Nice collection of ALCO's at Danbury Railroad Museum

[Jeff Smith]

Nice blurb from Trains: http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20New ... ineup.aspx

■An RS1 built in 1948 as Illinois Terminal Railroad No. 753. It then served Gulf, Mobile & Ohio and Illinois Central. The museum purchased it in 1995 from the Green Mountain Railroad, where it was in service as recently as December 1995. It currently wears New Haven Railroad colors and is numbered New Haven 0673. Railroads purchased 417 examples of the RS1 model between 1941 and 1960. This 19-year production run is the longest for any diesel locomotive produced in the United States.
■An RSC2 built in 1949 as Seaboard Air Line No. 1513. It then went to Florida Power & Light, the New Hope & Ivyland, and Northern Central Railroad. It is privately owned and on long-term lease to the museum. Between October 1946 and April 1950, Alco produced seventy RSC2s. It employs a 12-cylinder, 1,500 hp engine. The A-1-A + A-1-A wheel arrangement lowered the axle load for operation on branch lines or routes with lighter rails.
■An RS-3m (m for modified prime mover) built in 1952 as Delaware, Lackawanna & Western RS3 No. 912, one of 1,418 RS3s produced. It went to Conrail in 1976, and was repowered with a 1,200 hp EMD engine in 1979. Originally the locomotive had a 1,600 hp Alco engine. It served Conrail and then Metro North Railroad. It is currently numbered Connecticut Department of Transportation No. 605, and was used as the switcher at Metro North’s Harmon, N.Y. shop.

Also in the museum’s collection but currently undergoing restoration is former New Haven RS11 No. 1402. New Haven owned 15 1,800 hp RS11s built in 1956, and originally equipped with steam generators for passenger service. The locomotives were later reassigned to freight duty.

There's a dedicated thread for DRM here: http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 1#p1043831

[Allen Hazen]

How strict are your authenticity standards? When I visited the Danbury Museum (in the summer of 2008) they had what looked like a very nice pair of New York Central FA2/FB2. Of course, the Central's fleet of freight cabs (the largest such fleet) was, as far as I know, all scrapped: the units are actually ex-CN FPA4/FPB4. Appearance VERY similar to FA2/FB2 (main spotting difference: an aftercooler mounted below the radiator inlet on the side of the unit), and a railroad museum in the northeastern U.S. has a legitimate reason to memorialize the New York Central and its large fleet of Alco diesels.

The RS3m presents another history and authenticity conundrum. The particular unit at Danbury is ex-EL, modified by Conrail. But if painted black it would represent a piece of Connecticut railroad history: Penn Central used RS3m on local freights in Connecticut. (I watched one on the Canal Lineseveral times in the 1970s.)

[DutchRailnut]

The RS3m should be properly painted in its as build Conrail color, as such they did work in Danbury.

[Allen Hazen]

Dutch--
Works for me (though Conrail's robin's-egg blue doesn't have quite the gritty, steam-era, appeal of Penn Central's colour scheme (grin!)). The PC/CR era is an important one in railroad history (I don't remember if Danbury Railroad Museum has a bookshop: if it does, they ought to carry "The men Who Loved Trains" for people who, after visiting and seeing some historic rolling stock, want to know more about why the railroad industry went through and then came out of its "black night of the soul"), and Connecticut, even though its rail freight service is mainly terminal in nature-- there's nothing like Horse Shoe Curve in the Litchfield hills! --saw both PC and Conrail.
---
RS3m (a.k.a. Dewitt Geeps) varied in body style. The new EMD prime mover has different access requirements for maintenance from the original, so the long hood over the engine had to be modified. I think that Conrail tended to do neater jobs, PC more the low-budgetbox approach. Somewhere I hope one of the PC rebuilds is being saved: ugly, but representative of an ugly period in the history of America's railroads. But if Danbury's unit is in the later style, no question: CR paint!
---
Amtrak was mentioned in the article. I think the only Amtrak RS3m I ever saw was in PC black: did Amtrak "brighten up" any of their RS3m,either in "Platinum Mist" or in the orange of their maintenance of way Geeps?

[The Man]

Two Amtrak RS-3m's that I know of got the silver added, 104 and 106 and I belive the 104 still has the paint on it in Ohio.

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=847077

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2075475

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1976179

They looked good clean. I saw the 106 switching DC in the 90's.

JJ-

[The Man]

And the 107 got a funky but cool silver and black job. I belive this was a regular at Auto train until it was retired.

http://www.hebners.net/amtrak/amtRS3/amt107bL.jpg

JJ-

[DutchRailnut]

The topic is Danbury Railway museum Alco's not Amtrak's dewitt verion with hump.
A RS3m has very little Alco or Penn central left in it, with a 12 cylinder EMD, a twin stack and EMD radiator fans. the cab windows plated over etc etc etc.
only in Conrail livery would such a beast be in its right element.

[Allen Hazen]

The Danbury Railroad Museum has a roster page,
http://www.danbury.org/drm/roster.htm
with linked photos. Their RS3m has (as Dutch mentioned) cab windows plated over. Two stacks for the EMD 12-567 engine and EMD cooling fans were standard on all (I think all but there were enough variations that there may have been an odd one!) PC and CR RS3m.
Danbury's does have one of the "neat" long hood treatments, keeping the original profile. (I think these units had new hinges installed, to allow the curved part where the side meets the roof to be opened for engine access, but from a distance the hoods look Alco.) So not one of the PC conversions with "box" roof over the engine. So, as I said: CR paint the most appropriate.

[Desertdweller]

The Danbury Museum does have a nice bookstore.

Les