On this date in Rochester rail history...

January 11 1977,

Rochester NY, this is the B&O local sitting at Ridge Rd. waiting to get into Eastman Kodak. I cant be positive but I think this may have been the first time a Western Maryland F unit made an appearance on the B&O belt line.

January 13, 1978

Goodman Street Yard could fill up fast. During the 2:30PM - 10:30PM shift, the 8th train to drop off cars was the first one to take any cars out. Among those dropping cars was the First Belt with 38 from Charlotte, GP-1 with 29 cars from the west side of the city, FD-2, 48 cars from Buffalo, and the Fairport Traveling Switcher with 16 cars.

The Conrail salt train which operated over the B&O to P&L Jct had been plagued with poor power. Four units arrived lite for that assignment: 3140, 2678, 3655 and 2931.

January 16, 1978

At about 1PM the CR salt train power derailed on the B&O at Lincoln Park. Turns out the B&O had derailed one of their engines, rerailed it, but did not fix the track nor take it out of service.

Things went from bad to worse. A crane from Lapp Rigging was brought in to help in the rerailing - but when it went to lift, the crane collapsed!

BR&P and others - I certainly enjoy your posts in this thread - many thanks for sharing your knowledge and memories of Rochester railroading!

judgesmails wrote:BR&P and others - I certainly enjoy your posts in this thread - many thanks for sharing your knowledge and memories of Rochester railroading!

Sad to say, in most respects there was just so much more going on back then. Rochester had 5 railroads in the mid 1960's, as opposed to 2 today. A few unit coal trains and some van trains were the only "solid" consists, everything else was from "loose car" railroading with a variety of car types and road names (and no graffiti, BTW). There were SO many more local customers and more branches to outlying towns. And since there was less automation and computerization, the human element came into play more often, with all the possibilities that involved.

Two ways today's railfans have it better is the communication which gives you advance notice of what is coming, rather than having to sit aimlessly for an hour or two, and then see a train in your rearview as you are driving away. And back then, foreign and run-through power was virtually unknown, with only a few instances. And I'll add a third way things are "better" for you today - ALL photography is color (unless you deliberately want to be artistic and use B&W) and it's instant. No running out of film just as a train approaches, no sending off the film for processing ($$$) and waiting a few days before you can see the results of what you shot.

Glad you enjoy the thread. So much of the little stuff is interesting, but not really "book-worthy". This seems like a good place to pass it on.

Well, January 18, 1978 was an interesting day! The area was digging out from a 12" snowfall.

The salt train was delayed departing the yard. The union and management had been feuding about cabooses not being fit and properly serviced, and there was a problem with the one assigned to that job. Before that was resolved, who should show up but the Federal Railroad Administration inspector in the Motive Power and Equipment discipline. Now one of those guys looking over a freight car is sort of like a State Trooper looking over your car - if they look hard enough they can find SOME defect on almost anything. So the inspector crippled about 40 cars, most of them empty salt cars in the train about to leave. So instead of that train being gone, leaving room in the yard for the yard crew to switch into, instead those cripples had to be switched out, the remaining cars re-assembled, a new air brake test performed.....

They had been running a set of snowplows on the main line - usual procedure was a double-track plow facing in each direction, with 2 locomotives in between. The plows stopped at the yard a while while the crews went to eat. A single-track plow which had been used to plow the former LV Lima Branch the previous day was tied up at Exchange Street, where it stayed a couple more days account ice on the tracks and unable to get it to Scottsville Road.

An eastbound picked up 55 cars for Dewitt, leaving a little more room in Rochester Yard. And in Buffalo, there was a main line derailment at CP49A, which obviously created headaches for them and ultimately impacted Rochester to a lesser degree.

And while I did not make a post about it, on the previous day, the CTA job on the west Hojack had run out of fuel at Manitou Road.

What was the power for the CTA job on the West Hojack? I am not picky about engine #s- I'm just curious about types used (RS11, RS3m, SW1500, etc).

Quite often in the final year or two, the CTA power was a 9900 series EMD-reengined Alco - the so-called "Dewitt Geeps". The very last train on the west end had an RS32. The line also saw an F7-GP35 combo on the snow plow on one occasion.

January 24, 1978

Motive power problems were the order of the day.
2nd trick yard job EB-2 had problems with the sanders on 9579, 2 hour delay while the mechanics fixed that.
Car Shop job, CS-2, had air leak problems on 9953, eventually switched to 5935, former EL Geep.
CRC-2 died at Murray Street with electrical problems on 8924

January 24, 1979

B&O engine 5619 ran away east from P&L Jct on the former LV main, off the end of track into the mud.

WM F units were in Rochester in 1976. Here's WM 66 at Lincoln Park in March of that year:

... and WM 7150 in May of 1976, again in Lincoln Park:

Here's the Salt Train headed over West Ave. with an RS-32 on the point, trailed by a GP9B and two more Alcos. Lincoln Park, May 1976. In the background, you can make out a couple of B&O geeps with their capital dome logos, a plow, and that green thing on the right is a Chessie safety car.

.. and once they've crossed West Ave., the engineer gets to notch it out a little.

F units of any stripe were getting a little rare on the B&O fourth sub in 1976 and 1977. If they showed up at all they were usually tucked in singly behind better power. Eventually they disappeared altogether, as shown in this March 1976 view at DL&W Junction just south of Leroy. Nasty winter day, as you can see. The tracks to the left are what remains of the connection to the DL&W. The train is northbound and the tracks are in the southeast quadrant.

Nice pics! Probably would have made a nice thread unto themselves, as this thread is "On this date". Maybe Otto can spin those off somehow.