Grassroots Railroad Sports?

No pic because driving, but I just saw CSX #1976 wearing throwback Conrail livery. It's funny because they left the front third in weathered CSX colors.

Duke said:

No pic because driving, but I just saw CSX #1976 wearing throwback Conrail livery. It's funny because they left the front third in weathered CSX colors.

It looks like they shot fresh CSX paint on the front of those when they repainted them. But they do get pretty grungy fairly fast.

As short-lived as the Prairie Marksman but absolutely disastrous in terms of ridership was the Lake Country Limited, not to be confused with the Lake Cities or the Lake Shore Limited, which ran between Chicago, Illinois and *checks notes* Janesville, Wisconsin. Inaugurated in April 15, 2000, it got off to an inauspicious start when it's first run had exactly zero passengers aboard. Amtrak at the time was under the presidency of George Warrington, who though that the key to a successful Amtrak was to get into express less-than-carload freight hauling, and then just happen to haul a few passengers at the end of those trains. The Lake Country Limited was hoped to serve Quad Graphics, a huge printing plant that moves a tremendous amount of paper between Janesville and Chicago every day. It was hoped that the train could handle this business cheaper than the overnight companies and truckers, yet still make more money than the average Amtrak train. But Quad Graphics wasn't enticed by Amtrak's offer and there weren't many passengers willing to endure 2.5 hours to go 98 miles to Janesville. The slow transit time was necessitated by the poor condition of the ex-Milwaukee road tracks owned by Wisconsin & Southern and the state of Wisconsin. It typically rated a GE B32-8WH "Pepsi Can" or a GE P42DC, since F40PHs with their "screamer" HEP mode violated noise ordinances in Janesville, and it often ran with just a single Amfleet car, and maybe one or two express boxcars or RoadRailers behind it. After just 6 months, Amtrak realized the derisively-nicknamed "Heifer Zephyr" was a total loser, but was required to give 6 months notice before discontinuing service. In it's final 6 months, the consist was a Pepsi Can or a Genesis, an Amfleet, and a baggage/cab car-converted F40PH.

NickD said:

Duke said:

No pic because driving, but I just saw CSX #1976 wearing throwback Conrail livery. It's funny because they left the front third in weathered CSX colors.

It looks like they shot fresh CSX paint on the front of those when they repainted them. But they do get pretty grungy fairly fast.

There was a clear diagonal line, and the back part in Conrail blue was sparkling fresh and clean. The front was definitely much more faded and dirty than the rest.

Another fairly short-lived Amtrak train was the Niagara Rainbow, and it's predecessor, the largely-forgotten Empire State Express. The Empire State Express name traced it's origin back to 1892 as a New York City-Buffalo train on the New York Central & Hudson River. It became somewhat of a second-tier train to the 20th Century Limited, but was re-equipped and streamlined by the New York Central in 1941, debuting on December 7th, and being unfortunately overshadowed by the news of Pearl Harbor. Post WWII, the NYC extended the train, with one segment proceeding south on the New York Central to Cleveland, while another section went north on the Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo and then Canandian Pacific to NYC's Canada Southern and Michigan Central subsidiaries to serve Ontario and Detroit. As part of New York Central's downgrade of passenger services in the '60s, the Empire State Express lost it's name, simply becoming New York Central, and later Penn Central, train no. 63 and no. 64.

In '74, they decided to dust off the Empire State Express name in a fit of nostalgia when they gave unique names to all frequencies of the Empire Service New York-Buffalo trains that followed the same route as the original. On October 31st of that year, Amtrak extended the train to Detroit via Southwestern Ontario with dining car and baggage service. On April 25th, 1976, Amtrak dropped the Empire State Express name and renamed this train to the Niagara Rainbow, although Niagara Falls itself was actually served by a bus connection.

