Happy Birthday to Conrail!!!!!

Best railroad ever!!!! (I'm kinda young) Happy 28th. I live near CP292 on the Chicago line in Toledo and was provided plenty of memorable summer afternoons from the Big Blue throughout the '90s.

Feel free to share your Conrail memories here.

Conrail was also the local railroad when I became interested in trains.
1983, Waverly NY, on the former Erie Southern Tier main, and the former LVRR in Sayre.
I was 14 when I snapped my first train photo, of a Conrail GP30 from the walkbridge in Sayre.
I was born in Sayre when the LV still existed, but I was only 7 years old in 1976, so I totally missed the EL and the LV running literally 1/4 mile from my house!
By the time I started photographing trains in the early 80's, there were only a few very rare PC black engines still around to indicate what came before..
To me, the all time "classic locomotive of my youth" is the Conrail SD40-2!

Scot

Yes, Conrail will always be a fond memory. I was born 5 years after the formation of Conrail, and being a fan of the color blue really helped. Is there any chance that a Conrail unit can be saved to preserve the paint scheme?

MR77100 wrote:Yes, Conrail will always be a fond memory. I was born 5 years after the formation of Conrail, and being a fan of the color blue really helped. Is there any chance that a Conrail unit can be saved to preserve the paint scheme?

one has already been saved and restored!
a GP30 at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum..
it says on their webpage:

"Conrail No. 2233
GM-EMD GP-30. 1963. PRR Class EF22 No. 2233. Gift 3/1998 of Julia Sanders. Serviceable. Restored 6/2002 by Norfolk Southern to 1976 Conrail appearance."

http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/whatsnew/newrsh.htm

The museum in Roanoke has a Conrail/EL SDP45-2,
still in rusty CR blue and unrestored and unrepainted.
I dont knwo what their plans for it are..


Scot

True Blue baby!!!!!
Blue was better!!!!

Long Live Big Blue, may it's memory never fad.

I was born five years prior to Conrail and I still remember seeing Penn Central black and early CR blue. I grew up in the small village of Albion NY, on the once-busy Falls Road Line. Conrail ran it's locals mostly with a single GP38-2, which is most of what I remember from the early days.

Seeing the 1900 class GE B23-7's work locals up West Albany Hill is what did it for me. Then I realized this was not even the main line.

Once I turned 16 in '87, I started driving west to see the real main line. Seeing big blue SD40-2's blasting down the Chicago Line was great, and I could'nt believe the number of trains.

Still, I'll miss the B23-7's the most. By the time of the split, they looked really beat up, but they were still pulling West Albany.

As I also commented in the "shared assets" forum, I'm the same age as Conrail is/was, which is why it is one of my favorite roads (hmm, maybe an ex-Conrail ALCo. unit will wind up on my layout sometime in the near future...). Still it pains me to be reminded that Conrail is celebrating the two-eight, two years off from the big three-oh.

I too, miss Conrail. Like ScottyChaos I was born and grew up in Sayre. Moved from there to Clarks Summit, PA (just north of Scranton on the EL) in 1966, when I was 2. Unfortunately I was just a little too young to know what being a railfan was, which was a shame considering the impact the railroads had on both of those towns. Growing up we would spend most summers back in Sayre, but my cousins were not anywhere as remotely interested in trains the way I was so I didn't spend as much time around Sayre Yard as I would've liked to.

In 1973 I moved to Wanaque in northern NJ which was the endpoint of the abandoned EL (correctly Erie) Greenwood Lake Branch and had a neighbor who had many pictures of the railroad while it still existed in Wanaque. Of course the EL mainline was just north of me in Sloatsburg, NY but it was hard to convince Mom and Dad to drive me up there to take pictures. It seems that I always just missed the heyday of railroading wherever I lived.

Conrail made up for that, though. Once I got my driver's license and got reacquainted with railfanning (I foolishly thought it wasn't cool to be into trains while in high school) I drove all over the east end of the Southern Tier between Suffern and Port Jervis chasing those big blue trains (and usually forgetting my camera!). OIBU/BUOI was usually the subject, along with NJT's commuters. Conrail may have had its downside but there were always a lot more trains running then than there are now.

It's kind of odd that we look back with fondness on a railroad that was originally perceived as a necessary evil. Let's hope that NS and CSX can keep the trains running!

Joe P :D
Long Live The EL
www.geocities.com/jmpwpd29

I see this is an older post but recently updated. Wanted to add my words as well.

I was born two months before Conrail. My earliest memories were watching (what I now know were) ex-PC paint outs switching Lockport yard, running down the Multifoods/Robin Hood flour lead, and crossing at Niagara St when switching.

As I got older I would ride my bike all over Lockport, usually around the west end, exploring and watching WANF-11, and occasionally WANF-12 down at Harrison Radiator or watch 12 bring in cars and pick up outbounds for 11 at the yard.

Great memories :o)

I was born three months before Conrail. My earliest memories are GP10s work the local drill on the Newark Branch. I thought I was the happiest man ever the day Conrail cesed to exist, but now 5 years after I'm beginning to think it wasn't so bad after all. I still live a block from the Newark Branch and I have to say NS is not Conrail. They don't maintain the ROW the way CR used to, when CR came in the night they just snuck right through without a peep, NSs crews will hold on to that horn for a half hour at a time at 3 AM. I used to think of how CR was the worst because of how they just destroyed the Erie Lackawanna, and the Central New Jersey. But after reading Erie Lackawanna Death of an American Railroad, I started to know a little more about railroading as a business. I still think Conrail was all for the Penn Central but hay that was the biggest railroad at the time. Today I belive NS is now runining what is left of local freight drilling, and there not even willing to part with a shortline, who will do a better job, and get more business. Thats my story.