NS Executive Train Two for Tuesday

When Norfolk Southern acquired an A-B-B-A set of F units in 2006 to pull its executive train, it created a ripple of excitement among railfans. Painted in a striking black and white “tuxedo” scheme with gold trim and lettering that mimicked a former Southern Railway livery, the F units and their train were coveted catches among railfan photographers.

They didn’t come around all that often and many times when they did I was unable to get track side due to work or other obligations. So when I could get out to see and photograph them it was a treat.

My first sighting of the NS F units came on June 16, 2008, on the Cleveland Line at Brady Lake.

Shown above is the NS executive train heading westbound through Olmsted Falls on the Chicago Line on Oct. 16, 2010. It was a glorious sun-splashed day with some fall foliage starting to show its colors.

I don’t recall where the executive train was headed. It might have been Chicago.

Today the NS F units are gone. They were sold in late 2019 with one A-B set going to the Reading & Northern and another to the Aberdeen Carolina & Western.

NS still runs its executive train but it’s pulled by standard freight locomotives.

Like anythings else on the railroad I don’t have as many photographs of NS F units as I might like to have, but, overall, I’m satisfied with what I was able to get. That includes the images above, which are scanned from slides.

Article and Photographs by Craig Sanders

Trestle Tales: Finding the Out of the Ordinary

Rivers are not static. They shift course and their levels rise and fall. These developments can damage bridge abutments as happened in spring 1985 when NS had to reroute some trains and issue slow orders for others until the Painesville trestle over the Grand River could be repaired (top photo).

Over time, some bridge abutments have been replaced, the results of which can be seen in the images of the Triple Crown RoadRailer trains crossing the trestle in April 1989.

The former Nickel Plate Road route between Cleveland and Buffalo never had the high level of traffic as the parallel CSX and former New York Central route, but it had its share of out-of-the ordinary sightings.

On Oct. 27, 2004, Norfolk Southern sent an Operation Lifesaver train from Rockport Yard in Cleveland to Ashtabula and back.

The encroaching vegetation is evident on the east end of the bridge as compared to what it was in the views recorded 15 years earlier.

Another unique movements that crossed the trestle was the eastbound Lake Shore Limited using the NS route due to a CSX derailment in Painesville. Amtrak Train 48 was photographed on Oct. 13, 2007.

On July 23, 2015, a large crowd of railfan photographs turned out to photograph Nickel Plate Road 2-8-2 no. 765 cross another NKP institution on a ferry move from Cleveland (Rockport Yard) to Ashtabula to be in position to pull public excursions between Ashtabula and Youngstown.

Finally, on Aug. 3, 2016, the NS business train led by F units passed through Painesville.

Photographs by Edward Ribinskas

First Look at the NS F Units

I don’t recall when I first became aware of the plans of Norfolk Southern to buy a fleet of F units and rebuild them for use with its executive train.

However, I do recall reading about the locomotives as I sat in my car at Cassandra, Pennsylvania, on an October morning in 2007.

It was my first visit to Cassandra and at that moment traffic was in a lull.

Although I knew it was highly unlikely, I thought maybe NS will send those fancy looking F units out on a test run and I’ll get to photograph them.

Cassandra is not that far from Altoona, where the F units were based. Such are the trackside fantasies of railfans.

In reality, I didn’t get to see the NS executive units for eight more months.

My opportunity finally came in June 2008 at Brady Lake when the executive train came up the Cleveland Line en route to Bellevue.

It was being sent there to help celebrate the retirement of an NS executive who had begun his career in Bellvue.

The F units and its train would park by the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum and I would be among the hundreds — maybe it was thousands — who turned out to see and photograph them.

But that was a few days away as I stood next to the old Erie Railroad bridge spanning the former Pennsylvania Railroad mainline at Brady Lake.

A headlight to the east was my clue to get my camera ready.

The F units were well received by railfans in part because they were different.

In a sea of wide cab locomotives that all looked the same the NS F units provided a welcome contrast.

It also helped that the units wore a classic looking livery that hearkened back to the “tuxedo” look that once adorned the Southern Railway F units.

As the executive train came into my viewfinder I was impressed with what I saw.

You can’t really appreciate what you’re seeing as you’re photographing it. If stop to admire a moving train you’ll miss getting the photographs you want.

My recollection is that the day I got my first in-person look at the F units was a cloudy one. I was using slide film and worried that there wasn’t enough light for a good exposure of a train doing track speed.

The conditions may not have been ideal, yet there was just enough light and with some Photoshop work on the scanned images they don’t look too bad.

As I wrote in a post last November I only was able to photograph the F units 12 times before NS sold them.

It would have been nice to have captured them a few more times, but life has a way of intervening and limiting your opportunities.

