museum, since that was L&N territory. It went down to TVRM, where it was put back into it's L&N #1616 appearance and put on display at the Grand Junction property.

After a couple years of leasing it, B&O Railroad Museum got tired of the whole arrangement and made rumblings about wanting to sell it. TVRM declined the offer, and because TVRM was more familiar with museums in that era, B&O Railroad Museum asked TVRM to ask around if any museums in that area were interested in buying it. B&O Railroad Museum never received any word from other museums interested, and so they sold the U25B off to RMDI. When news of #1616 being moved north to PA to be sold to a rebuilder/dismantler got out, all sorts of museums and historical groups in L&N territory cried out over why #1616 hadn't been offered to them. In particular, Kentucky Railway Museum, which is basically the unofficial L&N museum, was irritated, since they had been in the market for a new diesel locomotive and the #1616 had even been operable. The L&N Historical Society was also pretty upset, because they had funded the painting and renumbering of the #1616 back into L&N colors.

It then came to light that TVRM had not ever contacted any of the other museums in the region. Their hope had been that when B&O Railroad Museum didn't get any offers, they would be able to swoop in and go "Well, if no one else wants it, we'll take it" and score it for some firesale price. They didn't expect that the B&O Railroad Museum would instead sell it off to RMDI. Once it went up to RMDI, the Delware-Lackawanna guys moved in and grabbed the generator and traction motors for one of their C425s. It was eventually purchased by a private owner, who moved it to the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum in Oak Ridge, TN and I know he had hopes to one day make it a complete operational locomotive, but I imagine that with SARM no longer being able to run excursions over NS like they used to, that won't be happening anytime soon.

Sad story for what was once a complete operating U25B, none too represented in preservation, that was basically cast off by two museums.

The New York Central electrics, T-3a #278 and S-1 #100, have arrived at Danbury Railway Museum and begun reassembly and eventual cosmetic restoration. These were the units that were basically abandoned in Beacon Island, down near Albany, by an NRHS chapter, along with an ex-Conrail U25B and RS-3 and some ex-D&RGW/D&H coaches. For years, the view was that these were basically dead men walking, since the rail connection on one end had been severed, the bridge in the other direction was out of service, and there were too many trees around and the ground was too soft to truck them out. A couple years ago, it was announced that Beacon Island was being redeveloped and the stuff needed to be out of there or it was getting scrapped. Danbury Railway Museum, who had quietly purchased them a couple years prior, launched an effort to get them out, which resulted in them being lifted off the rails and set on a nearby section of panel track to get them out of the way (the redevelopment had resulted in the trees being cut and the ground being leveled with gravel, making it possible) and then over the past year or so they've been disassembled and loaded onto tractor trailers. They arrived at Danbury yesterday, and while #278 has been set back together, the #100 had more severe rust and suffered some damage during the lift, which needs to be addressed before the body can be reunited with the running gear. Still, a tremendous step, considering that the #278 is the last surviving NYC T-Motor and the #100, originally #6000, was the very first mass-produced electric locomotive in North America.

In New York Central-related news, CSX has released CSX #1853, which is the New York Central heritage unit. They used the passenger light gray lightning stripe paint scheme, as opposed to NS's NYC heritage unit that uses the freight black lightning stripe. Now, I have defended the CSX heritage units in the past, but this one isn't working for me. My first gut reaction was "Why the hell is the lettering under the stripe?" And indeed, on EMD E7s and early road switchers (GP7, GP9, RS-2, RS-3s) the New York Central lettering was above the lightning stripe. But on FTs, F3s, F7s, E8s and RF-16s the lettering was indeed below the stripes. And to add even more confusion, the FAs, PAs, Erie-builts and C-Liners had the lettering inside the stripe. So, that is actually correct, and I imagine that they were forced to put it there because otherwise the air filters and radiators flares would have been in the way. But, putting the lettering low like that means that the handrails are in the way (which wasn't an issue on FTs, F3s, F7s, E8s and RF-16s because they didn't have walkways), and the white handrails are also super distracting. On NYC lightning stripe-painted road switchers, the handrails were all painted yellow. And the other thing is that the font they used for the New York Central script is completely wrong.

