Grassroots Railroad Sports?

NickD said:

Steam at Steamtown? Wow, that's a rarity. Over 18-20 years, I've been to Steamtown about 7 or 8 times and only seen an active steam locomotive at Steamtown one other time. I was honestly surprised they were running since a day or two before they had announced on Facebook that some brake issue had developed on all their coaches and they were out of service. So, they were running the yard shuttle with just a CNJ combine and a DL&W caboose.

Learning some more on this situation. Apparently an NPS inspector came down, looked at the cars and reportedly found Big A on the four coaches. Kind of confusing, since those cars have been running for years under federal authority. Either they were mistaken as to the asbestos, the cars had some form of asbestos or substitute that had been encapsulated or otherwise made not dangerous, or someone found something never noticed before. I'm inclined to suspect this is a classic case of "the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing." These cars had been rolling all this time under a Federal bureaucracy and that stuff was never addressed before? Or, the amount was formerly deemed too small to address, but the inspector only had to find one fiber to condemn all four cars? Very weird situation. According to one ex-volunteer, they had known that the cars had had asbestos in them, but they had always thought it was contained or removed. They had had heard some time ago that there was an issue with couplers, as they were pretty worn, and couldn't accommodate modern ones.

Of course, the timing was damned inconvenient. The weekend they were taken out of service, the Iron Horse Society had planned a steam-powered excursion with #26 for Father's Day, only to find out that all four of Steamtown's coaches were now out of service. To make sure the sold-out trip would proceed, IHS collaborated closely with SNHS to secure alternative passenger equipment from the Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad. However, a mechanical issue with the replacement cars was discovered late in the morning, prompting the cancellation of the trip, which was also supposed to be a fundraiser to fund IHS restoration projects at Steamtown. They were asking ticket holders to consider not asking for refund of their tickets and instead applying them as a donation towards getting the coaches back in service.

What's really eyebrow-raising is that Steamtown not so long ago had a fleet of ten operational coaches. At some point they have dropped to four and now they have none. What happened to the other six? They also had at least one coach out to Cheyenne being "restored" by Wasatch Rail Contractors, which had turned into an $800k+ bill with no visible work, or even asbestos done to it, when WRC went bankrupt and the owner was sent to prison. According to a volunteer, htere was an effort some years ago to contract replica coaches but it did not happen. So now, even if Steamtown had a large locomotive running, or was hosting a locomotive like they did with MILW #261 or NKP #765, they now lack a fleet of cars to be able to run excursions. Even if they get the four back in service, four coaches doesn't fit enough people to financially support a heavy Pacific, or a Berkshire, or a Northern. 

Speaking of Steamtown, Iron Horse Society, and B&M #3713, the IHS has announced that they will be taking over the restoration of B&M #3713.

What is the Iron Horse Society? Formed about 7 years ago, the Iron Horse Society is a volunteer, non-profit group that was formed to help Steamtown catch up on the backlog of restoration and maintenance projects. When they were formed, Steamtown had about $37 MILLION of backlogged restoration and maintenance work. IHS's projects include, fundraising and volunteer awareness programs, restoring two of the out-of-service ex-DL&W EMU trailer cars (part of the 6 out of service prior, not part of the 4 just kicked out of service), restoring an EMD SW-1 to service to switch equipment around the facilities, and asbestos abatement on the big CNJ wreck crane (yikes, my father and I were up close to that thing last weekend!).

