Hello Forum,
Can someone tell me the primary locomotives the NYC used on it’s coal trains? Would it have been prototypical to see GP9’s or Hudsons in this type of service?
Thanks,
Bernard
Bernard,
The answer will vary greatly with the local and year. It would be very unlikley to see a Hudson pulling a coal train. It would not be unusual to see GPs-RSs or U boats pulling coal trains. NYC only had four motored diesels, so no SDs etc. They also had a flock of F units, which were were used for freight of all manor, including coal trains. For steam , they did use a few articulated engines in the early 19XXs, and a various assortment of steam engines from 0-8-0 up to 2-8-4s and anything in between up to the 1950s, but Hudsons no. I woud guess that the majority of coal moved on the Toledo and Ohio Central and ended up in Ashtabula Ohio to be shipped out via the Great Lakes. The P.McK.&Y. (I am not going to try and spell that one!) which ended up in the steel mills around Pittsburg. The source was the coal fields in KY, W.V. etc. The T&OC and the MickeyP were both part of the New York Central System. Of course homes and businesses were heated with coal, with many larger cities having central steam plants downtown which also consumed coal, so they did move coal trains to places other than the midwest from the coal fields. DISCLAIMER: This is just a thumbnail scetch, so don’t anybody draw any conclusions, and this is not an absolute. I am sure that somewhere, sometime a Hudson was used to pull a coal train. If you want to be more correct we would need more information.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR
my experience on the Cairo division, which was about 99% coal traffic around 1968-1972, was almost exclusively EMD covered wagons.
on that part of the railroad, these engines were rarely used for anything else other than coal trains by then. i think the slow speeds account of bad track had a lot to do with this.
most of these engines were in such bad shape by then, we tried to hide them at the far end of the yard so the FRA inspectors wouldn’t tag them.
grizlump
Overall 2-8-2’s were the most common freight engine on the NYC I believe. I know in the coal mining areas they did own a few 2-6-6-2 engines. A Mohawk 4-8-2 should be able to haul a decent sized coal train. GP or RS diesels would be common in the transition era - remember on NYC both ran “long nose forward”.
As far as NYC diesels…
The Central was notorious for running wild unit consists such as all cab units,a mixed bag of GP7s,GP20s RS11s and maybe for fun a Alco FA locomotive with a F7B and it didn’t matter what type of train-even their “new” second generation GP35s ,GP30 U25Bs etc could be seen in a mixed consist.
I recall seeing a Central coal drag in Columbus(Oh) with a RS11,RS11,GP7 and a F7A.
The Hudson was use for high speed passenger trains.
The mixing of units would be what I call the “drag freight era” that started in ernst in the mid to late 50s. Before that, the newest covered wagons (EMD and Alco F units) would more likely be matched together as they were not delivered with MU cable connections in the nose. The NYC’s coal mining territories were mostly in Pennsylvaina, Ohio, West Virgnia, Indiana and Illinois. To the end, on coal trains in the coal mining areas, roadswitchers and EMD and Alco F units(the Alcos more common in PA) predominated. But yes, occasionaly newer B-B road units might be intermingled. Of course, a coal train on the mainline could have newer road power. The 2-8-2 steam locos like the H-5, H-6, H-7 and H-10 were common in the coal fields as were some 2-8-0s. Older 4-8-2 Mohawks could be used to haul coal to the Erie ports. Yes, they had some big Mallets that lasted into the the mid 50s in Ohio and WV IIRC.