The two ex-D&H RS-3s have arrived at the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson. They were turned on the ex-D&H wye in Saratoga Springs (gotta wonder when the last time a pair of D&H RS-3s was turned on that wye) and then ran to Corinth.
This is not an old photo. The bridge in Corinth still wears D&H paint.
I've seen some amusing "They should paint them in D&H colors" comments regarding SC&H taking ownership of the #4118 and #4103. Apparently they don't realize that they are in D&H paint.
The D&H RS-2s were delivered in solid black, just with the yellow lettering and the yellow box around the numbers. They then later had the yellow chevrons added to the end. The S-2s, S-4s and RS-3s were all delivered in the same scheme, but with the yellow chevrons from the factory.
So, on Saturday morning I hopped in my MR2 Spyder, dropped the top, and buzzed the 2 hours east to Corinth, NY, to the headquarters of the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for their RS-3s.
On arrival, Alco #5 and "D&H #3021" were sitting at the little Corinth station building that SC&H installed. This location was never really anything in the D&H days, or the Upper Hudson River Railroad or the Saratoga & North Creek, but SC&H has carved out a little spot to park cars and installed a couple sidings to work here.
Alco #5 was built in 1947 and used at the Alco factory in Schenectady to switch all the completed locomotive going out of the factory. It's kicked around a bunch of different operations since Alco closed, I've seen photos of it at Strasburg and Scranton, I know it operated for the Adirondack Railroad when they first started up in 1992, it was on the roster of both the Upper Hudson River Railroad and the Saratoga & North Creek. After Iowa Pacific Holdings, who owned S&NC, folded up, Hal Raven got the #5, restored it, and began operations on the SC&H with just the #5. When I visited the SC&H during the first year of their operation, in fall of '21, the #5 was all they had for motive power.
Behind the #5 is "D&H #3021", which, while wearing the paint scheme and number of a D&H S-2s, is not a genuine D&H S-2. This was built in 1943 for the US Army and worked at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds. It then was eventually sold to Staten Island Rapid Transit, and then also ended up working for Upper Hudson River Railroad and then S&NC. It was bought by Hal Raven, painted up as D&H #3021 and was used at the Batten Kill Railroad for a while, before being moved down to the SC&H in winter of '21 to give the SC&H some more horsepower to work with.
Sitting off in the weeds at the far end of the parking lot is the nose off of a Reading FA-1. Reading had six A-B sets of FA-1s, purchased in '48, and they were later upgraded into FA-2s, as part of an overhaul program handled by Alco. All the FAs were given new 1600hp "250" engines (Alcos term for the later 244, to try and distance itself from the early 244 failures) and had everything overhauled. The #301 ended up breaking the crankshaft sometime afterwards and all the FA-1s were traded into Alco in 1963, since the 15 year equipment trusts had expired. Traded in on C424s, the traction motors and trucks were reused under the C424s and the FA-1s scrapped. But Alco decided to saw the front end off of the #301 and set it aside to use as a replacement structure for any FAs that suffered collision damage. After all, Alco hadn't built an FA since 1956, and likely no longer had the tooling to build new noses, and even if they did, it would be easier and cheaper just to sell them the front off retired units. But, by '63, a lot of FAs were retired or headed for retirement, and any wreck that required replacement of the front end would have likely just sent the unit to the dead line instead. So, the cab was still sitting around in '69 when Alco shut down, and a private individual in Altamont, NY bought the front of Reading #301 in the following liquidation and moved it to his private property and tucked it away in the woods. It sat there, pretty much unseen, for 4 decades until the Alco Technical & Historical Society bought it and moved it to Schenectady for their planned Alco museum. That has never transpired and last year it was moved to Corinth and placed on display.
I had expected the RS-3s to still be wearing Delaware-Lackawanna lettering, and would have been okay with it, but the SC&H employees had removed the D-L letttering and painted the hood on Friday and were applying vinyl lettering on Saturday morning.
The #4103 hadn't received the lettering when we got in. Funny story, SC&H had been hoping to have them fully relettered when the gates were opened, but an employee went down to the gates, saw a line of traffic up the road at 9am, and figured they better let us in so that we weren't tying up traffic and possibly causing an accident.