To show what I'm talking about with the script location and font:

E7 #4008 with the script above the stripe.

RF-16 #3818 with the script below the stripe.

And FA #1073 with the script in the stripe.

And then, RS-3 #8257, with the script above the stripe, showing the yellow handrails and rungs that I mentioned.

Mid-Continent Railway Museum has announced that they are restoring Great Northern #2313 to operation. Built in 1925 by Electro-Motive Corporation (before General Motors bought EMC and it became Electro-Motive Division) it is the 13th motorcar built by EMC and the oldest surviving piece of EMC equipment.  It is close to as-built condition with its power plant, baggage area, smoking compartment, passenger area, and opposite end control area largely intact. It ran for the Great Northern until 1940, then was sold off to the Montana Western, where it was renumbered to #31 by dropping the first and last digits off the GN number. It was donated to Mid-Continent in May of 1966, and after a 4-year restoration, it first operated on museum tracks on April 29, 1972 and that August it was moved to EMD’s original LaGrange, Illinois factory to help celebrate EMC/D’s 50th Anniversary. On October 2-3, 1982, #31 ran excursions on the C&NW mainline from North Freedom to Devils Lake. The car last operated in 1987, when issues developed with the original Winton gasoline engine. Mid-Continent has recently undertaken repairs to the roof, radiator, control system, and fuel tank, but has not touched the antique Winton engine. FMW Solutions, who seems to be everywhere these days, will be moving the engine to their Tennessee facilities and performing an overhaul on it, aided by a large supply of original Winton parts donated to the museum by the Sperry Rail Service when it was retiring its Winton-engined rail inspection cars. The hope is to have it running for it's 100th anniversary next year.

Reading & Northern announced their traffic levels for 2023, and 2023 was another record year for them. In addition to hitting Andy Muller's goal of moving 1,000,000 tons of anthracite in a single year, a goal he's had since he purchased the old Reading and Lehigh Valley anthracite branches from Conrail in 1990, the railroad saw double-digit percentage growths in both passenger and freight. Helluva way to celebrate a 40th anniversary. R&N handled 37,000 freight cars in 2023, up from 33,000 cars in 2022, while the railroad's excursion ridership rose to 320,000 riders in 2023 from 250,000 in the previous year. That passenger ridership in 2022 was itself up from 225,175 riders in 2021, itself an increase of 75,000 over its pre-pandemic high. Pretty amazing that R&N has bouyed passenger ridership from approximately 150,000 in 2019 to 320,000 in just four years. Getting #2102 operational and running the Rambles through the summer added quite a few riders, and they've been adding more special event trips, and then the weekend runs from Pittston to Jim Thorpe.

The other big R&N news is that R&N #563, George Washington, an ex-PRR Budd-built observation/lounge/parlor car built for Congressional service, is finally on it's way to Port Clinton. R&N purchased the car two years ago from the estate of a gentleman who had preserved and restored the car, and it was en route to the R&N via NS when an NS yard crew kicked a coil car into the George Washington at the yard in Decatur. The car was derailed and suffered significant damage to the draft gear, coupler pockets, exterior skin, interior fixtures and the frame. The car was no longer able to move in a regular consist and it's taken a significant amount of time to resolve. Now it's been spotted headed east again, loaded on two separate flatcars, the car body on one and the truck on the other. No word on what the settlement was or what the plan is for it, but I wouldn't expect to see it in service any time soon.

