Grassroots Railroad Sports?

On the previous subject of EMD F-units out to pasture, Dave Blaze recently posted a photo of Grafton & Upton F7A #1501 sitting out of service. This thing started out on the Bessemer & Lake Erie s #720, then was purchased by the "new" Toledo, Peoria & Western as their #1500 in the 1990s simply because it was cheap power, then it came east to the Adirondack Railroad in the late '90s. It was out of service by 2006 with some sort of prime mover failure, then was sold off to the Grafton & Upon in 2011. They renumbered it to #1501, got it running again, repainted it in their black and yellow paint, and then it was out of service with another prime mover failure circa 2016/2017. Since then it's been sitting at the G&U, and they've not made any moves to put it back in service, but it also wasn't cut up when G&U purged all their GE 44-tonners, Alco S-4s, and EMD CF7, GP7us and GP9s in favor of three ex-CSX MP15s a couple years ago.

When she arrived at the G&U, still in the NYC-inspired paint scheme that the Adirondack was using at the time. Funny enough, this was the second NYC-inspired livery this engine wore, since the TP&W was also using an NYC-based paint scheme when it became newly independent again in the '90s.

In fresh G&U paint.

At the time, the #1501 was pretty noteworthy, since it was one of, if not the only, F-unit in revenue freight service in the US.

Paired up with GP9 #1750, which was one of the engines cut up by G&U a few years ago.

In reply to NickD :

You have to wonder about the ties and ballast when you see this navigating a grassy field.

In reply to TurnerX19 :

That was shortly after Jon Delli Priscolli took over the G&U, and at that time the G&U had been left to go pot for decades. The G&U dates back October 22, 1873 when it was a 3-foot narrow gauge railroad running from an interchange with the Boston & Albany at Grafton, Massachusetts about 6 miles southeast to Upton, Massachusetts. The last narrow gauge train ran on July 9th, 1887 and it was standard-gauged by September 1st, 1887. An extension to West Upton was completed on March 12, 1889, and an extension to Milford, MA was finished on May 17, 1890, connecting to the Milford & Woonsocket Railroad, later a line of the New Haven. The whole line was also electrified, with interurban cars and trolleys handling passenger service during the day, and steam locomotives handling freight at night. Freight service using steam locomotives was continued until April 22, 1919, at which time
two steeple-cab electric freight motors were purchased and the steam engines were sold.

In November 1894, William F. Draper of the Draper Company was appointed to the Board of Directors. The Draper Company, a major textile mill in Hopedale, MA and customer of the G&U, eventually purchased the G&U and operated it as a subsidiary. The G&U ceased passenger service on August 31, 1928, and mail service along with Railway Express service ceased in 1952. The electric operations ceased in 1946, and the line was dieselized with a pair of GE 44-tonners. The copper wires, poles, and hangars that had been part of the electric operations were removed and sold, and that money used to upgrade to 85lb rail, the first roadbed upgrade since the 1887 regauging.

The Draper Company was taken over by Rockwell Interntional in 1967, and ownership of the G&U was passed to Rockwell as well. The G&U struggled through the '60s and '70s, since its two interchange partners (NYC/B&A at Grafton, New Haven at Milford) both became part of Penn Central, which experienced infamous financial and operating difficulties. The Milford yard would see periods of disuse, as Penn Central would cut service on the old Milford & Woonsocket Railroad and sporadically reinstate it. Rockwell sold the G&U to a trucking company, Torco, Inc. of Worcester, MA on January 29, 1979. One of Torco's primary businesses involved the leasing of railroad piggyback haulers, hence their interest in the G&U.

Under Torco, traffic took a pretty steady decline. By 1983, the G&U only handled 391 car loads for the entire years, about 30,000 tons of calcium chloride and salt were brought to West Upton during 1986 and revenue service by 1987 was intermittent. Freight service to West Upton ended in mid-1987 due to the loss of its major customer and to the unsafe condition of the roadbed. By 1988, the G&U had basically retreated just to the yard at Grafton for handling and servicing Torco's piggyback trailers. In 1993, the G&U purchased an ex-St. Louis Union Station Alco S-4, and the salt trains to West Upton resumed until the late 1990s.