My first photographs of the NS F units were not my best images of them but I find these images to be satisfactory. There is something about a first that makes it special.

R&N Shows Off F Units in New Livery

Reading & Northern has released a photograph of one of its recently repainted F unit that it acquired from Norfolk Southern.

R&N bought two of the ex-NS F units and plans to use them to pull passengers excursions, including a trip on April 18.

Although no date has been announced, the R&N said the demand for tickets for the April trip has prompted it to begin planning additional excursions this year behind the F units.

In a news release, R&N said the F units were built in the early 1950s, but rebuilt by NS 15 years ago in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

R&N received the locomotives in late December and plans to have them on public display on occasion at its Reading Outer Station.

The April excursion will depart from the Outer Station on Pennsylvania Route 61 and Bellevue Avenue and travel to Pittston, Pennsylvania.

Highlights of that trip will include the Hometown High Bridge and the newly constructed bridge adjacent to Lehigh Gorge State Park over the Lehigh River.

Some seating options for the April 18 trip quickly sold out after ticket sales began on Jan. 6.

Tickets and further information about the excursion is available at http://www.rbmnrr-passenger.comor or by calling the passenger office at 610-562-2102.

R&N Plans Excursion With Ex-NS F Units on April 18

The former Norfolk Southern F units that Reading & Northern acquired will pull their first public excursion on April 18.

The railfan-oriented trip will operate 230 miles on a roundtrip between Reading Outer Station in Muhlenberg Township and Pittston.

R&N said the locomotives, former NS F9 No. 270 and F7B No. 275, will be adorned in their new livery for the excursion.

The excursion will be the first public trip to cross the railroad’s new bridge at Jim Thorpe Junction.

Tickets for excursion are on sale and cost $99 for coach with premium seating priced at $110. Open-air car seating costs $125, and “observation dome car seating” aboard R&N’s former Milwaukee Road full-length dome costs $150.

Two café cars in the consist will offer snacks and a light lunch. The excursion will take 12 hours and two photo runbys are planned.

For more information and reservations, go to http://www.RMBNRR.com or call 610-562-2102.

N.C. Short Line Bought Other 2 NS F Units

A North Carolina short line railroad has purchased two of the four former Norfolk Southern F units that were recently offered for sale.

The Aberdeen Carolina & Western acquired F9A No. 271 and F7B No. 276.

Earlier the Reading & Northern had announced that it bought F9A No. 270 and F7B No. 275.

NS once used the F units to pull its executive trains.

The AB&W is a 150-mile short line that runs on original Norfolk Southern Railway trackage between Charlotte and Aberdeen, North Carolina.

The short line said it plans to use the F units to pull its economic development/corporate train and is likely to repaint them in its colors of magenta and gold.

NS had acquired the F units in 2006 and rebuilt them to GP38-2 at its Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Reading & Northern Buys 2 NS F Units

Reading & Northern has purchased two of the four Norfolk Southern F units that were put up for auction last week.

The Pennsylvania regional railroad and tourist line operator bought F9A No. 270 and F7B No. 275 and plans to use them in special passenger service.

The fate of the other two NS F units has not yet been revealed. Bids on the locomotives were due on Nov. 20.

NS acquired the F units in 2006 to pull is executive fleet of passengers cars. The Class 1 carrier has rebuilt them to GP38-2 standards.

They have been based at the Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

R&N owner and chairman Andrew M. Mueller Jr. told Trains magazine that he was surprised to win the bidding on two of the NS F units because he expected a larger railroad to buy all four of them.

Mueller said tentative plans are to the replace the NS light gray paint with R&N Tuscan red on the streamlined units and keep the NS roster numbers.

R&N already owns two former Bessemer & Lake Erie F7s that are in the process of being restored to operating condition.

The NS A-B set will be combined with one of the former B&LE units to form a matched A-B-A consist, Muller said.

He said the NS F units will be moved from Altoona to the R&N’s interchange with NS at Reading, Pennsylvania, soon.

R&N plans to display the NS F units at its Outer Station Christmas-light display.

Muller said the NS units will be used to lead the first train over a new bridge connecting the railroad’s Lehigh and Reading divisions that is being constructed at Nesquehoning Junction and expected to open shortly before Christmas.

Remembering the NS F Units

Norfolk Southern decided sometime earlier this year to sell its distinctive F units and bids were due this past Wednesday.

At this writing the winning bidder has not been identified but that information is likely to be revealed at some point.

As it turned out, I photographed the F units of Norfolk Southern 12 times.

They didn’t operate that often and when they did make it through Northeast Ohio I often was busy with other activities and couldn’t make it out to photograph them.

All 12 times that I caught the F units were at locations within Ohio with nine  of those being in Northeast Ohio. Five times I bagged the F units in Olmsted Falls.