B&M #3713 is a big Boston & Maine heavy Pacific that has never run in the preservation era, and was one of Nelson Blount's earlier acquisitions. When Steamtown became a National Park (the move to Scranton and restoring the derelict facilities there bankrupted it as a private operation) one of the big criticisms they were hit with was that, they were receiving US government funding but operating all Canadian locomotives. An assessment was made of the equipment that they had and B&M #3713 was chosen for restoration based on a number of factors; it was the right size for the roundhouse and turntable, it was an American locomotive, it was in better condition than some pieces, it had a trailing truck (there's no turning facilities at the south end of the line), and the fact that it was named "Constitution" was a nice bonus. A restoration, mostly spearheaded by the Lehigh & Wyoming Valley NRHS chapter, and supplanted with Steamtown volunteers and facilities began in 1998. The restoration of the #3713 then became a bit of a preservationist joke, as it morphed into a long-running restoration with no real signs of progress. The other big steam locomotives at Steamtown fell out of service, and the #3713 was no closer to operation, and even took steps backwards when an incorrect firebox wrapper was manufactured for it and had to be completely redone again. In 2013, the L&WV NRHS chaper reorganized their efforts and launched Project 3713, to hopefully get things going again. From 2013 to 2019, they reportedly made huge strides in progress; rebuilt the feedwater heater, stoker motor, trailing truck booster, constructed a new cab and tender body, installed new thermic syphons. But they got locked out of the shop by Covid, and then their partnership contract with Steamtown needed it's regular renewal. Steamtown dragged their heels for 3 years, with no progress on renewing the contract, and then last year announced that instead they would sever their agreement with the NRHS chapter (although they would keep all those funds raised by the L&WV NRHS, thank you very much) and would move forward in a different direction, with no actual reason given for ending the relationship.

That announcement was met with equal amounts of outrage ("Why the hell would you end the relationship with the group actually getting stuff done?!") and despair ("Well, #3713 is really never going to get done now!") Now, Iron Horse Society has announced that they are fundraising for #3713's completion and they will be taking over the restoration. Their statement was to the effect of "If you want to see #3713 done, donate to us", which was met with a healthy dose of skepticism. None of it was aimed at IHS, who has a very good track record, but more towards the whole situation. Talking points included:

• "I've been donating for 25 years and it's still not done. Why should I continue to donate?" This isn't just something that #3713 has been hit with, I've heard this with a couple other long-running restorations that don't ever seem to get closer to the goalpost. 
• "We want some transparency on the NRHS situation first." There was never a good reason given why Steamtown severed their agreement with L&WV NRHS, and there are those that want to know if there was a reason or if it was just random. After all, what's to stop Steamtown from doing the same thing to IHS down the road.
• "We want some transparency on the status of the #3713 first." While L&WV/Project 3713 posted frequent social media updates, they were all about the components they were working on and there was never a big picture view of the locomotive, which made it hard to determine just how close the locomotive was to returning to service.
• "Steamtown is still under an interim superintendent." A big one is that Steamtown has not had a permanent superintendent for quite a while, and every time that changes, priorities have the potential to change. The current interim superintendent has done a pretty poor job, chasing off a lot of volunteers, but the next one could potentially decide to go fully static, with no operations. Or decide to try and get CP #2317 up and running first, since it's assembled and had a bunch of running gear work done before it's 1472 came due.

It's a tough situation, since IHS is a good group, but they're now working against a bunch of bad will and suspicion that has accumulated over the years.

As a D&H fan, this one really hurts to report. CPKC has scrapped D&H GP38-2 #7312. This was one of the Lehigh Valley GP38-2s that D&H scooped up when the FRA allowed them to raid the Conrail cookie jar. Built as LV #325, it became D&H #7325, and ran on their roster through the D&H's Guilford era and into the bankruptcy. Under Guilford ownership, a lot of their equipment had been sold off to pay off existing debts and what hadn't been had been run into the ground. To keep the D&H going under NYS&W's directed operations, the trustees approved sending some of the existing D&H EMDs up to Morrison-Knudsen's facility in Mountain Top for rebuilding. Four GP39-2s and three GP38-2s were rebuilt, with the #7325 being the last one. The trustee had planned to rebuild a couple more, but that plan was scratched when it was announced that CP would be stepping up to buy the D&H.