According to the local Facebook group, the F-units have left the Adirondack Railroad premises. They were picked up from the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern yard in Utica on Friday. They were #1502, an ex-GM&O F3 rebuilt to "FP10" spec by Illinois Central Gulf for MBTA, #1508, an ex-Alaska Railroad F7, and #2007, an ex-Metro North FL9. The #1502 was stated to be "the rustiest F-unit I've ever seen in service" and had some sort of issue with the traction motor contactors. The #2007 was a basket case that never ran, nor would the state have allowed it to run north of the Blue Line on account of the three-axle rear truck, and was purchased just as a parts donor. The #1508 is said to be the best of the three and is potentially salvageable but still has the usual F-unit rust issues and I think needed some wheel work. They're headed to Larry's Truck & Electrical in Ohio, which is a dismantler/leaser, which means it's likely the end of the road for #1502 and #2007. One Adirondack volunteer says that LTEX supposedly has plans for #1508, but I'm not sure on that. LTEX is a bit of a weird one. People say they are hard to get a hold of, that getting them to sell you parts can be difficult, and that they seem generally content just to collect things and let them rot away. They still have old Wisconsin Central F45s and Burlington Northern E9Ams sitting there 20-30 years after retirement and refuse to sell or donate them, or sell parts off them.

I've always been a little baffled by the presence of the FL9, #2007, on the Adirondack. I remember when I was in high school, they had four or five FL9s all parked up on the MA&N's trackage at Griffiss Industrial Park in Rome, not far from Rome Free Academy. I walked down there the one time after school and poked around them, all of them still in Metro North silver and blue. The other FL9s all vanished, but the #2007 was moved to Utica and at some point was repainted into the modern colors, but never ran on the lines. Some things I see say that the #2007 was a basket case and was never run nor did the line have any intentions of running it and it, and the other FL9s, was just purchased to be a parts donor, while other said that Adirondack did plan to run it but the state wouldn't allow it on their rails due to the 3-axle rear truck. It is odd that they repainted it into the new black, green and yellow paint, but then never repainted the #1508, which operated at least as late as 2017.

The other FL9s that were stored at Rome. This photo was dated 2003, so they were there quite a bit earlier than I though. By the time I explored them, which would've been 2008-2010 area, they'd been sitting for a couple of years. The Adirondack did acquire the FP10, #1502, from Metro North in 2003 as well, so I'm guessing these were a package deal when Metro North finally began retiring their F-units. Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley, down in Milford, NY, also picked up a couple of ex-Metro North FL9s at the same time.

Some of the state's ban on 6-axle power over the rails that they own in the Adirondacks north of Snow Junction (just north of Remsen where the MA&N heads northwest to Lyons Falls on the old RW&O and the Adirondack heads northeast to Thendara and beyond on the Adirondack & St. Lawrence) is rumored to come from during the 1979-1980 Adirondack Railway era, with Adirondack #25. Nicknamed "The Tampa Tiger", since it wore a bright blue and orange livery and had been operated by Florida Power & Light, this old ex-Seaboard Alco RSC-2 was one of the three locomotives used by Frank Menair's iteration of the Adirondack Railway. A Train Orders user recounted that Menair sent him down to Florida to examine the #25 for possible purchase, he got down there and found it to be a bit of a wreck, and then called back to New York to let Frank Menair not to buy it. Menair's response was "Too late. I bought it while you were on the way down." The RSC-2, an A1A-trucked variant of the RS-2, was shipped north and kept it's orange and blue paint, while the other two ex-Roberval & Saguenay RS-3s were repainted into a dark green and gold. The #25 was not very reliable, it was strongly disliked by crews and spent a lot of it's time mostly reserved as backup power. But, when it was used, particularly during operations in the summer of 1980, it was hard on the track and prone to derailments. That was not a fault of 6-axle units in general, but the #25 in particular. There was some sort of characteristic, either from just the Alco truck design or some sort of wear or trauma that the #25 had suffered during it's life, that made the #25 have issues. This was also not helped by the fact that, at it's peak, Menair was running 7 trains a day over tracks that hadn't seen any sort of major track work since the early 1950s. Those derailments, which became exceptionally common in the late summer of '80, not just from #25 but all the power they were using, and the state shut them down over it. But, when the state took ownership of the tracks north of Snow Junction and then the line was revived in the 1990s, somehow decided that all 6-axle locomotives would be problematic on the line and banned them.

