An Alco PA painted in a Nickel Plate Road “bluebird” livery arrived at its new home in Pennsylvania last Friday.
The former Santa Fe and Delaware & Hudson unit was ferried across the country from Oregon to Pennsylvania by BNSF, Montana Rail Link, and Norfolk Southern.
A report on the website of Railfan & Railroad magazine said No. 190 was delivered to an NS yard in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was then picked up by its new owner, Genesee Valley Transportation’s Delaware-Lackawanna.
The PA is to be displayed through June at Steamtown National Historic Site.
The Steamtown display will begin with the arrival of the PA and continue for an unspecified period of time.
However, a report on the Trains website said the display is likely to end sometime in June when the locomotive is moved to GVT’s Von Storch Locomotive Shop in Scranton.
GVT said it will inspect the PA with an eye toward restoring it to operating condition.
Trains reported that as of Tuesday the PA was in Bison Yard in Buffalo, New York, but was expected to move eastward to Binghampton, New York, that evening. An NS local was expected to deliver the PA to Scranton from Binghamton.
The PA is expected to be used by GVT in mainline office-car and excursion service.
My Dad Joe Farkas accompanied me to take railfan photos only rarely. This is one of his photos.
Norfolk & Western Alco RSD-12 No. 2331 EMD SD9 No. 2349 and Alco S-4 No. 2080 (ALCO are coupled together in Brewster in the late 1960s. The nose of N&W 2146, a Fairbanks-Morse H12-44, is visible to the left.
It is early in the Penn Central era, most likely 1968 or at the latest 1969. The locomotives shown already have their PC roster numbers.
Along has come a freight with former Pennsylvania Railroad Alco C425 No. 2441 leading a five-unit lashup that also included another C425, an EMD GP9, an EMD F7B, and two EMD F7As.
The train is heading north through Akron to Hudson and the mainline between Cleveland and Pittsburgh.
To the south in this image is the bridge carrying Buchtel Avenue over the tracks. Further back is the Akron Union Depot walk bridge.
Any one of these five units would be a good museum piece, but together they are priceless.
Things have been extensively rerouted around the campus since then, so I can’t remember what they are calling it now. Buchtel Avenue’s original path through the University of Akron campus now is a walking path most of the way,and Buchtel Avenue proper now is routed to the north and ends at the side entrance to E.J. Thomas Hall.
A Nickel Plate Fairbanks-Morse switcher and three Norfolk & Western Alcos are sitting on the tracks radiating from the turntable in the engine facility in Brewster in mid-1967. Today this facility belongs to the Wheeling & Lake Erie.
Norfolk &Western Alco RSD-12 No. 2332 is in Brewster in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The unit was built for the Nickel Plate Road in May 1957. It would later serve Norfolk Southern.
We’re in Marion on Dec. 30, 1972, where we see Erie Lackawanna Alco RS3 No. 1022 passing AC Tower. The 1022 was built in April 1951 for the Erie Railroad. The unit would operate into the Conrail era where it had roster number 5242.
This image was made at Penn Central’s Collinwood diesel shop in Cleveland in 1968 or 1969. From right to left there is what looks to be the back of a Pennsylvania Railroad GE U25B, a New York Central Alco RS32, an NYC Alco RS1 and an NYC Alco FB.
We know many of you enjoy seeing Alco locomotives so here are two of them for Tuesday.
In the top image former Pennsylvania Railroad Alco RS11 No. 7621 has a Penn Central roster number as it sits mostly backlighted by the sun in the Conway Yard engine facility near Pittsburgh in September 1968.
In the bottom image, Alco RS3 No. 5550 is in Conway the same month. To the left are two Alcos and to the right are two Baldwins.
On Oct. 28, 2007, seven Akron Railroad Club members ventured to Jefferson, Ohio, to ride the weekend excursion train of the Ashtabula, Carson & Jefferson.
The AC&J used an Alco S1 that had been built in April 1941 for the U.S. Army. It would pull the excursion train for 5.4 miles to the Norfolk Southern yard at Carson along the Youngstown Line.
No. 7371 would then run around its train as shown above and pull it back to Jefferson. It was the final excursion of 2007 for the AC&J.
For three ARRC members, the day had started early with catching Amtrak’s eastbound Lake Shore Limited in Lake City, Pennsylvania. Alas, we got cloud skunked as No. 48 rushed past.
After having breakfast at the All Aboard Dinor in the former New York Central passenger station in Lake City, we spent the morning and early afternoon catching CSX, Norfolk Southern and Bessemer & Lake Erie action. We arrived in Jefferson to catch the 3 p.m. AC&J train. As you can see from these images it was one of those days of playing dodge ball with the clouds.
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