CSX has rolled out the Seaboard Air Line heritage unit in the SAL's original passenger paint scheme and, uh, it's something. I've been fairly okay with the CSX heritage units so far, certainly more than most railfans, but this one is rough to look at. A lot of the other ones had colors that were pretty complimentary to the blue and yellow of the CSX cab. This is just a mess of colors though, and I don't particularly like SAL's paint schemes to begin with.
I just really do not like that SAL livery. The yellow is too light, and looked faded when new, and the green was too far on the brown end of the spectrum. Just really unappealing.
The SAL freight scheme, which used the same yellow and green-brown, with red pinstriping was also quite ugly as well.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Strong memories as a kid of watching the Orange Blossom Special hauling down between Hollywood and Opa-Locka along side old SR 9 (now I 95). Rode it one time as a elementary school outing. For the time the color scheme was pretty avant-garde. I liked it.
In reply to Purple Frog :
I think the green being more of a green would have been a big help. Seaboard did figure that out, right at the very end before the SAL-ACL merger. Their U30Bs and GP40s were delivered in a bright lime green with yellow and red, nicknamed the "Jolly Green Giant" livery.
Some great news from East Broad Top. The #16 has sat out all year, on account of cracked drive wheel centers that were found during the winter inspection. They got new wheel centers cast for it, and yesterday it made a couple test runs, and EBT has said it will be handling trains this weekend. They posted video of the #16 crossing the brand-new Route 475 crossing on one of the test-runs, which is on the eastern leg of the EB, becoming the first steam locomotive to cross Highway 475 since the railroad's closure in 1956.
Yesterday marked the 45th anniversary of the one of the largest cuts in Amtrak history. On August 29th, 1979, Amtrak discontinued five major long-distance trains, and to date none of these trains have been revived, though service continues to key portions of their route, such as the Chicago-St. Paul segment of the Empire Builder, or the St. Louis-Kansas City state-supported service
1. North Coast Hiawatha (Chicago to Seattle via Bismarck, ND and Billings, MT)
2. Floridian (Chicago to Miami and St. Petersburg via Louisville, KY and Nashville, TN)
3. The Champion (New York-St. Petersburg)
4. National Limited (Washington, DC and New York City-Kansas City, MO)
5. The Lone Star (Chicago-Houston via Oklahoma City and Ft. Worth)
The North Coast Hiawatha, despite the name, was not a Milwaukee Road train that Amtrak inherited, it was a fully Amtrak creation. When Amtrak was formed in 1971, they had a lot of duplicate trains with the same endpoints, but slightly different routing. Even before Amtrak started operation, they were already picking and choosing what routes they were going to retain and for the Chicago-Seattle route they picked the Burlington Northern's ex-Great Northern Empire Builder. This was chosen over the Burlington Northern's ex-Northern Pacific North Coast Limited and Mainstreeter (the Mainstreeter used the same route but lesser amenities and a more leisurely schedule) and the Milwaukee Road's Olympian Hiawatha.
Mike Mansfield, then the then-Senate Majority Leader from Montana, demanded that Amtrak find a way to serve Montana's larger cities that the Empire Builder bypassed by not using the ex-NP line, including Billings, Bozeman, Butte, and Missoula. Amtrak bowed to the pressure and resumed service over the NP line, effective June 14, 1971, creating an unnamed section of the Empire Builder that ran three days a week over the ex-NP route between Minneapolis and Spokane. Mansfield's intervention earned the train the nickname "Mike Mansfield Limit"The NP route was praised for its scenery, and Amtrak considered it one of its six most beautiful. The train also provided a convenient connection to Yellowstone at Livingston, Montana. On November 14, 1971, Amtrak extended the service to Chicago over the Milwaukee Road and formally named it North Coast Hiawatha, a combination of North Coast Limited and Olympian Hiawatha.
