Why has the East Penn RR leased the Venice Island branch?

Since the Venice Island branch in Philadelphia needs a SW1001 or similar size locomotive to work it, one of the reasons that NS would lease it to East Penn Railroad might be becuase they've gotten rid of all their SW1001's. Does anyone know why the ESPN has leased this branch, and the current state of NS's SW1001's?

I wonder when Mr Disney's people will realize what the East Penn's reporting marks are....???

I believe this was the last NS local switch in Philadelphia with the rest being CSAO. Maybe just a corporate decision to move on from this type of business?

Yeah, that was one of the other thing I thought it could be, but I didn't post it for some reason. I wonder if NS will sell off the engines, scrap them, or use them on CSAO. I think there's a decent market for newer switchers since no locomotive builders make them except for the rebuilding companies, and a rebuilt engine/genset might be too expensive for an industrial or a shortline.

CaptainHaddock wrote:Since the Venice Island branch in Philadelphia needs a SW1001 or similar size locomotive to work it, one of the reasons that NS would lease it to East Penn Railroad might be becuase they've gotten rid of all their SW1001's. Does anyone know why the ESPN has leased this branch, and the current state of NS's SW1001's?

NS still has a handful of ex-RDG SW1001's, mostly operating in/around Pavonia and Abrams. 2105 was in Pavonia within the last month as captured by Bob Vogel..

http://chuchubob.rrpicturearchives.net/ ... id=4463767