MEC SW-1 007

[atholrail]

Due to the Railroads continued power issues, they have purchased 2 SW-1's. Alittle unsure of where they came from (SLR?), but I believe they will be based out of Waterville. There's a pic of them on NERAIL, http://photos.nerail.org/s/?p=182138.

[riffian]

As stated on another site, one is to be the Waterville shop switcher, the other for parts. The SD-40's are too long for a Geep on the turntable and transfer table, hence an SW-1 to hostle dead power around the shop.

[MEC407]

Before being acquired by the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad, these little SW-1s were owned by the Berlin Mills Railway and were numbered 731 and 741. SLR renumbered them by removing the "7" from each number.


Looks like they were owned by Amtrak before being acquired by BMS:

http://www.mgdecals.com/bms741a.htm

http://www.mgdecals.com/bms731a.htm


According to this site, 731 was originally built as New York Central 601 in 1949, and 741 was originally built as Pennsylvania Railroad 9150 in 1948.


Unfortunate that PAR got rid of their own SW-1s and SW-9s several years ago. I bet they wish they had kept one of 'em.

[newpylong]

I wonder why they canned the 1400 and the 1424 then... that what they used to use for shop power at Deerfield and Waterville.

[MEC407]

My guess is that they were still in the mindset of wanting to get rid of anything that wasn't a GP. That was also during the time period when they were trying to keep the airline going, and were selling off pretty much everything that was deemed non-essential.

[emdpower75]

They could have gone with a smaller, heavy duty trackmobile for this I would think.

[MEC407]

They did have a trackmobile at Waterville at one time. Last time I saw it was maybe four or five years ago. I don't know if it's still there or not. I've seen trackmobiles (or other similar railcar movers) move several loaded cars at a time; I would think that moving an SD40-2 wouldn't be out of the question.

This old thing looks kind of pitiful, but the description says it can move five to seven loaded cars:

http://railswap.org/cb/cl/classifieds.c ... =retrieval

[KSmitty]

The SW-1's going to be more compatible with the parts stockpile they already have. A trackmobile, especially with something as different as a Detroit diesel, is not going to have the same EMD parts requirement. So thats my guess as to why they chose the SW-1.

I wonder if they will get PAR paint?

[MEC407]

Anyone seen the SW-1s lately? Are they in Waterville?

[dnelson]

Anyone seen the SW-1s lately? Are they in Waterville?

Still in Danville as of Wednesday.

[MEC407]

Any news on the SW-1s?

[diburning]

They're somewhere inside Waterville Shops, but I highly doubt that they are "in service"

[MEC407]

A photo posted to the GuilfordRailSightings Yahoo Group yesterday confirms that one of the SW-1s has been painted. It hadn't received any lettering, numbering, or logos as of the day the photo was taken.

[KSmitty]

I saw that picture,
certainly an unexpected development. If they are really going to use them solely for moving locomotives on the transfer table/shop area, you wouldn't think they would paint them.

[MEC407]

You never know. The company has a history of (re)painting things that don't necessarily need to be (re)painted... and not (re)painting things that do need to be (re)painted. You just never know!