The #7325 exited M-K as #7312 and, like all the Mountain Top rebuild, was repainted back into the classic D&H lightning stripe livery. The D&H had gone through some pretty dark days, and had had a lot of power repainted into Guilford gray and orange, so now that they were independent again, going back to the classic D&H livery was pretty symbolic of a rebirth. The #7312 also received a name; B.C. O'Brien. This was after the legendary D&H engineer, Bernie O'Brien, who had worked for the D&H for over 50 years at the time. On the D&H, it often hung around in old D&H territory, down to Taylor Yard in PA, and it made guest appearances at Steamtown on occasion, like Railfan Weekends. CP even gave it a repaint in D&H colors in 2000 and kept it that way until 2013, when it finally received CP red dip paint, but still hung onto the number.

Folks became aware that the #7312 was slated for death a couple weeks ago, and I'm not sure if there was even time to attempt saving it. It was reduced to metal cubes four days ago up at Saint Paul. Norm Barrett, a former Road Foreman of Engineers on CP had, over the years, tried in earnest to get CP to donate the engine and he probably could have gotten Steamtown to take it, but it didn't work out obviously.

That's the #7312 directly behind the still-complete SOO Line locomotive. From what I've heard, of the other remaining MKRail-rebuilt GP38-2s, the #7309 is up for sale, the #7310 was also scrapped a while back, and the #7311 was sold off to S & S Leasing and still exists. I believe there are also two other GP38-2s, #7303 and #7304, which are still in D&H paint and were rebuilt at CP's Calgary shops in 1993. Hopefully one of those gets saved.

And, yes, in that photo, that was a unit in Milwaukee Road paint. That was SOO Line GP40 #2010, which was acquired by the SOO when they bought up what was left of the Milwaukee Road after the Milwaukee Road filed for it's last bankruptcy and liquidation in '85. At that point, that Geep was pushing 20 years old, and it then proceeded to run on the SOO Line, and then Canadian Pacific, with badly weathered Milwaukee Road "bandit" paint and SOO Line patches right up until 2015, when it was finally placed in storage. It was also scrapped at the same time as the #7312.

Well it sounds like Amtrak service to the Gulf Coast may not happen now. The city of Mobile doesn’t want to fund it.

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Seemed like they were gung-ho about it at one point, but I imagine the fact that restarting it has dragged on for two or three years has probably worn off some of the enthusiasm. Or maybe some of the supporters lost re-election in the meantime.

Someone gave an update on what happened to Steamtown's fleet of operational coaches:

CNJ #1021 - Still in Wyoming - Working on getting the botched abatement work finished. Working on getting it trasported back to Steamtown - Future restoration plans not finalized.

DL&W Boonton Coaches - Abated above the floor to determine the extent of corrosion damage (extensive to the point of some roofs no longer being attached to the side walls) Restoration plans on hold. New coach route was investigated but deemed to expensive and purchasing new coaches for visitor experience was not permitted.

DL&W EMU Trailers - End buffer beams, center sills, and lower portion of crash beams are corroded beyond limit and deemed unsafe - new end beams being fabricated - lower crash beams being replaced, and center sills being repaired - Partially contracted

CNJ Coaches - Asbestos encapsulation operation performed many years ago is failing, since encapsulation is not always permanant. Combine #303 has been 100% abated during it's restoration . A new procedure was developed by a quaified abatement company and work has already begun to re-seal any asbestos leaks and thoroughly clean the cars. The couplers on these cars are no longer being made (Sharon) and a suitable replacment is being sought. This may require rebuilding the entire draft gear pocket.

NickD said:

On the topic of #611, there were a lot of people disappointed to learn that she apparently will not be running on the Virginia Scenic Railway for the Goshen-Staunton Shenandoah Valley Limited, after running a couple of those trips late last fall. 

Directly from the Buckingham Branch Railway/Virginia Scenic Railway's page. Definitely very strange when all of the trips were sold out last year, and BBR/VSR launched a pretty huge renovation at Goshen to accommodate the trips, including building a new 1500ft siding from scratch, access roads into a new 400 car parking facility and provisions for watering and coaling the #611, as well as rounding up cars for a train from all corners of the land and building a volunteer train crew of car hosts.