The last time I photographed the F units was in June 2018 in Oak Harbor on the day of the Akron Railroad Club’s longest day outing to Fostoria.

I also photographed the F units in Amherst during the picnic of the Forest City Division of the Railroad Enthusiasts.

My first photograph of the F units was made in June 2008 at Brady Lake when the executive train was en route to Bellevue.

A few days later I was in Bellevue to watch that train arrive at the Mad River & NKP Railroad Museum as part of a retirement party for a high-ranking NS executive who had begun his career in Bellevue.

It would be the only time that I made static photographs of the NS F units.

NS is not selling its executive fleet. Presumably it will continue to operate with a power car and freight locomotives.

Perhaps the executive train will some day operate with one of more of the NS heritage or tribute locomotives on the point.

It won’t be the same as it was with the F units, but it will still be worth capturing.

Some railfans have lamented on social media that they didn’t photograph the F units more often.

That is a commonly heard refrain when something of value is about to vanish or is already gone.

Do I wish I had gotten out to photograph the NS F units more often? My answer is “yes, but.”

In the abstract there are numerous trains I wish I had photographed or photographed more often, but I understand why that didn’t happen.

I’m satisfied with the opportunities I did have to photograph the F units and the images I was able to make.

That includes the photograph above, which one of my favorites.

It is mid October 2013 in Olmsted Falls and the executive train is headed westbound on Track 1 of the Chicago Line. The trees are about to reach their peak fall colors.

It is a reminder of how good we had it and how nothing lasts forever.

NS Selling Its F Units

Norfolk Southern is selling the distinctive and iconic F units that have pulled its executive train for the past several years.

Word of the sale has been circulating around Facebook for a couple of weeks and Trains magazine reported on Tuesday having obtained a copy of the assets-disposition bidding sheets that NS distributed on Nov. 6 in advance of an auction of the F units and other oddball equipment on its roster.

The F units were acquired in 2006 by former NS CEO Charles “Wick” Moorman and had been a favorite of many railfans due to their Southern Railway-inspired “tuxedo” livery.

The A-B-B-A locomotives were rebuilt to GP38-2 standards by the Juniata Locomotive shop in Altoona, Pennsylvania, where the units and the 20 car executive train fleet is based.

Two of the NS A units (Nos. 270 and 271) were built as F7s by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors in 1952 for the Baltimore & Ohio.

The NS B units, Nos. 275 and 276, were built by EMD in 1950 for the Chicago Great Western.

NS also acquired three other F units of Chicago & North Western, Canadian National, and Canadian Pacific linage to use as parts sources.

The NS A units initially were given roster numbers 4270-4271 while the B units were numbered 4275-4276.

Earlier this year the digit “4” was dropped in order to free roster numbers for rebuilt standard-cab General Electric C40-9 DC-powered units into wide-nose AC44C6M AC-powered units.

The NS F units were regulars at such high-profile events as the Masters Tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia in April, and the Kentucky Derby in May.

At both events, the executive train served as a hospitality suite.

The units also pulled the executive train for other purposes both business and public relations related, including employee appreciation specials and appearing at special celebrations at railroad museums.

The Trains report described the pending sale of the F units as not necessarily a surprise, saying that this past September the NS executive train operated without the F units for the first time since they took to the rails on NS’s behalf in 2007.

NS owns a power car to provide head-end power to the executive fleet passenger cars so they can be pulled by any type of locomotive.

Other units that NS has put up for sale include former Reading Company EMD SW1001s Nos. 2104-2105; six former-Southern Railway EMD MP15s Nos. 2362, 2386, 2393, 2398, and 2403; modified EMD MP15E No. 2423; RailPower RP20BD gensets Nos. 100-101; RP20CD genset No. 3830; NS BP4 No. 999, a battery-powered experimental unit built by Juniata in 2014; and partially disassembled SD40-2 No. 3463 (former BN/CEFX No. 7083).

Bidding in the motive power auction will end on Nov. 20.

Chasing Down the NS OCS Train

Back in May Norfolk Southern ran its executive train on the Fort Wayne Line through Northeast Ohio.

I chased it to get some new views and as many old Pennsylvania Railroad position light signals as I could.

I also went out because NS has repainted and renumbered the engines so they wouldn’t conflict with new diesels they had bought.

My first photo location was the curved bridge in Massillon.  It’s probably the most famous spot on the line and a must have photo.

Next was Wooster but the train was going through just as I pulled up.  I then went to Lucas, which is just east of Mansfield.

After a crew change I got it passing under a signal bridge in town.

My final stop was North Robinson passing an intermediate signal.  This ended the chase as it was getting dark then.

Photographs by Todd Dillon