In early 1976, the North Coast Hiawatha was nearly discontinued due to Ford Administration budget cuts, but Montana senators again applied pressure to keep it in operation. In October 1976, Amtrak announced that the North Coast Hiawatha would be the second train, after the Empire Builder, to receive the new bi-level Superliner coaches, then on order from Pullman Standard, but the Superliners wouldn't be delivered until after the North Coast Hiawatha was discontinued. In May 1977, Amtrak added seven hours to the schedule, increasing it to 52 hours 30 minutes. The change was caused by speed restrictions on Amtrak's new EMD SDP40Fs, once hailed as the future of Amtrak's long-distance fleet, after they suffered a rash of derailments. In November, Amtrak reduced the running time to 46 hours 40 minutes, after the replacement of the SDP40Fs permitted an easing of speed restrictions, but even as this improved service began, the train was threatened with cancellation. Facing a budget deficit of $60 million, Amtrak identified a half dozen routes that it considered financially troubled. Amtrak proposed merging the North Coast Hiawatha and the Empire Builder, or even cancelling both. Throughout 1978, no decision was taken, and both trains continued to provide daily service between Chicago and Seattle. In 1979 though the North Coast Hiawatha was unable to dodge death again, and was discontinued, since it was found that the service recovered only $6 million against expenses of $24 million, and that the per-passenger cost was $178. The end of the North Coast Hiawatha severed much of the populated portion of Montana from the national rail network, and also spelled the end of intercity rail service in southern North Dakota, and over the years there have been periodic attempts to restore service in these areas, although they haven't progressed any farther than studies. The most recent FRA study did recommend revival of the route, so we'll see if the NCH finally makes it's return.
The Floridian was another Amtrak creation, based heavily on the old joint PRR-L&N-ACL-FEC/SCL South Wind, which had run from Chicago to Miami (FEC) or St. Petersburg (SCL). Amtrak actually retained the South Wind on formation as a daily Chicago-Miami train. However, the train was rerouted away from Logansport (where the PRR had handed the train off to L&N) to the James Whitcomb Riley's route via Indianapolis, changing its northern terminus to Chicago's Illinois Central-owned Central Station, which it shared with the Panama Limited until that facility was vacated later in favor of consolidating all Amtrak services at Chicago's Union Station. Amtrak also began serving the west coast of Florida by splitting the now-daily South Wind into St. Petersburg and Miami sections. The train split at Auburndale, with one section continuing to Miami and another going to St. Petersburg via Tampa.
On November 14, the South Wind was reconfigured as the Floridian. The St. Petersburg and Miami sections were retained, but the split now occurred in Orlando, with the St. Petersburg section serving Tampa and the Miami section serving Winter Haven. The Floridian had the makings of a winner, since the Chicago-Miami routing was still pretty popular and it hit some major cities on the way there (Chicago, Louisville, Nashville, Birmingham). But the northern end of the route used Penn Central tracks, which were in horrific condition and caused significant delays. Attempts to improve timekeeping resulted in reroutes. On August 1st, 1974, the train moved to the L&N via the former C&EI from Evansville and Danville, IL, bypassing both Louisville and Indianapolis. On April 27th, 1975, it moved to the ex-Monon via Lafayette, still bypassing Indianapolis. Neither route was in much better shape, and eliminated service to major routes, hurting ridership. There was also the odd move of combining a segment with the privately-owned Auto Train Corp. from Lousville to Sanford, FL in November 1976. With it, the Floridian shifted its Louisville service to the Auto-Train’s facility there. The joint operation south of Louisville ended in September 1977, since the success with the original Lorton, VA-Sanford, FL Auto-Train did not replicate itself on the Louisville-Sanford run, in part due to the severe delays on the Floridian, and the Louisville—Sanford Auto-Train was suspended indefinitely a few years before Auto-Train Corporation itself finally succumbed to financial difficulties in April 1981,
The Floridian quickly developed a reputation for lousy on-time rate, rough ride, grubby equipment and surly crews. In 1979, the USDOT compiled a report that recommended the reduction of services on several routes that did not meet a metric for cost coverage. Per this report, the Carter administration required all Amtrak routes to meet a minimum cost/farebox ratio or face discontinuance. Unfortunately, the track issues and delays had resulted in a steep decline in ridership for the Floridian, and it made its last run on October 9, 1979. This ended regular passenger train service to Nashville, which has never seen Amtrak service again, as well as to Louisville, which only saw a brief revival from 1999 to 2003 with the Kentucky Cardinal. Amtrak also has not offered a direct Chicago-Florida service ever since. Again, there's been a push to revive this service, and it was on the 2023 long distance survery study.