In 2004, Torco sold the G&U to the Lucey Family. By that point the line between West Upton and Hopedale was out of service and hadn't seen maintenance in years. A test run was made on the track from North Grafton to West Upton and the track was determined to be in usable condition but beyond this point it was so deteriorated that would have been dangerous to operate a train. Rails were still in place at the Milford, Hopedale, West Upton, Grafton and North Grafton yards but the interchange with CSX at Milford had been disconnected and some of the rails removed. At Upton, the single yard track had been disconnected and some of its rails had been removed. Ownership by the Lucey Family was short and not much changed, and in March 2008, 50% of the largely dormant G&U was sold to Joe Delli Priscolli, with the option to purchase the rest. Some in the town of Upton opposed any re-opening or increased use of the railroad line but were unable to have any influence.

Priscolli launched an aggressive rehabilitation of the G&U, and on December 31, 2009, a test run was conducted, and it was announced that the portion of the line from North Grafton to West Upton was operable, the largest rehabilitation the line had seen since the 1950s. The old 44-tonners and Alco S-4s were put out to pasture in favor of a bunch of first-gen EMDs, including an F7A, a GP7, three GP9us, and a GP9R. a By 2021, the Milford yard was completely cleared of trees, the line from North Grafton to Hopedale was rebuilt, the West Upton yard had its switches and track refurbished with fresh ties and new stone ballast and two new spurs were also built, a new propane facility in North Grafton was completed, new grade crossings and signals along the entire line were installed, and the collection of old early EMDs were largely retired in favor of ex-CSX MP15ACs. The big news was that the G&U took control of the 8.35 mile CSX Milford Seconday line from Milford to Franklin on February 1, 2021, the first expansion to the line since May 17th, 1890.

The G&U is pretty impressive in that, in under 15 years, it went from a 150 year old moribund line that was basically just a yard at one terminus with 15 miles of out-of-service rust, into a viable short line that made it's first expansion in 130 years. It's too bad most of the cool old power fell by the wayside, but from what I've heard, they are painting the MP15ACs into company paint at least. And it's still pretty neat that a shortline is using end-cab switcher power.

I did say "most of the cool old power" because they did revive GP9R #1751 this year, after quite a few years ou of service, and unveiled a neat new orange and black livery, which the MP15ACs will also wear. Also, some sources swear that as soon as the MP15ACs are repainted, they're going to start work on F7A #1501. 

In reply to NickD :

TIL that I live very very close to a cool short line railroad company.  I looked at their website and it doesn't really show their rail line routes, I'll have to do some poking around and see if I can find the Milford yard and see how that connects over to Franklin.  I know where the Draper mill is in Hopedale and I'm pretty sure I know where the line runs over to Upton and on to Grafton.  Thanks Nick!

In reply to 11GTCS :

It seems like a neat operation and I'd like to see it run, but I'm not sure if they have a regular schedule or they're "Runs as needed." Quite a few shortlines are really weird about people knowing when they're running (Not R&N, who publishes some of their freight schedules on social media) and then there are some railfans who will be local to a shortline and know their operating routine but are weirdly secretive about it. I saw one guy posting all sorts of photos of one operation on Facebook and I asked him about when they ran and he private-messaged me to tell me he "didn't feel comfortable giving that information out." 

In the same area as the G&U, about 45 minutes east, is the Massachusetts Central, and that also seems like a cool operation. They have a GP9, a GP20 and two GP38-2s, all in the old B&M "Bluebird" livery.

G&U should also have  GP35 being placed in service in the near future. Housatonic sent one of their five ex-PRR GP35s, the #3604, to the G&U, who has a pretty extensive shop as well, for repairs after Housatonic hooked it up to a GMTX leaser and it burned up all the wiring in the #3604. G&U was completely rewiring the unit, as well as ditching the garbage old GP35 electrical cabinet (with it's 16(!) step transition system), and then out of the blue, Housatonic decided to get some GP15-1s from Metro East Industries and gave the nearly-completed #3604 to G&U in exchange for outstanding payments.

