A pair of Wheeling & Lake Erie GP35-3 locomotives, Nos.100 and 102 are at the east end of the yard in Brewster on Nov. 10, 2016. Both units were once owned by the Southern Railway with the 102 once having served the Central of Georgia. The Wheeling rebuilt the 100 in July 2000 while the 102 was rebuilt in December 2000. The 100 carries the name Lynn R. Shook under its cab.
hotograph by Robert Farkas
An eastbound Norfolk Southern train headed by former Southern Railway 3161 is west of Brewster in November 1985.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
The Southern Railway heritage unit of Norfolk Southern sustained damage on Sunday after hitting a rock slide and derailing near Pittsburgh.
ES44AC No. 8099 and another unit were pulling a 100-car intermodal train bound for Chicago when it struck the rock slide and derailed about 4 a.m. in the borough of Baldwin.
No injuries to the crew were reported and no hazardous materials involved, The 8099 was leading the train. Both locomotives derailed along with five cars.
Officials said the derailment occurred along the Monongahela River in an area that had experienced high winds and up to a half-inch of rain.
Trains magazine reported on its website that the status of No. 8099 has yet to be determined.
To see photographs of the damaged heritage locomotive visit https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/ns-derailment-damages-southern-railway-heritage-unit/
The wayback machine has landed us in Ludlow, Kentucky, where we admire Southern Railway switchers sitting at the engine facility on Dec. 28, 1972. Wouldn’t you like a Christmas present of time travel to go back and capture scenes such as this one? Of course you would.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
This may appear to be a Southern Railways locomotive, but take a closer look. Despite the Southern insignia and markings a Texas & Pacific logo above the headlight betrays its true origin.
The 2-10-4 Texas type was built in June 1927 by Lima Locomotive Works. It saw heavy duty on the T&P until the late 1950s when it was retired and donated to the city of Fort Worth and placed on static display.
In 1976 it pulled the American Freedom Train within the Lone Star State and a year later was leased by the Southern for its steam program.
The photographer caught up with the 610 on June 17, 1978, in Huntingburg, Indiana, where it was in charge of a roundtrip between Huntingburg and New Albany, Indiana.
That was one of four excursions the 610 pulled that weekend in which Huntingburg was either an origin or turning point on the Southern’s Louisville-St. Louis line.
The 610 would spend four years pulling Southern excursion trains before returning to Texas in 1981 where it is now on static display at the Texas State Railroad in Palestine.
Now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, No. 610 is the only surviving example of a T&P Texas-type locomotive and the only non-articulated locomotive built by Lima.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
Norfolk Southern said this week it would donate records of Southern Railway to the Atlanta History Center.
The archive includes hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and photographs.
The Class 1 railroad, which is headquartered in Atlanta, will give the center $500,000 to pay for digitizing the archive.
Southern merged with Norfolk & Western in 1982 to create NS.
NS CEO James Squires said in a statement that the archives belong to Atlanta because of the history they represent of that city.
“The history of Southern Railway is inseparable from the history of this region,” Squires said.
If this Southern Railway steam locomotive doesn’t look quite American, it is because it is not. No. 2839 was built in Montreal in 1937 and retired by Canadian Pacific in 1959.
Then it took on an American journey, being purchased by a group in Pennsylvania that restored it to operating condition with a CP identity.
The 4-6-4 was leased to the Southern in 1979 and 1980 for its steam program. There is was dubbed the “beer can” because of its cylindrical streamlined design.
It is shown above at St. Anthony, Indiana, on June 9, 1979, on the Louisville-St. Louis line.
This particular trip was operating as a roundtrip between Huntingburg and New Albany, Indiana.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
In late July 1987, I met up with the Surdyk family (William, Marty, Robert and John) in Parma Heights on the first step of a Rails to Roanoke trip for the 1987 National Railway Historical Society convention.
It would be a week long adventure. Our first stop was Cass, West Virginia, to ride and photograph the Cass Scenic Railroad.
We then spent the next two days photographing the Chesapeake & Ohio mainline in West Virginia and Virginia while working our way to the Shenandoah line to catch the inbound convention trip from Alexandria, Virginia, to Roanoke.
We met up with it at Delaplane, Virginia, and were able to photograph it at least 12 locations. We rode the Thursday July 30 trip behind Norfolk & Western Class A No. 1218 from Roanoke to Bluefield, West Virginia.
N&W Class J No. 611 would power our return to Roanoke. We did some photography east of Roanoke prior to the equipment display on July 31, which will start the second part of this series.
Amtrak’s Cardinal at Fort Spring, West Virginia, on July 26, 1987.
Big Bend Tunnel in West Virginia , on the C&O on July 27, 1987.
At Alleghany Tunnel in West Virginia on July 27, 1987. The locomotive engineer doing a roll by inspection is wearing a Chief Wahoo hat.
Southern FP7s on the Shenandoah line on July 29, 1987.
Southern FP7s at Buchanan, Virginia.
At Bedford, Virginia on July 31.
Two Kentucky youths are expected to be charged in connection with a fire that destroyed a former Southern Railway shop building in Ludlow, Kentucky.
The two are facing arson charges stemming from that fire and a fire that destroyed a vacation house in the city’s business district.
Ludlow Police Chief Scott Smith said the two youths have admitted to starting the fires.
The railroad shop building fire was reported about 6:30 p.m. on June 10. Firefighters from five departments were called to the scene.
The building is owned by Norfolk Southern but was not in use. It was constructed in 1949 and was one of the last Southern-built structures still standing in Ludlow.
It’s not a true heritage unit, but Wheeling & Lake Erie GP35 No. 107 pays tribute to the Akron, Canton & Youngstown by bearing an AC&Y herald.
It is shown crossing the Ohio and Erie Canal in downtown Akron on Oct. 8, 2014, on a bridge that the AC&Y built several decades ago.
This unit, which is still active on the W&LE, was acquired by the railroad in 1990 when it got started.
It was built in February 1965 for the Southern Railway.
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