According to Ross Rowland, who seems to be involved at a certain level with this operation,  there were perhaps some issues between BBR and Virginia Museum of Transportation. Sounded like BBR busted their ass getting Goshen set up and running the trips, and VMT didn't really back them up. There were also some rumored leadership issues within the #611 crew which added additional turmoil to the equation. The small crew who got it done last year said we need at least a year off to catch our breath. According to both Ross and the unnamed BBR employee, the BBR will likely run the trips again in 2025 but this year was too much. 

Unfortunately, it sounds like another year will tick off the #611's boiler cert with no action. The #611 becomes due for her 1472 in 2030, and I have to wonder what the future will hold for her then. She was restored in 2015 for the NS 21st Century Steam program, which unexpectedly shut down in 2017, and since then it's always been a struggle to find a place for her to be able to run in the long-term.

Some more news has shaken out on this, and it sounds like things are getting kind of ugly at Virginia Museum of Transportation. Six board members resigned at the beginning of the recent membership meeting. Among them is a former official of Norfolk Southern who understands modern railroad operations as well as Will Harris who is the person who spearheaded the events last year in Goshen and funded them with his own personal money. That included, but was not limited to, constructing the new 1500ft long siding so the #611 and train had an operating base on his land, building a 400-car parking lot, building access roads into the facility, organizing the volunteer car host crews, locating and moving the 17 cars needed to make a train to Goshen, and ensuring there were coal & watering capabilities on site, and he did this using his own funds, and land, believing in the long term future for steam in VA. All of the transformation that took place to turn an open field into a stop point for excursions with parking and gravel pathways was paid for by him and not the museum.

Each board member that resigned apparently handed in a letter of resignation which included a list of the issues they had concerns about. All of the letters mentioned things such as....

1) financial irresponsiblity with the state money

2) VMT interference with the operations of the #611

3) Questions around locomotive maintenance and condition

A volunter who had been involved with VMT for years on this project and others, noted that the financial irresponsibility subject comes up often. There have been a lot of questions about the state funding and how it was spent or where it. When the "Fire Up 611" campaign kicked off back in 2015, part of the project's fundraising was for the VMT to construct a maintenance facility for the locomotive. All traces of this initiative and the program have been wiped clean from their site unfortunately. Every inspection and bit of work done on the locomotive has been done at Strasburg or the N.C. Transportation Museum. Questions about what happened to the money that was raised for the proposed locomotive facility that has not been built were always side-stepped. Some in the membership have also asked to see the financial records or where the money is going only to be told that this is private information despite VMT being a non-profit.

Also, moving forward, since Harris resigned from the Board, IF the #611 has a future on the Buckingham Branch, there exists the possibility that maybe he won't be willing to play nice anymore. Not trying to insinuate that Harris is vindictive or anything like that, but this could this could become a situation similar to what has developed on the East Broad Top where one guy, thinking he would be running the show owns a portion of land associated with the railroad, but since he isn't involved now can do whatever he wants and no one can do anything about it to stop him. Or Harris could effectively charge VMT ransom to store their locomotive on his siding/land and charge a per diem on any tickets sold originating from his location. Otherwise, VMT would have to find somewhere else with the logistical resources to do what has already been done in the most ideal location.

Some people reached out to VMT and tried to get any info, but mostly got the same ol' stuff run through a PR filter, including a delightful line about 'the board has always been unanimous', which is obvioulsy bunk. You don't have six members of the board unexpectedly resign all at once if things are just peachy. They also said that they are "in support of the engine's operations" but as one volunteer on the #611 said, they were on layover in Crewe in 2017 and had a board member come up in the cab and tell him that he liked the engine to be at the museum since he thought it brought more people through the front door. So, guess they aren't unanimous.

