It is June 14, 1978, in Cadillac, Michigan. As I recall, the owner of the Castolite company had purchased the ex-Delaware & Hudson Sharks and had leased both 1205 and 1216 to the Michigan Northern Railroad. My good friend Charlie Wilson (John Woodworth’s cousin) and I found 1216 still wearing a D&H warbonnet paint scheme. The 1216 spent a few minutes moving cars around that morning which made our short time on the Michigan Northern even better.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
The original slide of this image has a greenish-orange cast to it. This is the first time I have been able to get that cast mostly out of the image. Maybe the off-color look was due to a processing problem. Nonetheless what we have are a pair of “sharks,” Monongahela 1216 and Monongahela 1205 in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, in May 1974.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
We’re in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, on the Monnogahela and taking a tour of the engine facility.
This may not look like a Monongahela locomotive because it has New York Central markings.
The former NYC unit, a Baldwin RF16A, is part of an A-B-A sharknose motive power set waiting in Brownsville on Sept. 21, 1968, to get back out on the road.
We’re at the engine facility at the Michigan Northern in Cadillac, Michigan, on June 14, 1978.
Unit 2037 is an ex-Southern Alco RS-3. Former Delaware & Hudson 1216 is a Baldwin RF16A sharknose locomotive.
The smoke billowing over No. 1216 is coming from from 2037. Ex-D&H 1205 is also a Baldwin RF 16A shark.
The owner of a Michigan short line railroad plans to donate the only two surviving Baldwin RF-16 Sharknose diesel locomotives to a railroad museum.
John Larkin, owner of the Escanaba & Lake Superior Railroad, told Trains magazine he would donate the vintage locomotives to an unspecified museum after his death.
Larkin, 73, said during the interview he has not decided which museum would get the units, but he serves on the board of directors of the Lake Superior Railroad Museum and has assisted it with several restoration projects.
The two Sharknose locomotives are A units, Nos. Nos. 1205 and 1216, and have not operated in several years.
Both were bought in 1974 by the Delaware & Hudson and used in freight and passenger excursion service until late 1978.
The locomotives were later purchased by Illinois-based Castolite Corporation, which leased them to the Michigan Northern.
After the latter railroad ended operations Nos. 1205 and 1216 were moved to E&LS.
EL&S used No. 1216 for a short time in summer 1979.
It pulled a few trips in fall 1982 in Michigan between Wells and Channing but was sidelined when its crankshaft broke.
No. 1205 never operated on the EL&S due to mechanical issues.
Both sharknoses have been stored indoors and away from view of railfans.
Larkin told Trains that he also acquired Baldwin prime movers and other parts in the event the locomotives were ever restored.
But that never happened because it would cost too much. “But they are protected and out of the weather. They are inside so they are not further deteriorating,” he said.
Baldwin built 109 A units and 51 B-units between 1950 and 1953 for Baltimore & Ohio, New York Central, and the Pennsylvania Railroad. In 1967 the Monongahela Railway purchased seven As and two Bs from NYC, and operated them into the 1970s.
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