| Posted by on November 30, 2016 | |
I don't know why Conrail bothered to repaint old Alco's like RS3's... how long after it was painted was it even on the roster... another case of, "well, it's not our money, let's spend it anyway"
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| Posted by xBNSFer on November 30, 2016 | |
Dig the oil impregnated mud that passed for "ballast."
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Troy, as I said in the caption, that's not a straight RS3. To the best of my knowledge, no RS3's ever received Conrail blue. That unit is a part of the "DeWitt Geep" program, which took 567 engines from retired E8's and put them in RS3 carbodies. The program, which began under Penn Central and continued into Conrail, did some major surgery to the hood, and a new paint job was required.
One L&HR C420, CR 2072 received a crude repaint in Bethlehem, and the employee that undertook the endeavor was reportedly called on the carpet for that transgression. I don't think that your perception of spending other people' money really applies here. Initially money went into keeping the trains running and not derailing, but eventually Conrail grew into an efficient, well-run railroad that far eclipsed the state of any of its predecessors.
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Wow, that 5967 couldn't look like a bigger piece of junk! As for the ground, a future Super Fund clean-up site:}
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Totally agree with Doug. Conrail was, more or less, what Penn Central should have been. Still can't understand why regulatory agencies allowed it to be hacked up between CSX and NS. Nevertheless, great photos like this one will remind us all of what it once was.
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I Spy, I spy a Dewitt Geep which some would call a RS3M.. Thanks for posting Doug.
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| Posted by on December 1, 2016 | |
What I was getting at when I said "other people's money" was, they had the unlimited spending power of the US Government to basically rebuild 6 railroads, buy all new rolling stock and locomotives. Something private industry could not do. After all was said and done and Conrail turned over to investors, i'm not sure the government even broke even in the deal, let alone MADE money. So yeah, they were spending other people's money. I doubt Joe Redneck in Waco, TX wanted his tax dollars paying for a new covered hopper for conrail in New Jersey.
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I can't help but chime in here. The "Dewitt Geep" program was an efficient use of resources PC and later Conrail had already on hand. They no longer needed the excess quantity of E-units that were sitting idle, most with rapidly deteriorating car bodies, while the all-steel Alco RSs prime diesels were both nearing the ends of their useful lives and required the stocking of a great number of additional repair parts. It was a "natural" - put the good diesels into the good carbodies. They were decent locomotives for branchline services, despite being just a tad low on power.
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| Posted by xBNSFer on January 4, 2017 | |
"Conrail was, more or less, what Penn Central should have been." - Only Penn Central should never have "been" in the first place. It was an anti-competitive merger and didn't solve any of the underlying problems. Conrail didn't solve those underlying problems by investing in track, locomotives and rolling stock, either. The underlying problems were only addressed when Conrail was (finally, after being little more than a "blue Penn Central" for the better part of a decade) allowed to unload commuter trains, and after Staggers gave them the pricing and business flexibility that should have been given to the railroads decades earlier, actions that might have kept the whole thing from going bust to begin with. The government created the mess by subsidizing every competing mode of transport while continuing to treat and regulate railroads as if they were a transportation monopoly. As for "why regulatory agencies allowed (Conrail) to be hacked up between CSX and NS," they really had no choice. There's no way northeastern railroading should have been under for all intents and purposes the control of a single railroad to begin with. There should have been two systems, one built on the NYC side and the other on the PRR side, from the start. If that was done, we would have lost less northeast rail infrastructure and would have less "capacity constraint" issues today.
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