Harris reportedly retired due to health concerns and a desire to spend more time with his grandchildren, and the statements have been that there's no discord on the board (no word from the other 5 board members) but "For health reasons and to spend more time with his family" is the oldest of shopworn excuses for a forced retirement. Right up there with "has left to pursue other opportunities". I'd be interested to see what each of the other quitting board members gave as their reason.

Doyle Mccormack once said that there are more cold engines sitting around for egotistical and political reasons rather than mechanical issues, and this seems to be a case of that. There definitely seems to be a steam locomotive curse: The more successful you are, the closer you come to a meltdown.

One of the long-standing members of the Adirondack Railroad fleet is apparently leaving. 

When the plan was formed to revive the Adirondack Division for the 100th anniversary for it's construction, there was absolutely no equipment on the property. Everything from the Frank Menair era of operations ('79-'81) was scrapped or had been sold off to New York, Susquehanna & Western. And the whole plan to start up the Adirondack Centennial Railroad revolved around state approval and was all being organized at the eleventh hour, after the Adirondack Division had been returning to earth for over a decade.

Pete Gores and John Pisarek ran out and bought an L&N SW1 that had been working at Hercules Powder Co., they convinced the owners of Alco show switcher #5 to bring that up to Thendara, and they secured a couple of coaches, and it all needed to be moved, by Conrail, to Utica so that they could have it in Thendara for the first day of operation. Pete Gores talks about how Conrail got the stuff to one of their yards, stuffed it in a siding and dragged their heels about moving the stuff to Utica. It was literally two or three days before where they finally got someone with enough pull to get it moved to Utica, and it arrived in Utica on the afternoon of the day before. They did a quick check over and then made the move north to Thendara at night, arriving there some time after midnight.

Alco #5 left around 1993, but the SW1 remained, eventually being repainted into New York Central colors and gaining the number #705. The NYC RS-3, #8223, wouldn't arrive until that same year, meaning that #705 is the only locomotive that's been there since day one. It has seen limited use in more recent years, with them getting some bigger, newer power with more modern brake systems (the old air brake controls on the #705 are apparently real funky) and it's mostly been used to pinch hit when there is a shortage, or on work trains. I certainly don't recall seeing it run at any point.

Accodring to an Adirondack volunteer, Pete Gores sold it in 2010 to a new private owner that "collects" locomotives (I'm going to guess that this is VLIX) who was going to move it off the property but had issues with getting CSX to move it due to the solid bearing trucks. Instead it was leased back to Adirondack, but has been out of service since 2020ish and now the owner wants to send it to to a railroad that can use it again where he already has another locomotive. That railroad was announced to be the Belfast & Moosehead Lake up in Maine, which already has a locomotive from this area (ex-Lowville & Beaver River GE 44-Tonner).

I did ask if #705's departure has anything to do with Adirondack having Hal Raven come out and look at getting S-1 #9411, which has never run on the Adirondack as far as I know, up and going. I was told that Adirondack has wanted to get the #9411 running for a long time, since it didn't really need that much work, but that, yes, the #705 leaving has made it more of a priority for them.

The rumor mill is that one or both of Adirondack's ex-NYC RS-3s should be running some point this summer. Of course, that's been the rumor for the past few years ("Should have them up and running this year!") but supposedly the legal issues surrounding the #8223 have been solved. The #8223 has been there since the second year, but was owned by a private owner and from what I understand, the private owner passed away and there was some sort of dispute after that, as well as one over who was responsible for maintenance and repairs on the locomotive. It's been sidelined as a result since 2017, and has been sitting in the Utica yard. It now wears different reporting marks, and was rumored to be going to Cooperstown & Charlotte Valley, but it's never left the property and some of the Adirondack crews are saying the legal issues are in it's past and it will be returning to running on the Adirondack.

The #8255 was acquired from a museum down in Baldwin City, Kansas right around the same time that the railroad lost the use of the #8233, and it was shipped up to Thendara. The #8255 is also a genuine ex-NYC piece, and there is documentation of it operating on the Adirondack Division back in the day (also, only one number removed from the RS-3 that handled the last Adirondack Division train, #8256). It was operating when they got it, and as I understand it, it operated sporadically at the Adirondack, but I've never seen it run. It's mostly been hidden in the Thendara engine house with a few niggling issues. Volunteers say they have parts on hand, they just need the time to actually install them.