The Niagara Rainbow though was plagued with poor on-time performance. First and foremost was the fact that Penn Central had let the Canada Southern fall into a state of severe disrepair, which restricted speeds. There were also delays while passing through customs at the borders and picking up and dropping off passengers in Canada. When Conrail took over Penn Central, they had no real desire to keep the Canada Southern or a lot of the Michigan Central, and so they weren't willing to put any major work into the tracks. Amtrak truncated the Niagara Rainbow to Niagara Falls on January 31, 1979, after Michigan and New York withdrew their support, dropping the name at the same time. The Secretary of Transportation proposed re-routing the Lake Shore Limited, which ran through Cleveland on the opposite side of Lake Erie, over the Ontario route  and then continuing on to Chicago but this plan was not adopted by Congress. Not long after, Conrail abandoned a lot of the Michigan Central, and sold off the Canada Southern to CP, who also abandoned a lot of the Canada Southern, or downgraded it from double-track to single-track.

Amtrak would try reviving the Niagara Rainbow, as an overnight service between New York and Toronto that was a once-weekly additional frequency of the Maple Leaf, departing New York on Friday night and returning on Monday morning, but it was even more short-lived, only lasting from June 1994 to September 10, 1995

Then you have Amtrak's proposed National Chief, which lasted about a year and a half. Trains ran the route and service was provided starting in January of 1997 and was then discontinued on May 17, 1998. However, it never operated under that name, no new equipment was deployed, no actual new route was created, and no existing route was discontinued. Huh?

Back in 1996, Amtrak had the idea to merge, rename and renumber the Southwest Chief and Capitol Limited as a single run-through service from Washington D.C. to Los Angeles. In the "Fall/Winter 1996/97 Amtrak National Timetable Effective November 10, 1996" it said:

Coming Soon ... New Through Service
Beginning in January 1997, through train service, with no change of trains at Chicago, will be provided between Washington and Los Angeles via the routes of the Capital Limited and Southwest Chief on the schedule shown at left. The through train service will be number 15 Washington to Los Angeles and 16 Los Angeles to Washington.

It was to use the same equipment on the Capitol Limited as on the Southwest Chief. The Southwest Chief would run from Los Angeles to Chicago, sit in Chicago for about 8 hours, and then proceed on to Washington, DC as the Capitol Limited. The same would be done for the westward journey. Through passengers would be allowed to keep carry-on luggage at their seats and be allowed to remain on the train while it underwent cleaning and minor maintenance in the Chicago station.

Someone at Amtrak decided that before they renamed and renumbered the train, they would try out a soft rollout of the service first to see if it was going to work. It was not without it's foibles though. Although passengers were told upon arrival into Chicago that they would be allowed to leave and reboard the train whenever they wanted, that turned out to be a bit of an obstacle course. According to one person who rode the through-train service, to reboard the train he had to make his way past several "Authorized Personnel Only" signs and then hunt down a door on the train that was not locked, and then once he reboarded the train he was mis-identified by the Chief of Onboard Services as being one of the sleeping car attendants. Another problem was that the Amtrak reservation system did not initially try very hard to give people the same sleeping car room for the segment east of Chicago and the segment west of Chicago. Thus, the car attendants had to put up with a number of sleeping car passengers playing musical chairs before the train could Chicago, which kind of defeated the advantage of it being a through train.

After May of 1998, Amtrak ended the through-service option and never moved forward with the National Chief. There never were very many people that continued through Chicago, possibly because of the rather inconvenient 8-hour layover or just because the service was never really promoted very much. As one person who rode it recounted, on each of his three trips on this route he surveyed everyone that he met for their awareness of the train being a through train from Washington, DC to Los Angeles. Very few knew that it was a through train and some people who were traveling from Washington to Chicago and then from Chicago westward and did not realize they were on the same train. Since the entire crew changed, the train name and number changed, and they ended up in a different seat, they just assumed they were on a totally different consist. Other people had made other connections out of Washington, DC to this train, not realizing they could have just started out on this train in Washington, DC. It was also found to be much easier to clean the train without passengers on-board and it was less costly and less of a problem for the security of passengers and their belongings if they did not remain on the train during its layover in Chicago.

