Conrail Lantern and #7690

[Engineer James]

Does anybody know how many Conrail RR lanterns were given or made for the railroad?? My late grandfather has one that has the slosan, "Let Conrail, be Conrail" and is in Conrail blue, and the herald is on the front.

Also, does anybody know what happened to GP38-2 #7690. It is shown inbehind my grand parents when my grandfather retired form Conrail. Is it a NS locomotive??

[charlie6017]

To help you with your locomotive question, the "Conrail Cyclopedia" says this unit was a GP38 and was originally Penn Central #7690, and many of these units were retired in June 1999.


Here's the link:
http://crcyc.railfan.net/locos/emd/gp38/gp38rost.html

[Roscoe P. Coaltrain]

CR 7690 became CSX 1958 on 10-4-99. In May of 2000, it was transferred to LLPX as part of the trade for the EMDX SD70Ms. To my knowledge, it still wears this number, but probably stored as rebuild fodder.

[M.R. Snell]

The lantern with the LCBC slogan was from a time when NS was trying to take over the railroad in the early 80's. The campaign redulted in the largest public stock offering (IPO) to date at that time & led Conrail to become independent of the govermnet bailout which created it & evolve into the class 1 carrier which was taken over in 1998/1999.

Conventional Conrail lanterns featured the CONRAIL & 'wheel on rail' symbol (also known as "the canopener".)

Hope that answered the question for you.

-M