Wrecked NJT comet 1's in Susquehanna

Anyone know what the story is about these?

Wow they are still up there? Nice

Story I heard was that the Comets were put on the head end of a freight train.......35 year old pax cars can't handle slack action quite as good as a freight cars and locos can and they were basically crushed by the train behind it.

I BELIEVE they were part of the group that was sent out to Utah to the UTA. They obviously didn't accept those cars and I believe there is still some bickering about those cars and what to do with them.

Of course, the story I heard was from the railroad, and anyone who works on the railroad can tell you you just can't trust anything you hear and half of what you see...........

HAHA I know exactly what you mean. If you'd like I could send you photos of them.

Why not post a few Pic's here for all to enjoy?

I thought I had read that they were in binghamton when this occured? That they ended up rolling away and striking other parked cars. Cause isn't the damage mostly to the corner parts of the vestibules?

NYS&W142Fan wrote:Why not post a few Pic's here for all to enjoy?

I suppose I could do that...

...If I can figure out how to do it here. Stand by! I'll work at this.

I would imagine if you waved enough money at them, they could be yours. Maybe for so little you could part out and scrap the worst couple and cone out ahead enough to repair the others enough to lend to someone for excursion service. (that entirely depends on what damage was done to the frames, couplers, and running gear). Even if not, the best of them might make nice cabins or something.

Wow they really did a good job on those cars.........

great pics! I forgot how bad the damage was on those cars.

I thought there were more out there that were damaged, how many total are there? I count three.

Maybe the others were scrapped? Looks like these don't have much of a choice but to be scrapped.

There could be more to the right of the one in the shot with the water tower in the background.

The problem is not that that they aren't repairable, but some are beyond economic viability - you would spend more to repair than to simply buy another used passenger car elsewhere.

Being aluminum, I would think if you took the trucks and underbody stuff off they woudn't be too bad to transport.


Didn't some more of these cars sit elsewhere, on a siding, to the point that the NYS&W pulled the siding out and left the cars sitting on the ballast? Near Starucca?

Jtgshu,

There are 4 cars all together. The center pins have been swiped or cut, and the cars rest ontop of old ties that sit on the trucks to hold them up.

RN-16 wrote:Jtgshu,

There are 4 cars all together. The center pins have been swiped or cut, and the cars rest ontop of old ties that sit on the trucks to hold them up.

I had a feeling thats what they did, just by looking at the cars sitting there, and with the suspension parts sitting in the vestibule of the one car, shown in that one pic.

You would think instead of going thorugh that work to cut the pins and put ties under the cars, that they would just tip them over and scrap them right there. Its not like they could be moved again, easily at least.

Is that a Stillwell in the first picture? Not too many of those left around; it was a real innovative car in it's day.

Jtgshu wrote:Of course, the story I heard was from the railroad, and anyone who works on the railroad can tell you you just can't trust anything you hear and half of what you see...........

Hey, but it's on the Internet. And if it's on the Internet you know it's true!

BTW, when I was up there more than a year ago, one of them parked right in front of the windows of the Starrucca House restaurant in the station. Very attractive. Is that car still there or has it been moved with the others?

I wonder if by chance any of those bashed cars sitting in Susquehanna were used on the Tri-State RHS excursion up there in 1983? I know I've seen a list of the cars from that trip somewhere.