Well, with a little googling, Nick, I bow to your superior knowledge:

It appears they did paint her nose, though it does look like a duller color than normal CSX dark blue.

I will say that the Conrail half still looks just like that, but the CSX bit looks grimy and faded.

Another weird pair Amtrak never-ran was the Skyline Connection and the Crescent Star. Listed in the official guide in 2000, the Chicago-Philly Skyline Connection and the NYC-Atlanta-Dallas Crescent Star, which were related to the disastrous Lake Country Limited and the Broadway Limited's maligned replacement, the Three Rivers, never actually turned a wheel in operation. These two, along with the two other trains mentioned were a product of Amtrak president George Warrington's tenure, where he tried to transition Amtrak into essentially a mail and less-than-carload express service that also happened to haul passengers. 

Warrington's plan was to run several trains that would have been 15-30 cars of RoadRailers and express boxcars with a coach or two tagged on the end, as well as cramming as much LCL traffic into every existing long-distance train, under the idea that back in the day, mail and express traffic had paid the bills for long-distance passenger trains and that was the path to making Amtrak profitable. It wasn't necessarily wrong, but the logic was a bit flawed.

For starters, while pre-1967 premier passenger trains, and even secondary trains, did carry some mail and express, and that did offset their losses, the real moneymakers were dedicated M&E trains. Those trains ran far faster than ANY manifest or unit-train freighter. It ran First Class, with passenger underbody equipment (good brakes, roller bearings, newest and fastest power). It moved the stuff that HAD TO BE THERE and couldn't be stuck sitting in a yard somewher, be it mail, LCL freight, first fruits of the season, or "the ponies" moving from Santa Anita to Aqueduct. Amtrak's idea of cramming everything on the head end of long-distance trains just screwed everything up.

The facilities for large-scale handling of M&E didn't really exist anymore, so it turned into situations where Amtrak was having to unhook power from the trains at stations or near yards, run off to grab a bunch of express cars or RoadRailers and perform some switching moves, then run back and grab their train and roll out, which slowed down existing trains and irritated passengers who were left sitting for a while in the cars. The longer train lengths (the Three Rivers often had 15+ M&E cars on the front) caused some gnarly slack action for the passenger cars at the back of the train. Longer train lengths and heavier train weights meant Amtrak had to utilize more locomotives on the head end, which exacerbated Amtrak's perennial power shortages, and increased fuel costs significantly. Amtrak also had significant expenditures just to get into the M&E business, having to go out and buy express boxcars and RoadRailers. In addition to pissing off passengers over delays and poor ride quality, it also pissed off the Class Is that were hosting Amtrak, since they perceived it as Amtrak trying to steal their business. And at the end of it all, you had trains like Lake Country Limited, where the traffic never materialized, and others that hauled plenty of M&E but Amtrak was losing their ass on the M&E traffic.

So, the Skyline Connection and Crescent Star never materialized due to budget issues, George Warrington's resignation over the whole deal, the failure of the M&E business, and a breakdown in talks with Norfolk Southern. Reportedly there was a third train, a Boston-Chicago train that revived the old New York Central New England States name, but it's harder to find any info on that and it didn't appear to ever be officially listed.

Not as much a service as a piece of equipment (although they did see use on the short-lived Bay State), but only around for two years were the Bombardier LRCs. Bombardier had purchased Montreal Locomotive Works in 1975, much to the detriment of the quality of products rolling out of MLW's shops, and then got into the passenger car manufacturing business, and in 1980 merged the two product lines together to create the LRC, which stood for Léger, Rapide, et Confortable, or Light, Rapid, Comfortable in English.

