It is the fall of 1968 in Marion. As usual, I took a photo and then moved on. As I looked at this photo today, I noticed there is an engineer in Erie Lackawanna GP35 No. 2563 looking at me. At the same time, there is a crewman standing in the open door of EL Alco PA-1 No. 853.
Since the two locomotives are coupled, I can guess 2563 moved/will move 853 and perhaps the Alco switcher and any other locomotives behind it. Whatever happened, I just realized this is perhaps my last photo of an EL PA.
An Alco PA locomotive painted in Nickel. Plate Road “Blue Bird” colors is moving to Pennsylvania.
No. 190 is being moved from the Oregon Rail Heritage Center to short line holding company Genesee Valley Transportation in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
A report on the website of Railfan & Railroad said the PA-1 was expected to depart Oregon this week. The PA was acquired by GVT from preservationist and former Ohio resident Doyle McCormack.
No. 190 is not an original NKP locomotive, but rather a former Santa Fe/Delaware & Hudson locomotive repainted into NKP colors. It was built for the Santa Fe but sold in 1967 to the D&H.
GVT said it would restore the 190 at its shop on the Delaware-Lackawanna.
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.
Erie Lackawanna Alco C425 No. 2454256 leads a westbound in Akron in 1967 or 1968. Today virtually everything but the two ex-Baltimore & Ohio (now CSX) tracks and the small gray building on the right are gone or replaced. Shown in the full scene below is San Hygene furniture and Mattress company. Aside from Alco locomotives being gone from mainline Class 1 railroad operations, searchlight signals such as the one visible in this scene are largely a thing of the past. The 2456 was built in October 1964 and would go on to have a life with three other railroads after the EL was folded into Conrail in April 1976.
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.
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.
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