The Champion was an actual holdover service, name and all, originating with the Atlantic Coast Line in 1939. The diesel-powered streamliner had run from New York City to Miami, competing against Seaboard Coast Line's Silver Meteor. The Champion left New York on the PRR and ran through Philadelphia to Washington, where it was handed off to the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac. The RF&P then handled the train to Richmond, VA, the north end of the ACL's mainline, and the ACL then took it through Charleston and Savannah to Jacksonville, FL. At Jacksonville, it split and one leg continued on ACL rails to St. Petersburg while the other used FEC rails to go to Miami. In 1963, as a result of long-running and violent strikes on the FEC, the ACL rerouted the East Coast Champion from the coastal FEC tracks to an interior ACL route through Sanford and Auburndale, near Winter Haven, and then onto SAL tracks from Auburndale to Miami. ACL merged with SAL in 1967 to form Seaboard Coast Line, which put rivals Champion and Silver Meteor under the same roof. The only post-merger change was that the Miami and southeast Florida destinations were eliminated, since the formerly SAL trains had those responsibilities.
Amazingly, despite the near duplicate routings, both the Champion and Silver Meteor, as well as the similar Silver Star, were held onto by SCL and conveyed into Amtrak, and Amtrak also held onto the three routes. On several occasions throughout the 1970s Amtrak would combine the Champion with its old rival the Silver Meteor. The first of these instances came in the summer of 1972: the train split in Savannah, with the Champion section continuing to St. Petersburg and the renamed Meteor section passing west of Jacksonville on ex-SAL tracks to Miami. These combinations occurred again in 1975, 1976, and 1977, but with two changes: the split occurred at Jacksonville, and the Meteor again became the Silver Meteor. Finally, in 1979, facing a 1978 USDOT recommendation and budget cuts by the Carter Administration, Amtrak consolidated their NY-FL services and eliminated the Champion. Unlike the previous two, it's unlikely that the Champion will see a revival since it really didn't offer a unique route and Amtrak still runs both the Silver Meteor and Silver Star.
A confusing one, the National Limited used a PRR routing but with a B&O name. In 1970, the DOT recommended a route of NYC-Washington-St. Louis train, and then further amended it to included an extension to Kansas City to connect with the LA-Chicago Super Chief. PRR/Penn Central had already been running the route NYC-DC-StL route with the Spirit of St. Louis, so Amtrak retained that route but added an extension over the Missouri Pacific to Kansas City. In July 1971, the train was renamed the National Limited to better reflect the scope of the route, in the process ironically taking on the name of the old B&O train that had been a competitor to the PRR Spirit of St. Louis. On paper, the route should have been a financial success. Not only did it serve a myriad of large population centers (New York, Philadelphia, DC, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Kansas City), but its predecessor had existed for almost 60 years (the St. Louisian had run along the route from 1913 until being replaced by the Spirit of St. Louis in 1927). Unfortunately, that pesky Penn Central infrastructure reared it's head here as well, and the train frequently ran late, or was canceled entirely. So poor was it's reputation, that eastbound trains frequently left Kansas City with less than 100 riders onboard. Failing to meet the requirements imposed by the Carter Administration it was also retired in 1979. Again, this route is being looked at for possible revival by Amtrak.