The power car was a low-slung machine that was derisively described as an "FPA-4 on steroids" by some. Underneath the wedge-nosed aluminum body was a V16 Alco 251 engine, cranked to 3750hp, the highest output of production Alco 251s, and it rode on 4-axle trucks with onboard HEP generators. Despite the dated internals, it was quite small even by modern standards, several feet shorter than than even the GE Genesis that replaced them in VIA service, and thousands of pounds lighter. The passenger cars also were made of aluminum, extremely low-slung, and the entire underside and running gear were also streamlined and tight-fitting from car to car to reduce the inter-car gap and the drag that causes. Active tilt mechanisms designed by Dofasco in the trucks allowed them to take advantage of higher speeds on existing lines, and an advanced suspension design offered a smooth ride at all speeds. Despite the compromise of the older Alco 251 engine, the LRC was really a very advanced machine for the time, and, on paper, was leagues better than the turbine-powerd United Aircraft TurboTrain.

As early as 1977, Amtrak had decided to lease two LRC trainsets, with the intention of testing them on the Vancouver, B.C. – Seattle – Portland corridor, since the train’s low, streamlined profile and tilt technology made it well suited to the curving route along Puget Sound. According to an article in Amtrak's company magazine, the company hoped to shave at least 50 minutes off the approximately 9 hour scheduled run (the LRCs could do 90mph through curves rated at 60mph on account of the tilting mechanism in the power car and coaches). Although originally they were supposed to enter service by early 1979, the delivery was delayed by a strike at the Bombardier manufacturing plant, and Amtrak subsequently received the first trainset in July 1980. They put it through three months of testing, and entered it into revenue service at the end of September. In the intervening years, Amtrak had decided to switch the test ground to the East Coast, with the trainsets primarily operating on the NEC’s then non-electrified territory between Boston and New Haven, and the cars were also used south of New Haven when pulled by an electric locomotive such as the new AEM-7s.

In operation, the LRCs were terrific when they worked properly. They accelerated quickly, rode much better than the UAC TurboTrains, and could run faster on the same stretches of track as conventional equipment. Early on they had teething issues, both on Amtrak and VIA, with the electrical systems and the tilt mechanism, and Bombardier had techs riding on all runs to help troubleshoot. But the power cars were always problematic. Not with the 251 Alco engine, despite being a 30 year old design pushed to the max, but with other onboard systems. Apparently, the cooling systems were prone to severe leakage from every joint, which was shared on the M630s, M636s and HR616s rolling out of MLW/Bombardier at the same time, and there other gremlins that frequently took them out of service. Since they weren't semi-permanently coupled like many lightweight trainsets, Amtrak could sub out a P30CH or F40PH on the head end, but then had to lock out the tilt mechanism in the cars, which then required them to operate at regular speeds, losing the advantage of the car design.

The two sets ran out their two year lease on Amtrak, and then were returned to Bombardier. Since the Amtrak units were early production units, there were mechanical differences between the power cars that prevented them from being easily integrated into VIA Rails fleet of 30 units, and so the power cars were scrapped at the Bombardier/MLW plant in 1990, while the coaches were sold to VIA Rail.

The reality was that Amtrak really had no plans of ever buying the LRCs even before the lease was up. The Alco powerplants would have made them oddballs in the fleet and required stocking parts and training technicians to service another line of engines. The lease of the LRCs had really just been to gather data on high speed rail vehicles for future projects, since at the time Amtrak really lacked any HSR equipment: the Metroliners dated back to 1967 and had never delivered the performance they hoped for, and the UAC TurboTrain had been problematic and short-lived. The rumor is that Amtrak was quite impressed with the LRC coaches, and VIA Rail still has their LRC coaches in service even though the last power car was retired in 2001, and was talking with Bombardier about maybe designing an electric locomotive that could be paired with them. But that clearly never went anywhere, and Bombardier exiting the locomotive construction business in 1985 really ended the LRCs from any further development.

A VIA Rail F40PH-3 with three LRC coaches and a conventional coach in 2019.