Now, Housatonic, that's a weird operation, and one that gets a lot of uncharitable remarks from those familiar with it. It's the prototypical maligned New England short line. All their own equipment out of service, a roster of GATX leasers, what track isn't out of service is 10mph territory, and very few customers on their territory.

The Housatonic has a bigger issue in that a lot of their management is ex-Guilford/Pan Am and they run the place like Guilford Lite. They won't make any track improvements unless they can get the government to shell out for it, and even then it's always kind of shady. I know when they still had the line to Beacon, they were trying to get NY to pay for improvements, and NY pointed out that there were no NY-based customers on the west end of the line and refused to play their game.  That line has since been ripped up from Beacon to the Connecticut border. There was also an instance where they got Massachusetts to foot the bill for continuous welded rail, then took the rail when it was delivered and moved it down to Connecticut and plans to use it elsewhere, although the rail has been laying in the mud for 2 years now. For a while they were trying to get CTDOT to start passenger service on their Pittsfield, MA-Danbury, CT lines by presenting these studies with all sorts of blatantly unrealistic ridership projections. Everyone was predicting that it was to get CT to overhaul the line, and then shrug their shoulders when it inevitably flopped and go "Oh well, we tried." 

They also are just incredibly difficult to deal with. The Providence & Worchester actually serves one of the biggest customers in Housatonic territory, the Tilcon plant in Danbury, and has trackage rights over the east end of the Housatonic from Derby Junction west to Danbury. The Housatonic has let that line fall into disrepair and embargoed it, forcing the P&W to have to go all the way down to South Norwalk and then run around the train or use power on both ends, then deal with Metro North passenger congestion on the Danbury Branch, resulting in much higher operating expense. P&W has offered to fix the Danbury-Derby line with their own MoW crews in exchange for reduced trackage right payments, and Housatonic refused. The P&W tried forcing sale of it legally as well, but never got anywhere. MassDOT gave Housatonic a bunch of money to overhaul rails so that that Berkshire Scenic Railroad Museum could operate over their rails, and then Housatonic turned around and unceremoniously evicted the BSRM as soon as possible over alleged safety concerns that were never mentioned to BSRM or expounded upon. And they had a really nice transload facility in Newtown that had potential to be a huge traffic generator, but they were illegally dumping all sorts of construction materials on the property. When the locals asked them to clean it up, they gave them the middle finger, and then eventually the Newtown residents took legal action and Housatonic had to shut down the facility and got thrown out of town.

As of right now, all five of their ex-Pennsy GP35s are out of service, and they gave the one to G&U after spending money on overhauling it. They have an ex-ATSF/BAR GP7u, still in Bangor & Aroostook paint that is in and out of service. For a while they were using three GATX GP38-2s and a GATX MP15DC, although the MP15 was out of service pretty quickly. Now they're buying a bunch of MEI-rebuilt GP15-1s, which I've heard have a bunch of niggling issues, and which I hear is not uncommon for MEI stuff.

I've heard some people say that they wish the Housatonic management would just throw in the towel and sell the thing, and a lot of people have wished the Jon Delli Prescolli would take over and work the magic he worked on the G&U on the Housatonic.

Prescolli did try to buy Conway Scenic Railroad back in 2015 from Russ and Dot Seybold, and it's a pity that that never panned out, since I think he would have likely run it better than current owner Dave Swirk. There's been a lot of weird operational changes since Swirk took over, and not necessarily for the better. The railroad has largely sidelined their steam locomotive, 0-6-0 #7470, and the open-window coaches under his ownership, they've gotten rid of the railfan weekends, and a lot of the other neat railroader's touches, like the operating B&M semaphore at the south side of North Conway yard (still there, but inoperative), has largely gone away.

Instead he's pursued Portland, ME cruise line visitors, and gone in heavy on air-conditioned stainless-steel cars, closed off the yard to visitors, and made it less of a railroader's railroad.

