It is fascinating that Steamtown lets you walk out into an active yard when they're so overly safety conscious about everything else. You can't even stand up while the train is in motion without a Smokey getting after you, but sure, go out into the yard.
We toured the roundhouse, which is still the only building open, after the rest of the facilities suffered an HVAC failure in October of '22 and has yet to be fixed. It's hard to get photos in there, but this shot of a DL&W-painted EMD F3 was kind of neat. I'm sure F3s were parked in this roundhouse at some point under DL&W/E-L ownership. This F3A is actually ex-Bangor & Aroostook and was one of two acquired by George Hart and painted in CNJ paint for use on excursions out of Jim Thorpe. After Hart's death, the two were bought by two separate historical societies and moved to Steamtown, then were eventually repainted into DL&W paint. They do operate, and they're complete, unmodified F3As, which is very rare, and they've acquired an F-unit booster that they've been working on to build an A-B-A set.
We left Steamtown and I wanted to swing up to Delaware-Lackawanna's Von Storch Locomotive Shops, also in Scranton.
Here we've got a string of D-L's Alco RS-3s to the left. I don't know how much they use those, but they're still 244-powered and they have three of them in a D&H-inspired black and yellow livery. In the middle is two of the old Quebec Cartier Mining MLW M636s that they fairly recently bought. Those were used for a while by New York, Susquehanna & Western after they sold off the SD70Ms, and they were really beat back then. NYS&W sold those off and they then ended up on Western New York & Pennsylvania. WNY&P retired them for the big GE AC6000Ws, which are also now retired, and after a couple years of storage they sold them off, with Delaware-Lackawanna bought. And on the left is another new acquisition, M420W #3560.
A better shot of the #3560. This came from Ontario Midland, a Livonia, Avon & Lakeville subsidiary like WNY&P. They bought it late in 2021, and LA&L is currently in the midst of purging pretty much everything off the Ontario Midland. They scrapped the two S-4 switchers without warning, sold the RS-11 and RS-36 to Southern New England Railway, and sold the #3560 to Delaware-Lackawanna. The only locomotive left operating at Ontario Midland is LA&L RS-18u #416. The #3560 was so short-lived at Ontario Midland that it was never even repainted out of it's West Tennessee Railroad red and silver paint scheme.
This old Erie Mining Co. Alco C420, one of three C420s bought by Erie Mining, awaits her turn at being resurrected at Von Storch. Erie Mining was a really odd one, running into the 2000s with Alco RS-11s, C424s and C420s, EMD F9s in huge A-B-B-B-B-A sets, and Baldwin S-12s, including some homebuilt S-12 B-units. Despite the name Erie Mining, they did not operate in PA, as one would inspect, but instead hauled taconite ore out in the Hoyt Lakes area of Minnesota.
Out of Scranton, we detoured over to Route 11 to go see the DL&W's Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct, the largest concrete structure in the world when completed in 1915. This double-tracked bridge is 2375 feet long and 240 feet tall and was built as part of the DL&W's 39.6-mile Nicholson Cutoff, which replaced a winding and hilly section of the route between Scranton and Binghamton. While only shortening route by 3.6 miles, elimination of grades and curves cut 21 minutes of passenger train time, and one hour of freight train time. Route 11 actually follows the original DL&W roadbed from before the Nicholson Cutoff. And, yes, this is the viaduct that a lot of people thought that Saturday's trip would cross, since it has Tunkhannock in the name. But its actually in Nicholson, PA and crosses Tunkhannock Creek, hence the name. There was someone in our coach on Saturday who said "I bought the tickets when they were announced because I thought it was going over that huge concrete bridge. Then I found out they aren't going there."
So, I then took yesterday off from work because I had to run my Toyota MR2 Spyder out to Yorkville, NY and drop it off to have the convertible top replaced. Yorkville is right near Utica and I briefly thought about going to catch NYS&W UT-1 on Schuyler Street, but the person who was shuttling me home was on a tight deadline and I didn't want to make them sit around. So I got back to Rome and thought about going out to see if Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern was running, but it was late enough that I was worried that if I drove out to Utica yard, they might already be on their way to Rome and I'd miss them. So I drove out to Reber Road in Rome, one of the few grade crossings between Rome and Utica and decided to wait a while and see if anything interesting happened. Well, I wasn't there long and Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern M420W #2042 came rolling down the CSX Chicago main with a string of tank cars and a covered hopper. I believe this is the only place in the US where you can catch Alco/MLWs running on CSX tracks and at track speed, which has resulted in parent company Genesee Valley Transportation dubbing MA&N's fleet "The fastest Alcos in the western hemisphere".
The quad ditch lights are a giveaway to her ex-BC Rail heritage, and you can see how the ditch lights are "cross-aimed". The ones on the left are aimed towards the right, and the ones on the right are aimed towards the right. BCRail had issues with rock slides and washouts and by aiming the ditch lights like this, it allowed them to illuminate around curves. The #2042, when she was BCRail #642, also starred in a TV mini-series, Atomic Train, alongside Rob Lowe. She still wears BCRail red, white and blue and while it photographs okay, it's starting to get pretty scruffy, with lots of fading and cracking across the top of the nose. I wonder if she'll get BCRail colors reapplied, like MA&N C425 #2455, or will be painted in GVT corporate colors when the time comes for a repaint.
