It was stated in a Soo Line Historical Society article that the Soo Line ALCo RS27 Diesel-Electrics typically were limited in range for maintenance purposes. Rarely did the SOO RS27 pair stray too far from the Twin Cities.
Did the rest of 1960’s ALCos operated by other railroads such as the Penn Central have a limited operating territory for maintenance purposes?
Andrew Falconer
With regard to Penn Central, my phraseology wouldn’t be that the Alcos were “limited in range” for maintenance purposes. I’d say that, for maintenance purposes, they tended to be assigned to certain shops. In other words, it wasn’t as if Alcos couldn’t stray very far from a shop without having road failures. However since the Alcos were “minority” locomotives, it made sense for the company to maintain them, to the extent possible, at terminals where shop forces were experienced in working on them; and repair parts were readily available for them.
Jay Potter
Green Bay & Western used their Alco’s systemwide, but aside from a few Fairbanks-Morse switchers I believe their entire diesel fleet was Alco.
Thank you for the response about the Penn Central minority ALCos.
Did Chicago & North Western and Union Pacific have specific ranges for their 1960’s ALCo fleet?
Andrew
Penn Central started concentrating their Centuries in Mingo Jct, OH (between Pittsburgh and Columbus), during 1972, and more Alcos went to Conway (Pittsburgh). Conrail did this as well during 1976. There is a nice article called The Monsters of Mingo Jct. in the January 1977 issue of Trains, if you can get it.
The C&NW sent their Alcos to Huron, SD, and they ran on what is now the DME. These are covered in the August 1981 Trains.
30 C628 locomotives were acquired during 1973 from N&W. I don’t know if they went straight to the MI/WI ore lines, or were sent there later.
With regard to the Penn Central and Conrail Alcos that operated through Mingo Junction (between 1972 and 1979), running repairs were regularly performed at the diesel shop there; however almost all of the units were actually assigned, for maintenance purposes, to Conway.
And I certainly wouldn’t waste my time trying to get a copy of that 30-year-old TRAINS article about Mingo Junction. The text was boring – I learned absolutely nothing from it – and the photos were all black and white. It was a mediocre effort at best; and I’ve always wondered why TRAINS even bothered to publish it.
Jay Potter
I have seen photos of the C&NW ALCo Centuries in the Escanaba ore loading region in the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Those C&NW ALCo Centuries were most likely concentrated for ore service until they were retired.
Andrew
On the side topic of railroad magazine articles from the 1970’s. Some of the writing in small articles occasionally were tired sloppy or hyperactive confused. Perhaps it was just getting used to the constant change in electric typewriters and visual media in the 1970’s.
Andrew
Andrew, I have to admit that you made a good point. Maybe I was being overly critical of that Mingo Junction article. I guess that I really shouldn’t have applied today’s standards to some guy 30 years ago who wouldn’t have had a computer and was probably just trying to do the best that he could with a typewriter and white-out.
So if you’re inclined to overlook a lot of by-current-standards inadequacies and would like a copy of that article, go to Railpub.com. I believe that they still carry that issue of TRAINS.
Jay Potter
I don’t think GB&W ever owned a locomotive from FM. They were always 100% Alco. I know GB&W picked up four secondhand C424s at some point (1980s?) to add to their exsisting fleet of four C424s bought new in the 1960s. I think some of the used C424s, if not all of them were former Reading locomotives.
I think you are being a bit hard on the Trains article.
I certainly remember the article reasonably favourably. Most articles were black and white at that time, and I thought the images were reasonably good and representative of the place.
I visited Mingo Junction in September 1977 and of course took my own slides. Not surprisingly, the only colour in most of them was the sky and any grass around - most units were black with white CR lettering, except for a couple of blue units (one C430 and an F come to mind) and some leased CN units with red cabs.
M636C
This is interesting, you wrote that article, and took the pictures.
My standards have risen with the passage of time.
Jay Potter
I was pretty young in the 60’s, but I remember ALCO road switchers being used on the New Haven railroad for their way freights. They were based out of the Cedar Hill yard in New Haven, and didn’t seem to go any farther than Old Saybrook, about thirty miles further down the line, if memory serves me correctly.
The New Haven ran ALCO passenger locomotives pretty steadily along the Shoreline route between New Haven and Boston. By the time I really started watching the New Haven, their ALCO PA’s were pretty much gone. The New Haven used them by day to run passenger trains, and by night to run freight trains. I am not sure where they were based out of, probably Cedar Hill as well. But I do know that it was New Haven policy to run their engines hard and “put them away wet”. Maintenance was not always a high priority, and by the late 60’s, EMD ruled the rails= except for the local freight trains.
Erik
The high-nose C628’s on C&NW started out in Chicago-Twin Cities service but turned out to be too heavy with a full load of fuel for that run. They were later assigned to the lines north of Green Bay. By the 1980’s, most of C&NW’s Alcos were based out of Green Bay, this included the ex-PC RS32’s and the C425’s.
That was great info on the C&NW ALCo fleet.
If I see an O Scale 3-Rail model in a clearance sale, I might get it.
Andrew
I wonder if the PC RS32s were repainted immediately by CNW employees.
I will have to do a search, unless somebody knows right now.
Andrew
I visited Green Bay (among other places) in 1981 and the RS32’s were in green and yellow by that date.
In the Kalmbach book “Realistic Track Plans for O Gauge Layouts” there was a photo on the Chicago & NorthWestern pages showing a PC/CR GP30 on the CNW and it made me wonder if the RS32’s had that PC/CR scheme for long when they arrived sometime between 1976-1980. The paint crews might have decided to start immediately to make them their own.
All of those CNW ALCo Diesel-Electrics most likely became part of the Green Bay & Western fleet in Green Bay.
Andrew
No such luck. The only diesels on GB&W that had a C&NW heritage were RS27’s 316-318, they were originally C&NW 902, 903, 901 and came to GB&W after they were traded in to Alco for the C425’s.