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.
Here is another one from a day of Erie Lackawanna railfanning with Mike Ondecker. EL Alco PA1 No. 856 is in Kent in 1967 or 1968. The PA was one of the two westbound-facing locomotives in the lash-up with the other one also being a PA.
I can’t remember which was in the lead, but one of the two had no heat in the cab while the other had a cab window that would not close.
The two engines swapped places, and the second was put in the lead. A very unhappy crew made its way west.
Erie Lackawanna Alco RS3 No. 1036 is in Akron on Jan. 14, 1973. The image was made near Voris Street and the unit might have been working in nearby McCoy Street Yard.
Pennsylvania Railroad No. 6808 has a Penn Central roster number and I caught it in the East Altoona, Pennsylvania, scrap line in 1969 or1970. This is a rare Alco RSD-7.
Erie Lackawanna 2456 is westbound in Akron sometime between 1967 and 1972. This is an Alco C425, EMD F7B, GE U25B lash-up that is putting a ton of smoke in the air as it accelerates out of McCoy Street Yard and passes beneath Thornton Street.
It is the late 1960s in Akron. After the arrival of Baltimore & Ohio’s Diplomat, B&O Alco S2 switcher No. 9074 is removing a mail car taken from it. The train has stopped east out of sight beyond the bridge, and the E units have cut off and pulled west of the train.
The 9074 has coupled onto the mail car and getting in the clear. Then the B&O E-units will back up, recouple, and the train will head west to Chicago.
B&O 9074 will cross a couple of tracks and put the mail car on a siding next to Akron Union Depot where the mail car will be unloaded.
Under the East Exchange Street bridge on the left is Erie Lackawanna No. 501, another Alco S2 switcher.
My good friend Mike Ondecker took very few railroad photos, and most of these were with an Instamatic camera. Here is a redo of one of his Instamatic photos. Erie Lackawanna Alco PA-1 No. 859 is in Marion in 1967 or 1968.
Article by Robert Farkas, Photograph by Mike Ondecker
Not only did the Ann Arbor in the early 1980s still have a few Alco locomotives, I found the railroad to be railfan friendly. It’s May 25, 1980, in Toledo where Ann Arbor Alco S3 No. 10 and Alco RS1 No. 21 are sitting for a while in between doing work in the yard.