I tried to volunteer for them this year, but basically got no real response from them. I submitted the online submission form about three times over three months, didn't get any sort of immediate response, then two months later I got an email basically saying "Thanks for expressing interest, are you interested in being a car host, ticket agent, gift shop attendant, office assistant or food service attendant? If so, fill out the form at..." Which was the same form I had submitted and how they had gotten my email. I sent back an email saying, no, I was interested being in the operating side of the things, and that one of their own engineers had said that the railroad was willing to train and certify new engineers. And in the four months since, I haven't gotten an answer.

Rough couple weeks for the Durango & Silverton. On June 22nd, they had a rockslide just north of Needleton, at milepost 485.9. That forced them to shorten their services up and not run all the way to Silverton. After six days, they got that fixed up and resumed full operation, only for another rockslide to happen at milepost 486.0.

I still want to get out their to D&S and Cumbres & Toltec, but this kind of stuff scares me a little. NY to CO is a long way, and I have to plan it in advance, and what if right before I'm due to fly out there, they have a rockslide or it's really dry and they aren't running steam locomotives because of wildfire risk?

This photo was from near that area, and you can see why it would be prone to rock slides.

A similar rock slide at MP 486 back in 2011. The San Juan Mountains are really an absolutely miserable place for railroading, between the Animas River flooding, rock slides, and heavy snowfall.

And another in nearly the same location in '21. The smart move would be to build a retaining wall to prevent slides, but part of the problem is that I'm sure D&S doesn't want to ruin the effect of traveling undeveloped land that hasn't changed in decades, and they might have issues with the DEC/Forestry Service with trying to build in there. A couple years back, after being deemed at fault for the big wildfire, they tried clearing the trees back along their right of way, and even though the trees they were removing were on the railroad's property, the Forestry Service screamed bloody murder and put a stop to it. T

I was out near Utica last night and decided to swing by the yard, mostly in hopes of maybe seeing SW1 #705. If it's shipping out by rail, it's gotta come to Utica to be picked up by CSX. The #705 was not there, nor was C424 #2400 (I'm guessing that's moved up to Thendara and is handling the Thendara-Otter Lake and Thendara-Big Moose runs), but the #1267 was moved over to the eastern end of MA&N/Adirondack's yard. This is an ex-Great Northern/Burlington Northern GP9 that was used down on the New York & Greenwood Lake in the 2000s. When the NY&GL went bankrupt, it sat around for a number of years, before being auctioned off. An Adirondack volunteer bought the #1267 and it was just moved up to Utica this winter. I got a photo of it sitting at the far east end of the yard, by the MA&N engine house, but it's now been moved to the western end. It was operational 10-15 years ago, before the NY&GL shutdown, and the plan is to get it operational again, but it was pretty badly vanadalized during that time, although not as badly as the other NY&GL ex-NP GP9.

One of the two RS-18u twins, #1845, also appears to be receiving some sort of engine work as well, since it has the roof hatches opened up for access. I remember hearing that one of them developed some mechanical issues late in the season last year and needed a new cylinder liner, so maybe that's what's going on here.

Jeep train - Burma 1944.

Woodstown Central, SMS Rail Service's passenger-hauling subsidiary based out of Swedesboro on the old PRSL Salem Branch, has gotten their CNJ cab car finished up and in service. Note, this is not an EMU car converted to a cab car, this was a conventional coach that CNJ rebuilt into a cab car, one of four, in the diesel era to allow push-pull operations. It operated right into the NJTransit era, paired with the old B&O-financed ex-CNJ GP40Ps, and then was sold, along with a number of other CNJ 1300-series coaches, to Vermont Rail System in '84. By that point the cabs had been removed on the two they got (#1317 and #1319) and they were basically regular coaches. VRS always wanted to return it to cab car conversion, but never got around to it, and sold the #1317 and several other CNJ 1300-series coaches to SMS Rail Services a couple years back.