Rounding the curve headed up into the Griffiss Industrial Park, which was formerly the Griffiss Air Base. The road to the right is Ellsworth Road, which is oddly severed on both ends. One end used to meet Hill Road but was chopped back 175 feet when the new traffic circle was put in over there, and the other end used to run through what is now the high school parking lot but had a gate put across it to keep people from going that way. Off the right side of it are drive ways for old base housing that is long gone.
Switching the little yard they've built in Rome. It's a gated yard, when they show up they unlock both ends of the yard and slide the gates out of the way. Not a terribly high fence though. Kind of an odd setup. They fished this one tank car out and set the rest of the cars in the yard.
Having crossed Hill Road, the #2042 continues on with an open nose door. This was closed shortly after and I have to wonder if it had anything to do with me being there and taking photos.
I'm not sure what this facility is, or was, since it's not labelled on Google Maps, nor does it have any signage, but I think it might be the steam heating plant. Regardless, it made for this cool shot that I think was my favorite of the day.
Swinging across the road to go switch out what is MA&N's biggest and most frequent customer.
Switching cars at Sovena. So what is in those tank cars? It's oil. Olive oil.
All the GVT companies have their own little slogan at the top over the radiators. For Delaware-Lackawanna it's "The Pocono Mountain Route". For Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern it's "Friendly Customized Rail Service"
Heading back towards the yard with three cars in tow.
They then set the last car out right on the edge of the road, moved two cars over on the adjoining track, then grabbed the single car and went back to the yard.
Backing down along the cutoff segment of Ellsworth Road, headed out of Griffiss Industrial Park.
They then went down to American Alloy Steel to switch end-bunk flatcars out at AAS, their other big customer in Rome. I stayed and watched them switch for a while, and then they headed back down the line. They were then going to head back to Utica, but there's only one spot to catch them along the line, and it was 1:30 and I hadn't had lunch, so I cut off the chase here.
The far track is a spur that crosses East Dominick and heads through a gate up into Revere Copper & Brass, manufacturer of those distinct copper-bottomed Revere Ware pots and pans and source of Rome's nickname of "The Copper City". A couple years back, the MA&N crews cleaned the flangeways out and made a couple deliveries up in there for the first time in many years, but that never seemed to take off as a steady deal. I heard that the copper business was too erratic for regular rail service. Some of the old hands on Facebook talked about how, back in the day, Penn Central, and then Conrail, had an old Alco S-1 stationed in Rome to handle things and this spur, which goes rather steeply uphill, was always a hassle when trying to shove heavy loads of copper ingots with a tired old 660hp Alco switcher. They would have to take a running start through the yards, and then hope they didn't hit anyone at the unguarded crossing or derail on the long neglected tracks.
Some photos of Saturday's Iron Horse Rambles from "the other guys".
Entering Lehigh Gorge and flying white flags to denote it as a non-scheduled extra move.
Alongside Tunnel Road in White Haven, just south of the White Haven Tunnel.
Drifting down through Solomon's Gap with the SD50s on the head end, looking out over the valley.
Alongside Railroad Ave in Duryea, with the SD50s on the lead.
Alongside Route 92 headed out of Pittston,
Following the Susquehanna River. Check out the telegraph pole, with insulators still largely intact.
The iron mile marker to the right is from the CNJ and denotes the location as being 152 miles out of Communipaw, where the CNJ, Reading and B&O all accessed Jersey City.
Returning through White Haven.
Approaching the rock cut at Glen Onoko.
Passing through the rock cut on the northbound trip.
Something our car host did confirm aboard the Ramble on Saturday is that Andy Muller is after Norfolk Southern's Lehigh Line, from Allentown to Jim Thorpe and Hazelton. This is the old LV main and starts in Mansville, NJ and passes through Easton, Bethlehem and Allentown, then goes up through Lehighton to Jim Thorpe on the opposite side of the river as the R&N's ex-CNJ tracks in Jim Thorpe. It then parallels the R&N line from CP COAL up through the Gorge, and splits off at Independence Junction to go east to Hazelton. Andy wants it to funnel people up from Allentown to Jim Thorpe, and supposedly there's potential customers all along the line, but NS has chased them off. R&N could also act as a bridge route between NS's yards at Allentown and Taylor/Scranton, and also would gain new markets down at Allentown. NS barely uses the line, just two or three trains a week, and the ones I've seen are pretty short, and they were open to getting rid of the line. Our host said that NS management and Andy Muller sat down to the table and had a deal mostly hammered out, only for NS to reveal that they didn't want to sell the line, they wanted to lease the line. That wouldn't work with Muller, since he wanted to own the route and be in control of his own destiny, not pour money into developing stations and transload facilities and customers, only for NS to pull the rug out from under him when they decided not to renew the lease. So now, he sits waiting for NS to hopefully just decide to rid themselves of the line outright. I think Class Is are getting reluctant to sell lines though, since they abandoned or sold off so many routes in the '80s that they now regret. Now, instead of reactivating a dormant line when economic conditions change, they have to try and buy out a short line.
You'll need to log in to post.