SC&H's new open air car, directly behind the #4118. If it looks oddly short, that's because this is actually built from a MoW car that was built from a steam locomotive tender. During restoration for use as an open-air excursion car, it was discovered the car used the tender frame from Delaware & Hudson 4-4-0 #451, which had been wrecked in a collision with another locomotive at The Glen, NY, on D&H’s Adirondack Branch on Aug. 26, 1946. Engineer Frank J. Keehan, 57, of Saratoga Springs, a veteran of more than 40 years on the D&H, is credited with giving his life to minimize the impact of the collision, knowing the train he was about to run into was carrying school children. The tender frame was subsequently converted into a maintenance-of-way car with a small crane. It was saved by SC&H owner Hal Raven from a former titanium mine in Tahawus, NY, where it had been left when D&H pulled its last ore train out of the mine in 1989. It is believed to have spent most of its life on the branch or at the mine after the wreck which led to the scrapping of #451. The flatcar has been named “The Spirit of The Glen” and carries a plaque honoring Frank J. Keehan.
Matt Giardino, Hal Raven, and an SC&H brakeman whose name I never caught, applying the lettering to #4103
And with fresh lettering and facing the #3021. Whole lotta D&H yellow and black here.
Then it was time for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and dedication of the two locomotives. Hal Raven, at the microphone, got up and talked about the history of the RS-3s and how they came back to the Adirondack Branch. Purchased in '52, the 104 RS-3s were the final blow to steam locomotives on the D&H, sending every remaining steam locomotive into retirement and bringing the D&H into the diesel age. The RS-3s could be found just about anywhere on the D&H, handling any service, and they held on for a long time, with retirements starting in 1968, but some, like the #4103 and #4118 holding on into the '80s. They eventually found their way to Delaware-Lackawanna in the mid-'90s, back on D&H rails, and were restored to operation and their original numbers and appearance, but weren't used often, since crews didn't care for the small cabs. According to Hal, David Monte Verde, president of Genesee Valley Transportation, came up and rode the SC&H last winter, during the holiday season, and afterwards approached him and said "What you're doing here is really impressive, I've got a couple D&H RS-3s that don't see much use, I'd really like to see them come up here", and so a deal was struck for #4103 and #4118.
The man sitting in the chair is William Bibby, a D&H veteran who has know Hal since Hal was a teenager. Mr. Bibby lived along the Adirondack Branch, and at a young age would skip school, hop aboard passing D&H cabooses and ride with the crews up to North Creek and Tahawus and back. At the age of 14, he was helping out at North Creek, hostling locomotives, including the #4103. He told a story about moving an RS-3 over to the turntable at North Creek, and as he was rolling through the yard, he saw the Pontiac hi-rail at the throat of the yard, and a man in a suit and hat, and he knew it was the superintendent. He slunk down in the engineer's seat, got it on the turntable and got it turned, and the super came walking up to him and said "How old are you?" He told him his age, and then said, he could tell his parents and/or kick him off the property, but don't take it out on the yardmaster, because he had a wife and five kids to support. He got an answer of "We'll see" and the superintendent walked into the office, was in there a while, came out and waved goodbye and left, and sure enough, he never said a word to the yardmaster. He said that the D&H was like a family, and they took care of their own, and that's why as a kid he knew he wanted to work for them, and that's a sentiment I've heard expressed about the D&H many times. He got pretty choked up talking about how glad he was to see the RS-3s back on the Adirondack Branch, after being gone for so long.
The SC&H employees and Bill cutting the ribbon.
And Hal, center, posing with a bunch of D&H veterans in attendance.
The two locomotives were also dedicated. The #4103 is now named "William Bibby".
While the #4118 is named "Remembrance" in honor of the men and women of the D&H.
Bill posing with the #4118.
Then they fired the two up and moved them forward to begin loading, giving this chance at a photo of them moving past Alco #5, reunited for possibly the first time in 72 years. As the factory switcher, the #5 would have moved #4103 and #4118 around when they were completed. Before they started them though, the SC&H's two engineers, Brad Peterson and Jack Raven (Hal's 18 year old son) were standing off to the side watching the dedication ceremony, and a GVT employee came up to them and went "Hey, before you light those off, you guys will want to remove the M.U. jumper. You start these with the jumper hooked up, and it'll burn up a relay. They'll run, but they won't move. Not an issue on the Centuries, but the RSs will all do that." The SC&H's engineers exchanged a glance and went "Well, that's good to know. Would've been embarrassing if we'd done that." Have to wonder how many times that was done down on the D-L.
Underway with their first passenger-hauling runs on the SC&H.
Heading past South Corinth.
The heavyweight observation car at the back was carrying a drumhead that was styled after the drumhead used by the D&H on the Laurentian, and SC&H was referring to the train as the Corinthian.
At the Spier Falls Road crossing.
Arriving at the southern end of the run, at Lamothe Landing in Greenfield Center. They advertise all their runs as going to "Greenfield Center" but they actually have two different stops at Greenfield Center, Lamothe Landing or King's Landing a couple miles north. As their conductor explained to us beforehand "Hal says if we have the horsepower, go to Lamothe's Landing. If not, go to King's and go slower." There's a decent hill between Lamothe's and King's and they said that with just the 660hp #5 and the 1000hp #3021, if they have a lot of people onboard or it's raining, the switcher's just couldn't push the train back up the hill, which was why they needed something bigger, which the two RS-3s provide.
