by lvrr325
You could have had a way for the LV to exist, all it would have taken was a major player in the stocks in the late 50's/60's to buy the LV when the PRR was trying to hand it off in preparation for the PC merger.
My modern LV was purchased in 1962-3 by a holding company that would also purchase control of the Reading and CNJ. C&O had a 40% interest in the Reading they sold at a huge loss in the early 70's. To effectively compete with Conrail, a friendly southern connection is needed, and having the Reading gives you that - the company has the same connections as the expanded D&H did, although not in the same places.
I haven't gone in this direction, but you could make this LV be the road to take over the D&H in 1988. I have it as a middleman in the NYS&W container trains.
The problem is to continue past 1998 is tough if your timeline allows the Conrail breakup to occur pretty much as it did. You'd need to get some control of the NKP, Wabash, or both to have some leverage to maintain a friendly connection to the west. You lose all friendly connections to the south - some kind of agreements or conditions would have to be made to keep CSX/NS from routing it's NYC traffic onto it's own new system. But then again, this company existing would likely have a big effect on that merger/breakup. Maybe it wouldn't even happen at all.
As for power, I fudged a little and let the big Alcos stay as helpers in PA into the mid-90s, added SD40-2s, C32-8's and SD60Ms, plus a couple groups of rebuilds - either done in Sayre or done by Morrisen-Knudsen in Mountaintop - one set of SD40-2Ms (for fun, the cores include SD45s, one F45, and a couple of EL SDP45s), and a group of GP39-2Ms (from GP30, GP35, GP40). An SD45 looks pretty good in LV paint.
My modern LV was purchased in 1962-3 by a holding company that would also purchase control of the Reading and CNJ. C&O had a 40% interest in the Reading they sold at a huge loss in the early 70's. To effectively compete with Conrail, a friendly southern connection is needed, and having the Reading gives you that - the company has the same connections as the expanded D&H did, although not in the same places.
I haven't gone in this direction, but you could make this LV be the road to take over the D&H in 1988. I have it as a middleman in the NYS&W container trains.
The problem is to continue past 1998 is tough if your timeline allows the Conrail breakup to occur pretty much as it did. You'd need to get some control of the NKP, Wabash, or both to have some leverage to maintain a friendly connection to the west. You lose all friendly connections to the south - some kind of agreements or conditions would have to be made to keep CSX/NS from routing it's NYC traffic onto it's own new system. But then again, this company existing would likely have a big effect on that merger/breakup. Maybe it wouldn't even happen at all.
As for power, I fudged a little and let the big Alcos stay as helpers in PA into the mid-90s, added SD40-2s, C32-8's and SD60Ms, plus a couple groups of rebuilds - either done in Sayre or done by Morrisen-Knudsen in Mountaintop - one set of SD40-2Ms (for fun, the cores include SD45s, one F45, and a couple of EL SDP45s), and a group of GP39-2Ms (from GP30, GP35, GP40). An SD45 looks pretty good in LV paint.
I've always loved the red on the alco units, and these would have looked great! Sort of like an updated RSD-15 "alligator."