Now, there is a little bit of truth in there. The line was not operated by 6-axle power, because the New York Central didn't own any 6-axle/6-motor power (they had A1A-trucked EMD E-units, Alco PAs, et al) but those were never assigned on the Adirondack Division, largely because there were concerns about their ability to handle the grades found on the Adirondack Division. Alco RS-3s handled the passenger runs, and FA-1s handled the big UM-1/UM-2 "banana trains" from Utica to Montreal. In addition to the #25, there was one excursion chartered by an NRHS chapter and hosted by NYC that ran NYC E7s from Syracuse to Lake Placid and back in '65 after the shutdown, and an NRHS chapter also ran their ex-E-L E8s up there in the '90s at some point. There are also some sharper curves, but remember, these lines handled 4-6-2s with a larger rigid wheelbase than a 3-axle diesel locomotive truck. 

Ironically, the #25 was saved at Utica, while the other two RS-3s went their own ways after the Adirondack Railway shut down, and was painted in the green and gold paint that it never wore in service, and it was named "Durwood Carman". Durwood Carman was one of the engineers on the Adirondack and was said to be a crusty old bastard who was not afraid of Notch 8 on the throttle (according to Taibi's book, none of the engineers spared the whip much). Carman had been working as a hogger for the Central New York Railroad and the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville, both Delaware-Otsego Corp. operations and was said to absolutely loath the #25, more than anyone else, so he probably wouldn't be too pleased that the "Tampa Tiger" was named for him. After the Adirondack folded up in '81, he went back to working on the FJ&G only to pass away later that year from lung cancer.

The #25 at Lake Placid, in the summer of 1980.

And at Thendara, in front of the Great Stationhouse, one of three surviving Adirondack Division "Great Stationhouses", out of the ten originally built for the St. Lawrence & Adirondack Railway in 1893.

That's Durwood Carman, affixing American flags in the flagholders of former Adirondack Railway RS-3 #29. By this point, the Adirondack had been shut down, and after a brief attempt to get investors interested in helping revive it, the equipment was sold of. The New York, Susquehanna & Western ended up with the two RS-3s and the "Tampa Tiger", and Carman himself went back to working on Walter Rich's Central New York Railroad (the old DL&W Richfield Springs Branch, now abandoned) and Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville (also abandoned). The NYS&W was officially taking over the old DL&W Utica Branch from Conrail at this point as well.

I saw this auction and couldn't help but think of NickD.

https://www.ironhorseauction.com/auction/kershaw-estate-1913-baldwin-2-6-0-mogul-steam-locomotive--tender-plus-other-train-items-70423/details

In reply to NY Nick :

Wow!!!

That is far above my pay grade but rich with very desirable "toys." Hope someone(s) are able to save most of it. 

Lou Manglass

In reply to NY Nick :

According to the folks on Ahead Of The Torch and RYPN, just about everyone who was anyone in steam mechanics from the '70s through to the the '90s had their hand in W.T. Smith Lumber #7 at various times. You can see that the boiler has been ultrasounded, that's what the grid patterns painted on the boiler are for, and was found to be in good shape, and quite a bit of running gear work was done. The issue, as those involved have said, was that Royce Kershaw liked to take pauses in the stream of work to rethink things which made it somewhat frustrating to try to maintain a project's momentum and the restoration kind of stalled out. But, it supposedly wouldn't need a ton to finish up, although being 36" narrow gauge does limit where you could run it a bit. Hmmm, Dollywood has a 36" gauge line, and there is the Hank Williams connection there, maybe it'll end up there.

Adirondack Railway ("The Eager Beaver Line") at Big Moose in July of 1981 with the Lake Placid-Thendara "Investor Special". The train had stopped at Big Moose after the #28 conked out and had to be restarted, hence the plume of black smoke. After the Adirondack Railway had been shut down, due to Frank Menair running out of money and the state growing concerned over the number of derailments occurring almost daily, this was a last-ditch effort to interest some investors into funding further operations, as well as to move the camp cars down from Lake Placid. The trip was funded by Delawre-Otsego Corp.  Walter Rich as part of an inspection, or looking back on it maybe for one last blast and a fun "private excursion". Nobody stepped up and the Adirondack Division went dormant for 11 years until 1992.

