Another week goes by and no chance to get out or even poke through the archives. Sent from my moto g(6) using Tapatalk
Thanks for starting the tread YoHo! Hopefully things will settle down a bit for you. I'll start off with and electric photo
It's an SW1 sandwich! Watching the Milwaukee Road switching their yard at this site could be interesting. This is Snoqualmie Falls, Washington. The end of a much truncated branch line, where they served what was once Weyerhauser's largest mill complex. The Milwaukee's little four track yard was on an incline down into the mill. On long term lease to Weyerhauser was MILW #878, which would remain behind after the final embargo and cleanup. (She was returned, off lease after the end of 1981. Then sold to Pacific Transportation Services of Tacoma. Another story...) Today's maneuver was not unusual, 600hp straining to the max, pulling one cut of cars, while shoving another up grade to the branch line main track:
Got a couple of shots from the archives this week. In the first, PM 1225 has just arrived in Grayling, MI, backdropped by the old icehouse, which is now a craft brewery (I think it was a gift shop back then). At right, Lake State Railway 2052 and 1280 are tied up waiting to take the next southbound freight to Bay City. In the second shot, the fan trip has departed for Bay City and a sense of normalcy has returned to Grayling, leaving the Lake State engines at rest. 1280, a C425M, was one of the ALCOs inherited from predecessor Detroit and Mackinc. Today, they're all gone.
The "Blue Devil", I like it, especially when they fire it up and that old Alco black exhaust roars out of it!!
Warminster Station. I used to drive past there daily! I remember seeing one of those units on a lowboy truck arriving in Bridgeport Pa.
Here is an old mystery. Undated, unknown road, I assume a shop crew. My parents found this at a yard sale in Bucks County Pa in the 1990's, still in a period correct, faux grained frame. Close examination of the piece of rolling stock shows it to be an inspection locomotive. Note the wide highback leather seats. Between the 3rd and 4th man, middle row, driver spokes can be seen. At the far left a bell and what looks like the end of a smoke box can be seen. There is a handrail that looks to be the correct angle if leading down to a pilot. Top row from left behind 6th, 7th, and 8th man parts of numbers can be made out. Possibly 100. Years ago I tried to ID this locomotive but could not. If I remember correctly it was neither the Dorthy nor Star, of the Reading or LV or vice versa. I would love to know what RR this is.
That is the place sir. Was visiting my friend Bob R. that lives near there in Hatboro. Was the first AEM7 I ever saw in person.
I remember seeing one of D&M's RS2s coming through the woods. Before the engine hove into view, there was a plume of black smoke that would make anyone wonder if they were back in the steam era. Of course the accompanying sound (kind of like a barrel of bolts being emptied onto the track) would defininitely tell you otherwise. I do miss both the ALCOs and the D&M.
Back in September of 2015, the Exporail museum held a "diesel weekend", where they either ran or fired up and idled a lot of their collection of historic diesels. A few were run past the crowd in a parade. One was Roberval & Saguenay 22, an RS-2 built by MLW back in 1949, and the first Canadian-built road switcher. It had sat in the second building, never started, for about twenty years. The museum volunteers gave her a lot of TLC and managed to get her running for the parade. As far as I'm concerned, it was the star of the parade (maybe tied with the M630). And it was exactly like you described, from behind the trees, some dense smoke billowed up, accompanied by that distinctive "bucket-o-bolts bucket-o-bolts" sound. One attendee, a lady who brought her kids along, said that she thought that the RS-2 didn't sound healthy. Quite the contrary! That's what it's supposed to sound like!
A couple of "Pumpkins" to start October off with! An SD70M/SD75I combo sitting in North Auburn, Wa today.