And, in reverse, an LRC power car with conventional coaches in 1983.

It's funny how small the LRC coaches look behind an F40PH. Also, that green, yellow and silver livery that VIA uses now is sharp.

While the LRC was Bombardier/MLW/Alcos final attempt at a diesel passenger locomotive, the HR616 was the last gasp of Bombardier/MLW/Alco freight locomotives. After Bombardier took over MLW, they continued producing the existing M630 and M636 until 1980, at which point Bombardier attempted to rebrand the locomotives, dumping the old Century-series naming system (C for Century or M for MLW, then the amount of axles, then horsepower in hundreds) and introducing the High Reliability series. There was an HR412, which stood for High Reliability, 4 axles, 12 cylinders (2400hp), and that was basically a relaunch of the M420W-based M424, which had ended production in 1977. The HR616 had six-powered axles and a 16-cylinder engine and was more or less an M630. But, at the time, Canadian railroads were experimenting with cowl-bodied diesels, to provide shelter for crews during cold weather repairs and to make it easier to walk back from engine to engine while in motion during the winter, so the HR616 was built with the Canadian Comfort Cab that debuted on the M420W but with a full-width body. To improve rearward visibilty, the carbody had a tapered cutout behind the cab, which earned them the nickname "Draper Tapers" after Canadian National's chief motive power officer William Draper.

The HR616s and HR412s proved to be sales flops. The big issue was that, at the core, they were a design from the early '60s trying to be sold in the '80s against competition like the EMD SD50. While the SD50 proved to be troublesome in the long run, when it came out it was kind of a big deal: almost the same power as an SD45 with four less cylinders, new advanced traction control, new electrical system, redesigned dynamic brakes, the new HT-C trucks. The HR412 didn't even have the advantage of a new body to conceal the age of the design.

Canadian National ordered ten HR412s and twenty HR616s, and the conspiratorial-minded would say that likely has to do with the fact that Canadian National was owned by the government (until 1995) and the very same government also gave substantial subsidies to Bombardier.  Canadian Pacific did not rush out and place any orders, likely as a result of having to undertake a costly and extensive re-engineering on the cooling systems of their M630s and M636s to keep them from puking all the water out every 100 miles and having to reassign them to Lines East due to them overheating when used on coal drags in the Canadian Rockies. Quebec Cartier and BCRail, the other big Alco operators of Canada, likewise avoided them. Bombardier tried to coax CP into a purchase, taking four of the HR616s back and sending them to CP to act as demonstrators, and while CP was happy to get some free horsepower for a bit, they still didn't make any purchases.

In addition to just being an outdated design, the HR412s and HR616s quickly proved that the High Reliability part of the name wasn't true either. They had the same cooling system woes as the M630s and M636s and the concurrent LRCs. They were also said to be made from cheaper materials, as a result of cost-savings measures. And they also are said to have been good pulling units when they ran, but rode absolutely abysmal. Bombardier was said to be working on an updated electrical system that would attempt to modernize the design, as well as use components from Hitachi and Mitsubishi to wean themelves off of GE parts to lower the cost, and Canadian National expressed interest in a second order with this new design. The problem was, CN only wanted to order another 15 and Bombardier said that that small an order wouldn't cover the costs of engineering an all-new electrical system. Supposedly Bombardier cataloged three other models in the HR line, the HR416 (A 3200hp 4-axle outgrowth of the C430), HR618 (A 3600hp 6-axle that seemed to be going to use the M640 prototype's 18-cylinder 251 downrated to 3600hp), and the HR406 (A 1200hp switcher). All but the switcher had the Canadian comfort cab and included cowl options, and the HR416 would over HEP as an option.