Doug Ellison, who took this photo, recounted riding the last regular run of the Adirondack Railway in the summer of 1980 in John Taibi's book on the Adirondack Division. Ellison was a guy who was kind of everywhere in the Utica-Rome area during the late '70s through the '90s. He was photographing Conrail operations when they still had the Utica Branch, was a brakeman on the Adirondack Railway, worked for Delaware-Otsego's various operations, and was also taking photos of the Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern. After the 1980 Winter Olympics wrapped up, the Adirondack Railway's operations were kind of sporadic, due to funds, ridership and track conditions, but there was hope it would be able to remain a going concern, and Menair was making arrangements to bring a trio of steam locomotives up to operate on the line. 

Doug Ellison had been working as a brakeman on the northbound trains out of Utica up to Lake Placid on Saturday, crashing for the night at the camp cars in Lake Placid, and then working the southbound train down to Utica on Sunday to be home and go to work the next day. On August 4th, the Adirondack had had a bad derailment that had put leased Conrail "Dewitt Geep" #9968 and all of the cars on the ground near Floodwood and had required getting people home on buses. He reported in to the dispatch office on August 6th, 1980 to work the trip north, only to be informed that he would not be staying in Lake Placid, he was to ride the train back down to Utica that evening because they were shutting down. He rode the trip north, marked off at 1:30pm, and then hopped in the cab of the #28 for the run south with Durwood Carman at the controls.

He said that Carman absolutely hauled ass on the run south. According to Ellison, at higher speeds an Alco RS-3's rear truck tends to get into a weird motion, like a cat wiggling it's haunches before it pounces, so he could tell they were flying. By his estimate, they were hitting 70mph at various spots, pretty shocking considering that this was 45mph territory even in the halcyon days of the New York Central and the condition of the track. They stopped in Thendara to grab more of the cars and the other locomotive, as well as all the employees stationed at Thendara, and then they took off again, pushing 70mph and higher.

Conrail still owned the line south of Snow Junction (it wouldn't be sold off until 1991, when Conrail got rid of the rest of the old RW&O Division out of Utica), and so to make moves between Remsen and Utica, they had to call in to the Conrail dispatcher to get permission to move over their rails. In the early days, before the Adirondack Railway crews were qualified on the territory, there actually had to be a Conrail crew aboard and at the controls for moves over that segment. They got permission from Conrail to make the move, and they took off again, running just as fast as before, probably a record speed for operations over that lines, and went screaming into Utica. When they arrived in Utica, the Conrail dispatcher did the math between when they called in and when they arrived and was not impressed. They got chewed out by the Conrail dispatcher, although none of them really cared, since it seemed like they were done.

According to Ellison, he was called and told several times to be available to mark up as a brakeman after they shut down, but was never actually called, as the operations failed to materialize. They did run a handful of trips that fall between Lake Placid and Tupper Lake, on the Lake Placid Branch, and he rode one but never worked one of those trips. And then it was all silent until this trip, which was partially to clear equipment out of Lake Placid (at the time, the state had ended up with ownership of the rails from Penn Central's estate and was looking to tear the whole thing up), partially to get investors to maybe step in and revive it, and possibly one last trip for fun.

The #28 working on the Buffalo Southern in 1987. After the Adirondack was officially dead, the equipment was moved down to the NYS&W yard in Utica, which the NYS&W had just taken over from Conrail. Doug Ellison said that the old DL&W/E-L freight house in Utica had been the divisional office, but then E-L had moved it down to Binghamton, and when NYS&W took over, they found that the entire building was left like everyone had just left at the end of the day and never come back. There were still coffee mugs on the desks, calendars hung on the wall, paperwork left stacked where it had been. He even found paperwork dating back to pre-1957 for waybills from cars handled by the DL&W by the NYO&W. NYS&W ended up with the #25 and the #29, parting out the #25 and running the #29 until 1996, before selling it to Cuyahoga Valley Scenic, where it was eventually scrapped. The #28 was bought by Buffalo Southern where it ran until 1991, when it broke a crankshaft, and has been stored in Eden, NY ever since. It's been sitting outside, exposed to elements and vandals and scavenged of parts, and is in pretty rough shape, but still wearing the Adirondack green and gold. There are those that would love to relocate it back to the Adirondack and even just make it a display piece but it would need a lot of work even just to cosmetically restore.

