NYSW's LIRR Cars

When did NYSW fisrt get their LIRR cars and when did they first paint and used them?

Well, I was the guy along with Rob Mangels and Mike Koehler who went to Morris Park to look over the cars. It was cold, rainy and chilly, but I can't right off find the date of the trip. However, pulling out my notes I see that I wrote the quote for the 530 (ex-2862) on May 14, 1991 and quoted the 531 (ex- 2868 on May 30, 1991.

Notes state that they both departed Rome Locomotive Worls at 4pm on Oct 3, 1991. There were several work orders and without alot of further digging cannot answer for the rest of them. I suspect it may have been late Fall 1990 when we went to Long Island to chose cars and NYSW made the purchase sometime later. I recall the cars were all at Rome when I did the final quotes

Doug Ellison
former Rome Locomotive Works

Would you happen to know the first exursion that the cars were on what the date was? Great information above!

That was a long time ago, but I suspect that they may have possibly been released for some sort of fall excursion somewhere, Utica, Syracuse, Binghamton, NJ ? I do know they must have been pretty successful as I never was called out to troubleshoot them. They also ran with some fanfare on the MapleFest Trains the next year and some of the cars may have debuted on that train as it seems we worked a couple possibly including the gift shop car over the winter. Also seems they did a Norwich-Earlville Santa Claus train in Nov / Dec 1991 that included a couple of LIRR's as I recall hopping a ride on it and I think that was the first time I rode the cars in service.

Sorry I don't remember more and have no idea where my photos are packed away of some of the rebuild work. Seems two cars were never done and left Rome returning to Utica CA May-June 1992.