Owego & Harford in SAYRE - Lehigh Railway

What will happen to the SW-1?

Charles

nydepot wrote:What will happen to the SW-1?

Charles

No one seems to know yet..
I havent seen anything specific on any of the forums..

I believe it now technically belongs to R&N though..

Scot

They may need 26 for awhile yet as I heard tonight that they didn't drain all the water out of 802 and lost two soft plugs etc.

More news of Lehigh Railway.

http://www.lrwy.net/index.php?option=co ... 5&Itemid=2

The Lehigh Railway, LLC (LRWY) is pleased to announce a new customer at Wyalusing, PA. TranZ, LLC, a bulk material handling company serving the needs of the energy industry, has signed a 5-year lease to operate a rail-truck transfer station at the former Wyalusing Station siding. "We are planning on hauling about 4,000 cars per year from our Sayre interchange with Norfolk Southern to the new site", said Mr. Jim Raffa, Vice President for Sales at the LRWY. Call (607) 687-6786 for more information.

Article in the Sayre Newspaper:

http://morning-times.com/articles/2010/ ... 055907.txt

Rebirth of the railroad
Natural gas is fueling a rejuvenation of the area’s railroad system
By Steve Reilly
Saturday, April 3, 2010 11:02 AM EDT
SAYRE — The Lehigh Valley Railway defined social and economic life in the Valley for the first half of the 20th century, employing thousands of residents and bringing in millions in revenue. “For a long, long time it was almost the lifeblood of a lot of towns — connecting people from town to town, providing goods and services and jobs,” Mike Frantz, a volunteer at the Sayre Historical Society, explained. Now, for the first time after decades of decline, activity on the Lehigh Railway is growing again. New locomotives are being purchased, and employees are being hired to keep up with new demand created by the natural gas industry.

(the reporter confused the historic Lehigh Valley Railroad with the new Lehigh Railway a few times..
which is an easy mistake to make if you arent a railfan..
I sent him an email offering a few friendly corrections..)

anyway, looks like LRWY is getting one, and possibly two, new locomotives soon!

(heads-up Tom!

Scot

I saw that Scotty, and I was in Towanda a week ago without much to show for it....

For all the talk of increased traffic, I've still only seen a couple trips a week with the usual boxcars and occasional tank cars.

Just my 2/100 of a dollar, but maybe the Lehigh Railway was purchasing back-up power. They sometimes operate with 2 locomotives, so I'm thinking they want to have a couple in reserve in case something happens.

I haven't seen for myself, but two friends have recently seen up to 19 covered hoppers on the new Wyalusing siding, unloading fracking sand to trucks. Also looks like the pipe storage/receiving place in Wysox is expanding. LRWY applied for a permit for a new siding there last winter.

This afternoon's train brought back four boxcars and about ten covered hoppers. They had an even more hopper-heavy train waiting pickup on the siding in Sayre.

Some open well cars were there on Monday that I couldn't get free to look at.

So yes, I guess that business is indeed picking up.

Just a quick update -

Past week or so has seen late afternoon and more frequent runs of the Lehigh Railway trains through Sayre.

Today's, for instance, came up to Sayre at 16:10 with one U23B hauling around 30-35 cars. (~25 covered hoppers a couple tanks and the rest boxcars) They left around 17:30-18:30, but I couldn't see them through the trees.

The hoppers were a mix of green (almost PC green) and Cargill aluminum (same used in salt service on the Ithaca Secondary). The lone U23 had the blurb blurb common to the GE's of yesteryear... I like it.

I caught 2302 & 2304 hauling 70 cars southbound just below Skinner's Eddy last Friday night (9/10/2010) just before dark. Probably at least fifty of them were empty frac sand covered hoppers by the looks of it.
Then passing through Wyalusing on Sunday (9/12/2010), I pulled over to get a picture of the frac sand transload facility. There were dozens of covered hoppers there, and 2 LRWY diesels. It wasn't until I looked at my pictures later that I realized one of them was numbered 2300! So the Lehigh Railway has gotten a third locomotive. However, I cannot find any information about where it came from. My guess is that it came from the NYS&W just like 2302 and 2304 did - NYS&W had a B23-7 numbered 2300 that was in storage, perhaps they sold it to the LRWY? Does anybody have any information about the new LRWY locomotive #2300?

I posted pictures of the Friday freight and the new #2300 here:

http://rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThu ... x?id=60374

wow, good catch!
nice to see a third unit on the Lehigh Railway!

It cant be NYSW 2300 however..
because NYSW 2300 is a B23-7..
and the new LRWY 2300 appears to be another U23B.

compare LRWY 2300:
http://rrpicturearchives.net/showPictur ... id=2230151

With NYSW 2300:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=597622

they clearly are not the same locomotive. main spotting differences are the rear air intakes, and some other minor details..
no long hood indent on the U-boat, different fuel fill locations, etc..

(Ted, did you give the LRWY 2300 the serial number 41736 in rrpicturearchives? or did someone else add that in?
probably not a good idea to add that in until you are 100% sure of the loco's heritage!

Scot

Probably the most logical place to start for the heritage of the new 2300 is sister P&W - Conrail U23B's..
Here is the known heritage of 2302 and 2304:

LRWY 2302 - (ex NYSW 2302) (BDLX 2208) (P&W 2208) (nee Conrail 2794) built 1977.

LRWY 2304 - (ex NYSW 2304) (P&W 2207) (nee Conrail 2796) built 1977.

(conrail numbers might be reversed..this is still unsolved)

http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychao ... -LRWY.html

There are/were Ten P&W U23B's..its possible the new 2300 is from this group:
http://www.pwrfc.net/roster.html

Scot

Thanks for pointing out the differences Scot, I missed those! I see now it clearly is a U23B. I changed the locomotive info on rrpicturearchives, and I agree I shouldn't have tagged it yet - my overzealousness got to me

Something else I just though of - Reading & Northern had at least six U23B's back in the 1990's, also all of Conrail decent. Some of them were stored in Coxton yard as of recently, which is obviously quite close to the Lehigh Railway. I'm not sure if any of them were still operable, but could one of those be a possibility for LRWY 2300?