With poor reliability and build quality, a manufacturer that soon faded from the locomotive-building scene, and their generally-unwanted nature, the HR616s and HR412s lived short lives and were mostly out of service by 1992, at just a decade old, outlived by the older M630s and M636s. At least five HR616s ended up at NRE's Silvis complex, where they were robbed of electrical gear and prime movers and eventually scrapped, while there's one or two HR412s kicking around still on shortlines, but most of those ended up as parts donors for C424/C425s. One of them also donated it's engine, generator and traction motors to the Alco PA being restored down in Texas.

Two of the four HR616s acting as demonstrators on CP. They were renumbered from their CN 2100-series numbers to 7000-series numbers for the test. From this angle, you can really see the "Draper Taper" behind the cab. 

One of CN's eleven HR412s (they bought ten and the Bombardier demonstrator) with two M420Ws. As you can see, it's pretty hard to tell the difference between an HR412 and an M420W.

Three eras of Canadian National MLW diesels at Dartmouth Yard in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. On the left is C630M #2042. The C630M implied that it was a C630 built to Canadian-specs, which was a term used when Alco was also still in business and producing C630s. When Schenectady ended operations on December 31, 1968, production of this model continued at MLW but were re-designated as the M630. In the middle is "RSC-14" #1786. Built as an 1800hp 4-axle RS-18, CN rebuilt a number of these with A1A trucks off of retired RSC-13s and RSC-24s and downrated them to 1400hp for branchline use, and redesignated them as RSC-14s. And on the right is Bombardier HR616 #2108. I always thought the quad cab windows of the MLW Canadian Comfort Cab (now known as a safety cab) was an interesting look, compared to the dual cab windows used by EMD and GE

Buffalo Creek Railroad #46 has thankfully been saved. The Alco S-2 served the Buffalo Creek Railroad, which was a terminal and switching railroad owned jointly by the Lehigh Valley and Erie/Erie-Lackawanna and served the grain elevators at "Silo City" and the ports on the Buffalo River and Lake Erie. The #46 was painted in patriotic blue and red for the bicentennial and after the Buffalo Creek Railroad ceased to exist in 1976, rolled up into Conrail when parent railroads LV and E-L were also merged in, and the #46 has kicked around western New York ever since. At various time it's worked for the New York & Lake Erie, the Ontario Midland, the Tioga Central (one of only 2 Alcos to escape from there when G&W took over), and the Livonia, Avon & Lakeville, where it has last resided. It's been stored on the LA&L's Bath & Hammondsport for the last couple years, although operational, but LA&L has been starting to clear out the fleet of Alcos and the #46 was on the chopping block.

Flour-by-Rail Legacy Project, a group dedicated to preserving the legacy of Buffalo Creek, began fundraising the $30k to buy and move the #46 to the New York & Lake Erie under the threat of the #46 being scrapped if there wasn't significant progress by March. After a bit of a slow start, a couple anonymous donors contributed large sums that got things moving and extended the scrapping deadline. Last week, the project officially hit $30k, ensuring that the #46 is safe. It will also join a Buffalo Creek boxcar that the Flour-By-Rail Legacy Project has saved and is working on restoring. The #46 is currently in the LV-inspired paint that Tioga Central used but it's hoped to have the #46 repainted in the patriotic blue and red for the 2026 semi-quincentennial.

A Buffalo Creek boxcar with the bag of flour logo. "The Crik", as it was nicknamed, was only 5 miles in length and owned 34 miles of tracks, but owned over 1700 boxcars with their logo on them, making them a common sight across the country. If you ate any General Mills serial in the '60s or '70s, it likely traveled in one of these 40-foot boxcars.