The Lone Star had originally been ATSF's Texas Chief, which ran from Chicago to Galveston, TX starting in 1938, although it was later trimmed back to Houston in 1967. Santa Fe conveyed the Texas Chief to Amtrak at the latter's inception in 1971 but in 1974 Amtrak changed the train's name from Texas Chief to Lone Star. The Santa Fe determined that Amtrak's trains no longer met its service standards and demanded that Amtrak stop using the "Chief" name on both the Super Chief, which became the Southwest Limited, and the Texas Chief, which became the Lone Star.
The train was popular with students of the many colleges and universities along its route, and provided economical transportation to and from school. In the fiscal year 1976, the train carried 274,448 passengers. Amtrak considered, but rejected, a Dallas through routing because of concerns over the Dallas station, choosing to instead add a Fort Worth–Dallas section on July 1, 1975. The Dallas through cars were temporarily discontinued between October 1976 and February 15, 1977, during which time the Lone Star was combined with the Southwest Limited between Chicago and Kansas City. Due to cuts by Congress as part of the Amtrak Reorganization Act of 1979, despite the Lone Star was Amtrak's seventh most popular long-distance train, largely because Chicago–Houston service could be retained by adding a Houston section to the Chicago–Laredo Inter-American.
I'm getting a lot of railroad sports on my MSN homepage because of this thread. 
I am not sure if I asked this before Nick (sorry if I did), but: Do they still use sand for traction? If not, what replaced it, made up for it?
(they used to spray sand in front of the drive wheel in low traction situations).
VolvoHeretic said:I'm getting a lot of railroad sports on my MSN homepage because of this thread.
A pity that those trips aren't happening this year due to the internal meltdown at the Virginia Museum of Transportation, with all sorts of ugly accusations of poor maintenance on the locomotive, funding misappropriation, and a large amount of members of VMT not pulling their weight when organizing and running the trips.
In reply to aircooled :
Sand still is used in low traction situations, although maybe not as heavily as it once was, with modern day power having more sophisticated wheelslip control systems and better truck designs that promote adhesion. There really isn't a better alternative than sand, since it works great and it's pretty environmentally friendly, unlike if you tried using some chemical or other material.
I always liked this photo of Southern SD35s climbing Saluda Grade, and you see the amount of sand that was being used for trains to make that climb.
NickD said:Some great news from East Broad Top. The #16 has sat out all year, on account of cracked drive wheel centers that were found during the winter inspection. They got new wheel centers cast for it, and yesterday it made a couple test runs, and EBT has said it will be handling trains this weekend. They posted video of the #16 crossing the brand-new Route 475 crossing on one of the test-runs, which is on the eastern leg of the EB, becoming the first steam locomotive to cross Highway 475 since the railroad's closure in 1956.
The highs and lows of steam railroading in the 20th century.
On Thursday, East Broad Top announced that the #16 was back in service for the first time in 2024, and would be hauling trains for the Labor Day Weekend, from Friday-Sunday, and then resuming normal operation moving forward.
Then on Saturday, halfway through the day, the decision was made to remove the #16 from service, due to the left bearing on the #4 drive axle running hotter than desired. If I had to guess, it probably needs some adjustments made on the bearing crowns, due to having had the axles out to replace the drive wheel centers. So, the #16 is out of service again for the immediate future.
Steamtown held their first Railfest since 2019 over the weekend. And while it's great to see that they've started holding the event again, the list of guest appearances highlights an issue with Steamtown. Making special appearances were;
Boy, that sure seems like a lot of diesels for a place called Steamtown. Now, CNR 2-8-2 #3254 was moved out into the yard, and NKP 2-8-4 #759 was displayed next to the #190, and BLW 0-6-0 #26 was handling the "Scranton Limited" yard hops, but the majority of the stuff seemed to be diesel-focused. And this isn't the first time their Railfest was heavily diesel-oriented. I remember back before the pandemic, someone was saying "with the Reading FP7s, the "DL&W" F3As, the Delaware-Lackawanna EMD SC, and the Nickel Plate GP7 all present, this is a great event for early EMD fans". And people's response was, "Well, that's cool, but isn't the place named Steamtown?"