Prescolli also owned Edaville at one point. He leased the park in 1999, after it had been dormant due to all the genuine Maine 2-footers going to the newly-formed Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum in Portland. Prescolli ended up buying the entire park, bringing in two 2-foot gauge steam locomotives and eighteen cars, and ran it until the pandemic closed the park temporarily for much of 2020 and 2021.  It reopened in November and December 2021 for its annual Christmas Festival of Lights excursions and again for a weekend in April of 2022 to celebrate its 75th anniversary and as part of that event, one of the original Edaville locomotives, Monson Railroad 0-4-4T #3, returned to the park. In spring of '22 Prescollii put Edaville up for sale, and in August of that year, the railroad announced that two new people were coming to take over the operation: Shervin B. Hawley and Brian Fanslau. Fanslau also runs Maine Locomotive & Machine Works, which rebuilds locomotives and cars and has done extensive work with narrow gauge equipment. Fanslau had said that he hoped to put a bigger emphasis on the railroad and bring Edaville back to its roots. 

Unfortunately, now the alarm bells are kind of sounding. Kind of under the radar, King Richard’s Faire was sold last year to another organization, Lancelot Entertainment, and Lancelot Entertainmen has also purchased the Edaville property. Alphonse D’Amico, the owner of the property where the Faire has been held since it first began more than 40 years ago has opted not to renew the Faire’s lease, and so Lancelot Entertainment will move the Faire to that site while the Edaville park itself will be downsized and the rides auctioned off in May. Brian Fanslau and Hannah Harriman of Maine Locomotive and Machine Works, who had been serving as operations partners of Edaville Family Theme Park for the past three years, confirmed to that they are no longer the operators of the park, although they will be helping the transition.

Reportedly the 2-foot gauge railroad will remain on the property, but there's a lot of concerns. After all, how does a 20th-century train mesh with a 16th-century Renn Faire? Does that mean that the railroad portion will be limited to just Christmas time operations?The owners have started to move out the standard gauge equipment on display, starting with the tender of
ex-Wolfboro Railroad 2-6-2 # 250 , with its next location being anybody's guess. And there had always been this belief that if Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad & Museum in Portland needed a new home (Portland has been a rather fickle host, and currently they are shut down because Portland is redeveloping the property and the developer dismantled their mainline) the equipment could maybe be moved back to Edaville. Seems unlikely now with the new plans for Edaville.

Another really alarming development: The Zanesville & Western, a small but  active tourist line in Mount Perry has been leasing track and doing business on a State of Ohio-owned rail line in Muskingum and Perry counties, called the Glass Rock Line, has lost to bike trail advocates. Ohio Rail Development Commission held a vote in Columbus on March 20th that was 6-0 for conveying the line to Muskingum Valley Park District for a bike trail. This is a 13 mile spur that had reportedly had reasonable freight potential, along with the tourist operation. Reports are that stranded motive power and passenger cars are to meet the scrapper’s torch. So, once again, the rail trail folks have shut down an operational railroad to have it torn up for a trail.

Also, Catskill Mountain Railroad, who already lost a chunk of their active line to the rail trail crowd, has been fighting the rail trail advocates again this year. They've been hoping to rehabilitate another 1.67 miles west of their current end of operations to extend their line. Well, the Woodstock Land Conservancy and Open Space Institute have laid eyes on that 1.67 miles for addition to the trail system that already stole a good chunk of rail that Catskill Mountain had been operating on. From the CMRR's Facebook page, "The previous meeting in February they were working on a resolution proposing Rail With Trail. This time they completely turned around and proposed that the CMRR could cross Rt 28A with enough track west for the train to clear the crossing and then start the trail from there. No extension, no Basin Road terminal and they tried to take it to a vote. The result of a handpicked committee being lead by an Ulster County Legislator who has been trying to kill the CMRR for almost two decades. Fortunately one committee member stopped the vote and called for more information. They will meet again on April 24th."

Sixty-eight years ago today, the Old & Weary made it's final run and passed into the history books.