Alco Road Switchers - RS1, RS2, RS3, RSD4, RSD5, RS11, RS32, RS3
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One more for this run at the Erie Lackawanna. An RS3 has local in tow by the yard in Akron in June 1973. The 1036 was built for the Erie. We were fortunate that the EL stationed RS3's in Ohio for local duty during the last years. I hardly never saw a GP7 or GP9. I forget the story but it was unusual to see road power over by the engine house. I think there was an unplanned repair.
Returned to Chessie by the Gettysburg railway after GETY acquired its own power, Western Maryland RS3’s 189, 186, and 198 have been set aside at the B&O shops in Cumberland, Maryland.
Winchester & Western RS-3 No. 527 and S-6 No. 80 bring a cut of loaded covered hoppers of sand downgrade from the Unimin mine to the yard at Gore, VA on April 21, 1987.
A rainy April day finds a Jersey Central RS3 visiting one of its old haunts, pausing at the west end of Allentown Yard.
Batten Kill's 4116, dressed up in Greenwich and Johnsonville colors, rocks back and forth through the woods outside Shushan, after briefly stopping to clear a fallen tree on the tracks. The bridge in the distance is one of several locations where the Batten Kill crosses their namesake river; it'll cross one more time on the other side of Shushan before splitting away. The vintage RS-3, a former Delaware & Hudson unit still running on home rails sixty-six years after being built, had no difficulties hauling the eleven car train to Eagle Bridge.
Other than continuing to operate subsidiary Lehigh & New England Railway, the Jersey Central ceased operations in Pennsylvania on 1972, and competitor Lehigh Valley took over operations of all remaining CNJ assets in the Keystone State. This was before I started railroad photography, and I have very few CNJ images. During Conrail’s first year of operation, a very unexpected surprise was a train headed by four first generation CNJ units returning to the light side receiving tracks in Allentown.
Nevada Northern RS3 109 passes one of the many original Nevada Northern buildings in Ely, NV back in 2008. A trip to this museum is like a trip back in time, as almost all the equipment is original to this operation.
NYS&W RS3 No. 104, an ex-D&H unit still wearing the verdant colors from its previous stint as Adirondack No. 29, waits in Binghamton Yard on the morning of 19 August 1982 (36 years ago today) to go north on the Utica branch with a modest three car train.
In the fall of 1981, friends Tom Seiler, Denny Nehrenz, and I took a week long trip to New England and did some neat stuff in Maine on the MEC. But on the way home we spent a day on the Lamoille Valley. Denny and I had tried to do them on a spring trip but had pretty lousy weather. We were mostly having the same in the fall except for this one spot at Sheldon Jct on the way back from St Albans. I was so excited that the sun came out for the farther across-the-field coming shot (www.flickr.com/photos/crr200/8584847034/in/photolist-e5Bz...) that when it stayed out for the broadside, the motor drive had left only one shot in the camera. And it wasn't even a whole frame of film. But a little digital cropping salvaged it. And now you know the rest of the story. Glad I don't have to think about that anymore.
A set of Washboard MUs pass a work train led by PC 5525. Look for the worker up in the catenary tower. November 1972. Otto Vondrak collection.
After serving the Black River & Western for a decade, former Jersey Central RS3 1554 was acquired by the Hawk Mountain Chapter, NRHS and restored to its original appearance. The RS3 spent some time on the Blue Mountains & Reading, as seen here at Temple, Pennsylvania.
Western Maryland RS3 189 looks swell leading an F7A, GP7 and GP9 at the WM Bayard, West Virginia engine terminal as it shuffles power before returning back to Elkins on May 22, 1976.
The Adirondack railway operated passenger service from Utica to Lake Placid, New York between 1979 and 1981. The Adirondack served the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games (remember the Miracle on Ice?) and was the biggest alternative to automobile/bus transportation to the games. After the Susquehanna acquired what became its Northern Division, it purchased former Adirondack RS-3 29. Here it is, with NYS&W lettering on the cab, but still displaying its Adirondack roots through a weak patch job on the long hood
Most of Western Maryland’s RS3’s were retired by 1976, but four were leased by the Gettysburg Railroad when it was formed to operate the line from Gettysburg to Mount Holly Springs, Pennsylvania. After the new short line acquired its own power, the four Alcos were returned, and placed in storage at the B&O shops in Cumberland, Maryland, as seen here. This particular unit escaped the torch when it was donated to the B&O Museum in 1979.
After shooting the San Manuel Arizona road train with the RS3 near Hayden, I gave chase and was able to bag this shot of the train on the trestle at Mammoth. I thought I was hot stuff with this until I saw JJL's Flicker shot taken three years earlier with two RS3s on this bridge!
News came this week that Magma Copper/San Manuel Arizona RS3 No. 3 is being preserved at the Arizona Railway Museum in Williams. RS3s were primarily used on mine runs in SMA service, and occasionally on the road train up to the connection with SP/Copper Basin in Hayden to San Manuel.
I was lucky on May 10, 1989 when RS3 No. 13 lead the road train south, seen here leaving Hayden. Interestingly this RS3 is still around too, stored at the Nevada Northern Railway Museum in Ely.
Olgebay-Norton Alco’s stand in the rain at the company’s Ashland, Kentucky yard. RS3 512 began life as Reading 495, and is now part of the Vintage Locomotives, Inc. collection in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. I haven’t found the origin or disposition of S2 511.
During the first season of operations after its move from Vermont to Pennsylvania, Steamtown’s trains travelled between Scranton and Elmhurst, which was the location of the first available siding. It was a facing point siting with no runaround, so two locomotives were needed to facilitate the train’s reversal. CP 4-6-2 2317 led the train up the grade out of Scranton, with a diesel helper, usually ex-D&H RS3 4075. Upon arrival at Elmhurst, the Pacific would uncouple and then pull forward into the siding. The diesel would pull the train past the 4-6-2, and the 2317 would then back through the switch, and couple to the train to lead it back to Scranton. Here the Pacific waits as the ex-D&H, nee B&M RS3 pulls the train past, three weeks and a day after the first excursion in Pennsylvania.
Seen high above the Little Schuylkill River valley, CNJ RS3 1554 pulls an excursion train over the high bridge at Hometown, Pennsylvania.
VLIX RS3 512 is in the dead line at Oak Ridge, Tennessee on April 2, 2020. The unit was built for the Reading Railroad July 1952.
We'll go from orange leader on the 'sabber to orange leader at a more populated location, the beautiful hamlet of Cambridge, NY.
Last fall Mr. Twombly and I made out like bandits following a full round trip on the Battenkill. The southbound spent time playing with clouds but as usual with a ten mph train it was possible to find gaps. I think the next day was 2102 in the rain at Tamaqua Tunnel. In fact this was part of the epic 46 hour run I've brought up a couple times.
Also, this was the time they took a while to leave the banana and the six axle flat behind in the woods so I strolled up the street to an antique shop looking for lanterns. I walked out and the gates were already going down so I had to make an ass outta myself to get back in position for this shot. Worth it.