What is the rarest locomotive that YOU have seen? Mine is an Ex SP GP40P-2, ex SP GP40X and a 4 GP60B’s (a BNSF GP60M A-B-B-B-B-A consist)
The rarest NJT locomotives I ever saw were two of those F40’s they bought from Amtrak and then NJT 500 which is a SW1500 (ex PLE 1570).
My rarest locomotive sighting is the F69PHAC - both of them, in fact.
My rarest was an early 1930’s Westinghouse Diesel switcher.Saw it on the Cadilac & Lake City back in 1974. Joe G.
My rarest locomotives would be ATSF H12-44TS (only 3 built) while they were still working Dearborn Station and C&IM’s RS1325’s (all 2 of them) in Springfield IL
Mine would have to be BNSF SD60M 9297. The one with two different paint schemes, one for each side of the loco. It was in the lead of a coal train through Wayzata, MN a couple years back
The rarest one I’ve seen operating was CSX B23-7R 3185 in Palmer, Mass. Only two left on the roster now.
ALCO RS1 , just passing through dead in consist, could’nt resist riding on it, at least I didn’t try buying it!!!
I’ve seen some CR and NS/CR patch C32-8’s, the rarest paint schemes I’ve seen are the NS Operation Lifesaver C40-9W’s.
I guess you could say the WSOR SD20’s as there aren’t a whole lot of SD20’s around, at least I don’t think, and also a former CNW operation lifesaver unit on a train last week in Wisconsin Dells.
Noah
the rarest loco I ever saw operating was a high hood ALCo switcher working an industry in Longview, Washington.This loco is now in a museum in Snoqualmie,WA. The rarest I ever saw,were two,of only three built,ALCo diesel hydraulics on the dead line in Roseville.
I once saw on the SP, An A-B-B-B-B-B-B-A set of F7s on a cab hop. That’s 8 units![:D]
Dear Sirs,
Altho’ an Abortion, one of those EMD Repowered NYC Lima Roadswitchers at Philadelphia in the Sixties. At THAT TIME there were more PAs, Ss, HHs, Sharks, F-Ms, Baldwins and Straight Limas Operating, so a Repowered One, and a Roadswitcher, was not common.
Saw a Centre Cab Baldwin from the Passenger Train to Chicago near Gary? Indiana a week before Amtrak. Also a Scarce thing. Repowered too??
I’ve seen those, but I think my rarest sighting was the BN NW5 in a Tacoma scrap line back in the 80s.
BNSF 9297.
back in 1995, i’ve caught an odd-looking locomotive it was a cross between a… a GP b-unit the cab instead of placeing the cab outside, it looked as if the body was recycled. it belonged to LORAM. note: the body of this unit looked like a GP20 with an flat nose, sounded like an GP9, no cab instead looked like the body was re-modeled er, kit bashed [%-)]. one day (as i normally wait at a crossing, a group of E8’s from Conrail speeds by. 4020,4021and 4022 with it OCS train. those first generation movers where SCREAMING that was the best part[^] sadly NS and CSX retired the E-units heard the news i was not too pleased [:(!][V][banghead]
I’ve seen afew,but the ones that stick in my mind,
are several L&N/Family Lines BQ’s,and around 1972 a couple of
Whitcomb diesels around Columbia,S.C.
The B&O’s 44 ton GE used on the job that switched up and down Pratt Street in Baltimore at night…quite a sight to be where the Harbor Place complex currently stands with a GE 44 Ton switching on the Pratt Steet job and on an adjacent track the Light Street job switching other industrys with an EMD SW-1…long gone days(nights).
when i was a kid, the emd experimental electric went through here on the conrail (ex-P&E) line to indianapolis. I can’t remember off-hand which one it was (according to the diesel spotters guide, there were two) , but it was the one with the custom underframe (emd 10 , i believe) - there were a lot of strange, rare sightings on that line (ex-EL units, Southern high-hood GP30), too bad I was too young to be good with a camera to capture a lot of them!!!
Cr C32-8 Ballast Express Grey
A pair of Reading F units At one of Conrails Railfest
The rarest locomotive i have ever seen is Kalamazoo, Lake Shore, and Chicago CF7 at Omnitrex shops at the old Chicago, West Pullman and Southen yard in southern Chicago. Not that it was a rare locomotive, just the fact it was there seeing as KLSC went belly up a quite a while before. And the line from Hartford, Michigan to Paw Paw was sold to Pioneer Rail Corp.