In reply to 914Driver :

An O. Winston Link classic

Adirondack Railroad F7A #1508 when it first arrived in New York. It had been built for the Alaska Railroad, hence the big pilot plow it always wore, but was sold off by Alaska Railroad and purchased by the Massachusetts Central. They had it a couple years in the '90s, and never repainted it or even relettered it, and then sold it to the Adirondack Scenic Railroad (they acquired an ex-SP&S C424 from Mass Central around the same time). It ran on the Adirondack in the Alaska Railroad blue and yellow for a couple years, and is shown here paired up with #2064, an ex-LV/D&H C420 they had for a while, and #8223, the ex-NYC RS-3.

They did have another F7A, the #1500, which was kind of a weird one, since it arrived in a weird kinda-sorta NYC lightning stripe but with Toledo, Peoria & Western livery. The TP&W had long been jointly-owned by PRR and ATSF, basically as a way to interchange traffic and avoid moving it through Chicago. During the Conrail era, Conrail closed down the Logansport interchange, which diminished the value of the TP&W, and eventually Santa Fe bought out the entirety of the TP&W and merged it into the company in 1983. But then in 1989, the TP&W was bought by some ex-B&M managers and re-emerged as an independent railroad. For whatever reason, the new owners decided to use something similar to the NYC gray lightning stripe passenger. They bought a bunch of GP20s off of ATSF, which made sense for motive power, but also ended up grabbing an ex-Bessemer & Lake Erie F7A as well, which became TP&W #1500. From what I've heard, TP&W crews absolutely loathed the #1500: it looked nice but B&LE had gotten the best years out of it hauling ore drags, it was hot inside due to the lack of AC, and it was noisy as hell in the cab like F-units tend to be. Most photos of it on the TP&W show it assigned to a trailing position so that crews didn't have to put up with it and could instead ride in the nicer GP20s. After a surprising number of years there, it ended up coming east to the Adirondack in 2002, around the time RailAmerica took over the TP&W, and the #1500 was put in service still in the pseudo-NYC TP&W paint. According to those who ran it back then, it was pretty tired. It was structurally sound and pretty rust-free, but just everything was worn out and it needed heavy investment. Shortly after purchasing it, it was repainted, along with ex-Alaska Railroad F7A #1508, into the modified NYC lightning stripe paint that the Adirondack was using at the time. It ran for about four years and then the V16 567C blew up and it was parked, then sat at the Utica yard for about 5 years while the Adirondack tried to sell it off. The Grafton & Upton Railroad in Massachusetts ended up buying it in 2011, moved it out there, painted it into their colors and renumbered it to #1501 (they already had a CF7 numbered #1500), and installed a running 567C in it. It was put in service in 2013, then after two years that 567C blew up, and it's been sitting at their shops ever since.

The #1500, post-repaint. The slightly-modified NYC livery (blue outline and Adirondack Scenic Railroad logo on the nose) on the locomotives and cars was a good look. I'm sad they got away from this livery, and then never have really had everything in a homogenous paint scheme ever since. The #8223 and SW1 #705 still wear NYC paint, there's locomotives in the black, green and yellow livery (#1835, #1845 and the never-run #9411), the #3573 wears patched over CN colors, the #2400 is in the new D&H-inspired livery, there's a bunch of cars still in this livery, passenger cars in ex-N&W/NS passenger paint, and passenger cars in the new grey, green and yellow.

The #1501 during it's short operating career on the G&U. Sadly, all the interesting motive power on the G&U is either gone or out of service and they just operate with a pair of patched-out ex-CSX MP15s. The CF7, GP9 and F7A are all parked out of service, and chopped up a pair of perfectly good, operational Alco S-4s a couple years back without any attempt to sell them, or even seeing if anyone was interested. There was talk back in 2016 that the #1501 was going to be scrapped but the G&U said, no, it was going to be held onto and was going to eventually come back. Almost a decade later, and it's still out of service.