That photo of the "DL&W" F3A (really ex-Bangor & Aroostook) and "Nickel Plate" PA-1 (really ex-ATSF/D&H) is pretty neat because that's a meet that may have occurred historically. The DL&W and NKP interchanged quite a bit of traffic at Buffalo, with the DL&W serving as the NKP's eastern outlet and the NKP serving as the DL&W's western outlet. There was a lot of run-through freight, and even run-through passenger and mail cars. It was a pretty solid pairing, with the DL&W being one of the best-engineered railroads in the northeast, with the shortest mainline from NYC to Buffalo and numerous engineering projects like the Lackawanna Cutoff and Nicholson Cutoff to reduce distance, grades and curvature, and it was in extremely good financial health before WWII, while the NKP made up for what it lacked in infrastructure engineering with just running traffic as fast and as hard as their largely single-tracked and unsignalled mainline could handle behind those fleets of incomparable Berkshires.
A DL&W-NKP merger made a lot of sense, certainly more than the Erie-DL&W merger did, and it was actually considered immediately after WWII. Supposedly around 1948-1949, the two railroads began making moves towards a merger, with the DL&W even owning 15% of the NKP's stock. The whole thing came undone for a couple reasons though. One was that NKP still had extremely high stock prices and the board was concerned that a merger with DL&W would water down their stock value. There were also concerns on the NKP end regarding the NY tax rate on tracks in the state, as well as the NJ commuter obligations that hemorrhaged cash from every railroad that had to operate them. And the killing blow came when the DL&W president, William White met with the NKP BOD and was perhaps a little arrogant or pushy or in some way alienating to them and the die was cast for NKP to resist. White soon moved on to the NYC and Perry Shoemaker came in as President of the DL&W. Shoemaker tried, maybe half-heartedly to woo NKP to no avail and the ICC made DL&W put the NKP shares in trust. About 1958 Shoemaker sold off the substantial NKP holdings to help their terrible cash flow position, especially after Hurricane Diane and mounting commuter losses.
Particularly interesting is that it was NKP president John Davin, a much unremarked manager was at the helm of NKP during it’s best years, who first approached the DL&W about a merger. He passed away of cancer on January 17, 1949 though, and it is said that the NKP board of directors, and some major shoreholders, actively recruited Lynne L. White (no relation to William) from C&NW to kill the prospect.
NKP #189 and a twin are in charge of the Westerner, a Chicago-Buffalo passenger train. Note the DL&W baggage cars on the head end, indicative of the joint efforts between the two railroads.
Western Maryland Scenic Railroad has announced that they've acquired a third GE B32-8, which means that they have 3 more B32-8s (or Dash-8s in general) than any other tourist line in the US. Last year, due to both their GP30s having severe mechanical failures and the leased F40 being no longer available, they leased one B32-8 (#556), then bought another (#561) and bought out the lease on the #556 at the same time. Now they have acquired the #539. The current plan, according to WMSR, is to get the #561 painted in WM "fireball" livery to match the #556 and then they are hinting that the #539 will eventually wear WM "circus" paint. Odd to see WMSR flock to a locomotive that was not a big seller when it was new (4 demonstrators, and 45 to NS). Obviously, owning multiples of the same locomotive isn't a bad idea, because it means stocking less spare parts and your crews become familiar with that one specific model, but the B32-8 is kind of an odd choice.
The #556 is pretty neat looking though, in that classic Western Maryland paint scheme.
The #561, the second B32-8 that WMSR acquired, actually did some time up on the Everett Railroad in Pennsylvania beforehand. They didn't have it very long, about 3 years, and I think the problem was that it was just a bit bigger than anything they needed. Mostly they make do with a pair of ex-Seaboard Systems "GP16s" (chop-nose GP7s with 645 power packs rated at 1600hp), where the B32-8 was double the horsepower of them, while also being more expensive to operate and service.
