and they bought some Rio Grande F7’s and didn’t bother repainting them and slapped the PC emblem on them?
Athearn has gone done it…
For me the Penn Central was kinda sad, 2 great lines mukjered together and a lot of it became run down, I have film proof of that bad track swaying freight cars, all loco’s black from former great NYC black and grey and silver stripes and Pennsy, brown and black stripes with some green and the famous name trains, Penn Central…uhh duh…just wish there was a better name, it just doesn’t make sense.
And yet we have PC fans of this mainline gone backwoods lumber runs…hey why not…
That’s defintely something that should be reported as abuse. Desecrating those proud, well-maintained locos by throwing corporate graffiti on them like that.
In fact, the RIO GRANDE was blacked out as required by law, with the mating worm logo slapped on, I believe these units were traded in to EMD, found to be in fair condition and leased to the PC. True, what a travisity for these once pround units, but on a positive note, it kept them from the scrapper for a few more years. In retrospect, what goes around, comes around, the Grande (among several western roads) purchased GP40’s at bargin basement prices from Conrail that had been purchased by the NYC and other eastern roads and conveyed to PC upon merger!
Actually I believe PC bought them from Rio Grande to use them as trade-ins to EMD, after their mechanics inspected them PC found that the Rio Grande units were in better shape than many of the PC F-units so they slapped the worms in love on them and pressed on.
Ahem…'scuse me. THREE, 3 great lines. Not that it made the mess any better, but the great New Haven was forced into the mess…making PC three great lines.
the merger maybe was needed because the fiancial state of both railways, it could ahve worked out fine, but the money caused all the problems, poor trackwork, locomotive stortages, and other things caused the demise of the PC. Conrail started out rough but in time it became a profitable railroad. I think it is cool how athearn payed so much attention to the schemes of the f7’s from the ATSF to Rio Grande-PC scheme.
Except for a miserable eight hour train ride between Chicago and Cincinnati in 1959, I only had two encounters with PRR: in Oakland, Illinois in 1964 and 1965. Everything appeared to be simpatico at that time; I paced a freight over to Arcola and it moving along right smartly.My next encounter was in 1969 a year and a half into PC and that line was already beginning to show signs of deterioration.
. . . . . but that was nothing compared to what I experienced upon my rotation from Germany in 1973. So help me Hannah, it took a freight a full 40 minutes to go over to Hindsboro less than ten miles away and the train was rocking so badly that at several locations I set up my cameras in anticipation of catching some shots of a train literally laying over on its side.
If you really must know, read the book The Wreck of the Penn Central That pretty much covers they WHY - and it really isn;t all the rialroad - they got involved in EVERYTHING from airlines to amusement parks. Not ot mention any attempt at solidarity with the railroad side - that even carried over to Conrail with teh “red teams” and “green teams”
I remember about 15 years ago or so, going to Philadelphia to work for a client, when I got off the elevator on their floor, directly facing me was the door to another suite with - Penn Central on the door! I believe they still exist even today, but as a real estate holding company only.
quacky, the business existence of 3 huge former lines trumped to the size of a small business office.
just murder…
maybe if I walked into their office and asked for a job to be an engineer on the New York Central, they’de hand me a DCC throttle and run their in house layout… 8-D
Actually Rick, I believe you are correct, must be getting confused by old age. I wonder when the story of the “wreck of the Southern Pacific” will be told, it’s demise is all too similar to that of the PC.
At least some of the Espee spinoffs made sense - like Sprint. Hmm, we have this right of way connecting major cities…plenty of room for some fiber optic cables…
I have the book “Penn Central Power” by Yanosey, it covers all the engines the PC had. You could pretty much buy any model loco, paint it black and decal it and have about a 99% chance the the PC owned it! The exceptions were the ex DRGW units mentioned by the OP and some blue and yellow F units. Of course the NH units didn’t always see black right away either. PC was the first RR I modeled, tracks ran right by the apartment I lived in as a kid. Piggyback trains with a passenger car at the tail end instead of a caboose and transfer runs with the little transfer cabooses bring back good memories. I gave up PC for the CB&Q but I still have my first Athearn PC engine and it has a nice spot on the shelf. Since I didn’t really grow up with the NYC and Pennsy, I resented Conrail as I thought it took over my favorite RR! If nothing else, the Red and Green teams showed subsiquent mergers on how NOT to pull it off.
Yeh, Conrail pulled other failing lines in as well, its kinda a government bailout, improve the back line of the roads. Then they branched off the lines. The NYC that ran thru Mishawaka/South Bend is now owned by the Norfolk Southern, what a switcharound from former competing lines again like the NKP vs NYC, NKP merged to N&W, N&W merged with Southern, making Norfolk Southern, NS takes on former NYC lines after Conrail is split up.
I grew up along the same line, just a little east in Elkhart. My brother still lives in the general area so when I visit I get to see the black NS stuff running in the smae place the the black PC stuff ran.
My earliest railfanning was done in the Philadelphia area in the 1970’s.
Reading Company, Penn Central, B&O, and CNJ run throughs and elements of PRSL. The Reading and B&O were well managed companies.
The management of PC does leave a lot to be critical of. Having said this the railroading men and women, the locomotives, the frieght cars, it is all part of my early memories of first and second generation equipment. I have great photos of PC, RDG, B&O switchers and road units and I like them all. You are right the PC diesel paint scheme is fairly easy!!