Some other big diesel preservation news is that Norfolk Southern SD40 #1580 is now officially being preserved. This was Norfolk & Western's first SD40, also as #1580, and was rolled out in 1966. Since then it's avoided losing it's high nose or dual control stands and is still a straight SD40 internally, no Dash-2 upgrades or anything. It still saw regular use on road freights until 1977, and then was upgraded with "slug master" equipment to be paired with a six-axle yard slug for use in hump yard service at Bellevue, where it ran until 2008. Since then, it has been stored at Altoona and over the years there's been a lot of hand-wringing over what would become of it. Would it get traded off? Would it get scrapped? What if they ran it through a rebuild program and gave it a short nose and Dash-2 electrical gear? What if it just sat there and rotted away? Around 2014, there was rumors that it was being donated to a museum, and in 2016 it was moved in front of the Altoona shops and fired up, and people thought that maybe they were going to make it a heritage unit liked the Southern SD40 and the Erie-Lackawanna SD45-2 that they had. But it was only briefly used as the shop switcher and then it went back into storage. Well, just this week it was announced that the #1580 had been donated to the Roanoke NRHS chapter, who was shipping it to TVRM to be restored to as-built appearance and then moved back up for display at the Roanoke Transportation Museum, which is not the Virginia Museum of Transportation. Roanoke NRHS maintains a separate museum/preservation effort at the former Virginian passenger depot, and also maintains a yard of equipment and rolling stock perhaps awkwardly close to VMT where they work on rolling stock such as their passenger fleet, formerly used by NS steam excursions.

NS also had Southern Railway's first SD40, which they set aside for preservation. The #3170 was purchased by Southern in 1971 (Southern bought their first SD40 some 5 years after N&W) and ran until 2007 when it had a prime mover failure, which sidelined it. Again, like the #1580, it dodged all modernization efforts, never having it's nose chopped or being updated to Dash-2 specs. It was set up for Long Hood Forward operation, which was the Southern way, but only had a single control stand, unlike the N&W SD40s. The ex-Southern GP38 that I ran at Colebrookdale was the same way, you just had to kind of reach behind you when you were running backwards (short hood leading). 

In 2014, the #3170 was dug out of the deadlines at Altoona, had another prime mover installed and was repainted into the original Southern "tuxedo" black, white and gold livery, and put back into service and rattled around the NS system on road freights, as well as making appearances at museum events and even being paired with Southern #4501 for the 21st Century Steam excursions. At the end of 2016, NS announced they were retiring the #3170 and donating it to Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. TVRM has their Tyner Terminal Railway, which is a freight railroad subsidiary that they operate to serve Enterprise South Industrial Park, and TVRM had been leasing NS diesels to serve it, so the idea was that the #3170 would be both preserved at a museum and end TVRM's reliance on leased NS power.

Unfortunately, the #3170's career at TVRM was pretty short-lived. In early 2017 it was knocked out of service and has served as a display piece ever since. From what I've heard, it was never the most reliable, having some electrical gremlins that needed to be tracked down, and also the used prime mover that NS installed was in pretty poor shape and had a bunch of oil leaks and the final blow was a failed turbocharger. Overall, the verdict is that the #3170 is just flat-out tired because other than the nice fresh paint, NS basically just pulled it out of storage and did the bare minimum to get it into service.

TVRM also has Southern #5000, which was the class leader GP38 for Southern. When NS cut loose a bunch of Southern GP38s, TVRM wanted to get the #5000 but the bidding went too high and Progress Rail ended up with it and TVRM instead ended up buying ex-Southern GP38 #5033. Sometime shortly after the purchase, they got in touch with Progress Rail and Progress Rail agreed to trade the #5000 with the #5033 in 2016.

While TVRM  is known for their steam locomotives (Southern #4501, Southern #630 and USATC #610) they quietly amassed a pretty solid collection of second-gen EMDs. In addition to SD40 #3170 and GP38 #5000, they've also got Southern GP30 #2594 (sadly not the class leader like #3170 and #5000) and Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia GP38 #80, which was the very first high-nose GP38 built.

I'll admit, while I really like GP30s, I think the high-nose GP30s are hideous. But that TAG GP38 is sharp.

In what seems like a very overdue move, Metro-North has apparently introduced a NY Central heritage unit, as seen here (not my video):

I recognize that! I can see the Tappan Zee Bridge in the background. 

Lou