WMSR did get the opportunity for a really neat photo with the CSX Western Maryland heritage unit passing over their B32-8 in WM paint.
EMD also offered a competitor to the B32-8, and like the B32-8 it wasn't a terribly strong seller and the only railroad to purchase any was Norfolk Southern. The GP59 followed a trend of relatively unsuccessful EMD companion offerings ending in a 9, which were based on a popular model but with a turbo 12-cylinder in place of the turbo 16-cylinder. (GP39/GP40, GP49/GP50, GP59/GP60, SD89MAC/SD90MAC). So while the GP60 used a turbocharged 3800hp 710 V12, the GP59 used a turbocharged 3000hp for power instead. Considering the success of the GP40 and GP40-2 nearly 20 and 15 years earlier, respectively, the GP59 seemed like it should be a fairly popular model. After all, it offered the same 3000hp 4-axle configuration, but with the new 710 engine using less cylinders, plus other advancements, like microprocessor control, better truck design, better wheelslip control, etc. But most railroads were moving towards the 4000-4400hp mark, and eyeing that 6000hp number Others just already had sizable fleets of GP40s and GP40-2s that they found easier to rebuild or renew. So, EMD produced 33 for NS and then also sold them the 3 demonstrators when no more orders were forthcoming.
Particularly interesting were the three EMD demonstrators, which had a new "aero cab" with rounded corners on the cab and nose corners, like the #4608 here. EMD applied this cab design to the GP59 demonstrators, which NS bought, and the GP60 demonstrators, which CSX ended up with, but it failed to generate any actual customers checking the option box. EMD had actually been so certain that SP would buy the GP60s with the "aero cab" that EMD even rolled the demonstrators out with the full SP lighting package. While SP did buy GP60s, they had no interest in the "aero cab", since it added cost and a new list of cab parts to stock for repairs, and ordered them strictly with regular cabs.
The favorite GP59 among railfans though was NS #4610.
In 1992, a request for a special commemorative Southern Railway locomotive was made to Norfolk Southern from the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The project was the idea of Ben Lee, BLE local Chairman at Charlotte, NC. Lee made the request, designed the altered Southern passenger paint scheme, designed the commemorative plaque honoring NS-BLE Thoroughbred Quality joint projects and Southern Railway engineers. The locomotive would also commemorate the centennial of the Southern Railway (1894-1994) and was intended as an occasional helper engine for the then-active Southern #4501 steam locomotive. Although rumors circulated that a new EMD SD70 locomotive would receive the commemorative paint, NS instead chose to repaint a 3 and a half year old EMD GP59. The reasoning was that it would be better to have a lower horsepower, four-axle GP59 tied up when the unit was sent to special events, rather than a high-adhesion, high horsepower, six-axle locomotive.
In April of 1994, the NS locomotive paint shop at Chattanooga, Tennessee, outshopped the #4610 in its special commemorative Southern Railway paint. It was painted in classic Southern Sylvan Green and Imitation Aluminum, with black frame, trucks and fuel tank, and yellow lettering and logos. The special commemorative plaque was located on the left side of the long hood, just under the radiator grilles. The #4610 was used across the NS system, although much of its time was spent at different locations in the south. Of course, 8 months after the #4610 was rolled out, the steam excursion program ended, but the unit also appeared for display at many railfan events. It was repainted again in 2004 for the 50th anniversary celebration of the NS Debutts Yard in Chattanooga, TN, and ran around in that paint for another 7 years, but then was silently rushed through the paint shop in late 2011 at Juniata, without any real notification or reason, and painted into NS black with Operation Lifesaver. Not long after, NS started rolling out their heritage SD70s, and the theory is that they wanted to get the #4610 "out of the way" for the rollout of the heritage fleet.
The #4610 still does exist, but it's been renumbered twice (once to #4663 and again to #6663) and has been rebuilt into a GP59ECO, a GP59 that retains that 12-710 but is upgraded to Tier 3 emissions.
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