Far From Boston or Maine

Boston & Maine GP9 No. 1746 sits in the Erie Lackawanna yard in Kent, Ohio yard in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s. B&M units sometimes came through in sets with no EL power. Perhaps there was a problem with 1746 and it had to be set aside.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Railroading as it Once Was: Another Form of Type of Blue Locomotive in the 1970s Northeast

You’re looking at an October 1978 view of the sanding facility at Mechanicville, New York. Boston & Maine No. 1734 rests under this wooden structure that had to make the workers nervous to climb on. This would be a great modelling project for someone into that aspect of the hobby. Details abound including that MU hose hung on the side of the building and the coating of sand dust on the perch above the unit.

Article and Photograph by Roger Durfee

The Quest for Fallen Flags

The popularity of the heritage locomotives of Norfolk Southern can be explained by a number of factors, but chief among them is that they represent something that can’t be seen anymore and, in some instances, has never been seen by some.

Railroads that no longer exist under their original corporate identity are known as fallen flags because their “flag” has been folded and relegated to history.

Typically, for a few years after a railroad is acquired or loses its identity in a merger, rolling stock bearing the fallen flag’s name, logo and markings can be seen out on the line.

Repainting locomotives and freight cars can get expensive so it’s more economical to let the old look linger a while longer until a car or locomotive is due to go into the shop or is retired from the roster.

In the past couple years, I’ve been on the lookout for freight cars still bearing the long-since vanished identity of a previous owner.

Finding fallen flag cars takes patience and vigilance. Many fans tend to stop watching a train closely once the motive power has passed.

But if you keep observing, you might be rewarded if you have your camera ready and spring into action at a second’s notice.  That is not as easy as it might seem.

I present here a gallery of fallen flags that I found within the past couple of years.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Just Being Nosey With My Camera

Erie Lackawanna No. 1245 sits at EL’s Kent Yard in the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Boston & Maine No. 1746 also sit at the EL yard in Kent. I saw several trains with B&M lashups in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The railfan on the right is Mike Ondecker.

SRS 138 sits in the EL’s Marion yard on Dec. 30, 1972.

No, it’s not Nickel Plate Rod No. 765 but NKP 759 in Conneaut on Sept. 8, 1968, where it would head its first excursion after being restored.

Not a perfect head-on shot, but Chicago, South Shore & South Bend No. 702 suns itself on a cold March 30, 1969, in Michigan City, Indiana.

It is back to Akron with Chessie Steam Special Chesapeake & Ohio No. 614 sitting at the Baltimore & Ohio engine facility on June 24,1981.

I left the United States to photograph VIA 146 in Toronto on July 4, 1981.

For safety’s sake, I rarely took nose shots, but sometimes a locomotive would be sitting still, or I would use a telephoto lens from a safe location.

Here are a few different 30-plus-year-old “noses” taken within a day’s drive radius of Akron.

Photographs by Robert Farkas