I was thinking about the fact that conrail sure inherited alot of different power from all the different companies that made up conrail. Got me wondering... If conrail inherited any steam engines? I recall steam power ending for most railroads by the early 50's? However, I was thinking perhaps 1 or 2 steam engines were still left rusting away in a yard somewhere still on a company's roster and when conrail was formed they came along with everything else. And if they did acquire any steam power did any get a conrail number?
Short answer - NO.
Lets look: Penn Central I believe it was donated the Pennsylvania collection to the RR Museum of Pennsylvania at Strasburg although at least one ended up elsewhere. The New York Central had none left, the last one went to the Museum of Transport in Missouri, Reading sold their last T-1's before the Conrail takeover, Erie and Lackawanna had none left, no Erie locomotives were preserved to my knowledge and one or two Lackawanna engines somewhere. Central New Jersey made the unfortunate move in 1956 to sell the last 4-6-0 Camalback no. 774 for scrap after saving it for a period for trips, they were absolutely broke at the time and made little effort to save this historic locomotive when the decision to sell it came, it went to the scrap yard as clean as a whistle and nicely painted too. Pennsylvania Reading Seashore Lines was using steam from both the PRR and the Reading until 1957 but the engines were actually owned by the Pennsylvania or the Reading as the case may be, all are history today. Lehigh and Hudson River was long dieselized and nothing was preserved.
To further this one even more, the last of the above railroads that made up Conrail to own active steam power was the Reading which kept 4 T-1's around for the Iron Horse Rambles which operated until about the mid 60's but after that they disposed of them. I think at least three of them have survived but none are operating.
Noel Weaver