I did mention that these weren't converted EMU cars, but when the 1300-series coaches were built in '27, they were actually designed to be converted to EMU cars for a proposed CNJ electrification plan. The CNJ never went forward with said electrification, likely due to the Great Depression and CNJ's usually frail financial state, and so they remained regular coaches, until their conversion for push-pull operation. Supposedly these also had the capability to be sandwiched between a pair of Budd RDCs, since they had control pass-through cables to allow controlling the locomotive from a cab car, which allowed CNJ to stretch their RDC fleet a little further.

Theoretically one could convert one of the oodles of existing D&LW or Reading EMU cars to something similar, although all of them are missing their control stands since they've been converted to coaches, but I remember someone saying that the issue with doing that is that then the car is technically considered a locomotive under FRA regulations, and has to pass inspections that are different from a regular coach, which is likely a hassle most operations don't want to put up with.

While not exactly a CNJ GP40P, SMS Rail Services will have the #1317 paired up with something pretty similar, which is ex-Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines GP38-2 #2003. The PRSL, jointly owned by the Pennsy and the Reading, as the name would imply, originally used an all-Baldwin diesel roster, but by the mid-1960s, the Baldwins were pretty worn out and Baldwin was no longer in the locomotive game. With the new powerplant being constructed at Beesley's Point ready to consume several 90 car coal trains per week the PRSL was in need of more powerful and more reliable locomotives and turned to EMD to supply ten new GP38s, which were optioned with dual control stands, cab signals, and no dynamic brakes. The center-mounted dual control stands required the center portion of the cab to be extended forward to allow crews to walk around the stand, which you can see in this angle. There's an oddly high percentage of these PRSL GP38s still around, with quite a few of them still on PRSL tracks, and the #2003 is one of them.

Happy Independence Day. The Delaware & Hudson’s bicentennial-painted Alco RS-3u rebuild teams with one of three SD45s returned from the Erie-Lackawanna to roll southbound freight through Treichlers, Pennsylvania on April 30, 1977. 

One of my favorite bicentennial units is still Illinois Central Gulf #1776. ICG actually had two of these; the first was destroyed in a grade crossing collision with an oil tanker shortly after it was unpainted, and so ICG painted another 

NickD said:

... It's a tough situation, since IHS is a good group, but they're now working against a bunch of bad will and suspicion that has accumulated over the years.

Nick, Thanks a million for all of your hard work documenting all of this Railroad History. I have learned a lot.

Here must be 3713's older brother. Soo Line's 735 has been on static display all of my life and was submerged up to the top for something like 80 days total, once during the flood of 1969 and again in 2011. Some dork wanted to scrap it but was overruled and a few older gentlemen cleaned it up and painted it. It looks like new.  I couldn't get far enough away to take a single photo of it.

VolvoHeretic said:

NickD said:

... It's a tough situation, since IHS is a good group, but they're now working against a bunch of bad will and suspicion that has accumulated over the years.

Nick, Thanks a million for all of your hard work documenting all of this Railroad History. I have learned a lot.

Here must be 3713's older brother. Soo Line's 735 has been on static display all of my life and was submerged up to the top for something like 80 days total, once during the flood of 1969 and again in 2011. Some dork wanted to scrap it but was overruled and a few older gentlemen cleaned it up and painted it. It looks like new.  I couldn't get far enough away to take a single photo of it.

Definitely a decent-looking engine, and its nice that they've got the smokebox painted the proper graphite instead of bright silver, like in this earlier photo. Silver smokeboxes were more of a Southern Pacific or Texas & Pacific thing. Sure would like to see a boiler jacket on it though. They just look naked without the jacket. But typically, they get water in the lagging underneath, then they go to do asbestos abatement, the jacket comes off like curtain lace, and they just never bother to reinstall it.