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  • Unusual Equipment Move - 1975

  • Discussion Related to the Reading Company 1833-1976 and it's predecessors Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road and then the Philadelphia and Reading Railway.
Discussion Related to the Reading Company 1833-1976 and it's predecessors Philadelphia and Reading Rail Road and then the Philadelphia and Reading Railway.

Moderator: Franklin Gowen

 #958062  by glennk419
 
Not sure how long this will stay available on eBay but I came across a slide of three Reading RDC's at Franklin Street station with a GE Silverliner IV tacked on to the rear of the train.
Here's the link to the auction which unfortunately I did not win: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT. If you look at the enlarged photo at the bottom of the page, the SL IV can clearly be identified.

Being that the Silverliner would only have been a year old at the time, does anyone know what the purpose would have been or recall similar moves? I know that Reading Shops performed heavy overhaul on some of the MU's but on a car this old (young) and one that did not belong to the railroad? It was also odd to see this attached to the rear of an obvious revenue run.

I guess if nothing else, this would be a great candidate for "It Ain't Prototypical".
Last edited by glennk419 on Thu Aug 04, 2011 5:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 #958125  by JimBoylan
 
One of the hard cover RDC books has a similar photo near Valley Forge, I think dated 3/76. It's not this train, because there's no Refreshment Car.
 #959364  by lvrr325
 
The Silverliner have ATS, cab signals, or some other equipment this train would need to complete it's run?
 #959405  by glennk419
 
lvrr325 wrote:The Silverliner have ATS, cab signals, or some other equipment this train would need to complete it's run?
I don't believe any of those systems were in use on the Reading in 1975. The RDC's did have cab signals but IIRC, that system was disabled by 1967 on most of the lines. The other issue is that the SL IV would have been attached to the train using a compromise coupler and would have no MU capability with the RDC's, and would essentiually be a dead car anyway.