Shoving back past King's Landing. The bridge still wears a D&H shield and that's a D&H station and caboose in the background. Unfortunately, SC&H does not run around their power at the southern end of the run, so they make a shove move all the way from Greenfield Center to Corinth.
Shoving back over the D&H-lettered bridge just south of the station at Corinth.
Back at Corinth, as passengers unload.
There was also a Greenwich & Johnsonville bay window caboose parked on the other sit of rails. The G&J was a D&H subsidiary, and it was eventually sold off, along with what was left of the Washington Branch, to become the Batten Kill Railroad. Batten Kill still operates a D&H RS-3 that was assigned to the G&J and sold off with it, as well some RS-36s in D&H paint and an RS-1 that Hal Raven purchased about a year ago. Hal started out as a teenager on the Batten Kill, and again owns an RS-1 that was up there and had the #3021 up there for a while as well.
After they finished with the excursion, those present were allowed to climb aboard the RS-3s and get their photos taken and sit in the cab, so of course I took advantage of that. D&H RS-3s in D&H paint and numbers on D&H rails? Who could resist? William Bibby had ridden the trip in the cab of the #4103, and was holding court in there for a good while, and the joke was that they were going to have to carry him out of there.
After they shut the RS-3s down, the SC&H crews hung out on the front and listened to Bill tell stories of his D&H days. From left to right, that's Jack Raven, Hal Raven, Bill Bibby, the brakeman whose name I didn't catch, and engineer Brad Peterson.
Now, I will say, Hal asked me how I liked the event, I said it was great and then I asked him if he had to pinch himself to make sure it wasn't a dream. His response was "Oh, we've got an even cooler announcement coming next month." No clue what tops getting two D&H RS-3s, but I'm intrigued. I know someone said that Matt Giardino is planning a "Railfan Weekend" at the SC&H in September with photo freights and runbys and the like, which is one possibility. Also, while it's hasn't been widely announced, the Operation Toy Train schedule shows that on Saturday, November 16th it is making stops at "Greenfield Center, Corinth and Hadley", so there's very possibly a northbound run to Hadley that weeked, which would be big. And third, the SC&H Facebook page keeps hinting at some other possible locomotive acquisition.
There's nothing else like that weird raspy clatter that Alcos make.
Some photos from folks more talented, or better equipped, than I. I have had separate issues with my camera the last two times I've gone out, and I'm not sure if it's a setting I bumped, but I wasn't terribly happy with my Adirondack photos last weekend (just couldn't get it to stop any sort of motion) and then my photos at SC&H got really blurry and doubled if it was anything outside the immediate center.
Photos of William Bibby at the controls of a D&H RS-3, separated by 57 years.
NickD said:SC&H's new open air car, directly behind the #4118. If it looks oddly short, that's because this is actually built from a MoW car that was built from a steam locomotive tender. During restoration for use as an open-air excursion car, it was discovered the car used the tender frame from Delaware & Hudson 4-4-0 #451, which had been wrecked in a collision with another locomotive at The Glen, NY, on D&H’s Adirondack Branch on Aug. 26, 1946. Engineer Frank J. Keehan, 57, of Saratoga Springs, a veteran of more than 40 years on the D&H, is credited with giving his life to minimize the impact of the collision, knowing the train he was about to run into was carrying school children. The tender frame was subsequently converted into a maintenance-of-way car with a small crane. It was saved by SC&H owner Hal Raven from a former titanium mine in Tahawus, NY, where it had been left when D&H pulled its last ore train out of the mine in 1989. It is believed to have spent most of its life on the branch or at the mine after the wreck which led to the scrapping of #451. The flatcar has been named “The Spirit of The Glen” and carries a plaque honoring Frank J. Keehan.
So, yesterday was the 76th anniversary of that collision, and SC&H posted photos showing the aftermath of 4-6-0 #503 and 4-4-0 #451's head-on meet. You can see the tender frame of the #451, with the tender body popped right off of it, and that is the tender that is now SC&H's open-air car. Also, notice how the entire cylinder and valve gear on the engineer's side of the #503 is busted completely off and lying in the ballast.
SC&H also posted a photo of the sign at The Glen, NY commemorating the site of the acccident. The Glen is far north of Corinth, almost into North Creek, and SC&H doesn't operate up there, but they ran some ballast trains up there a month or so ago to repair some washouts for Revolution Rail, who runs the railbikes north of Hadley.
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