Your last Conrail blue sighting in Class-1 service.

I have probably already seen my last one..it happened a few months ago.
I actually saw two on the same day! a GP38-2 in Sayre, PA and a SD40-2 in nearby Waverly, NY.
both were NS locomotives..
I just posted the following on facebook, for a group about "The Valley"...my hometown.
but the sentiments will apply to anyone anywhere who railfans on NS or CSX and is a Conrail fan..
I grew up with Conrail! it was my hometown railroad when I was a teenage railfan in Waverly & Sayre in the 80's.
It will always remain one of my favorite railroads..
There is already a thread here listing surviving locos in CR blue:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 52&t=53800

please continue to use that thread for sightings and CSX and NS roster repaint data,
that is the analytical "raw data" thread! the cold hard facts..
but if you have a more personal photo or story of your "last Conrail sighting" I thought a seperate
thread for that might be nice..for the more personal and nostalgic side of Conrail fandom..
History is happening right now! get out there and look for them! they are almost gone..
here is what will most likely end up being my last up-close and personal encounter with a Conrail blue locomotive
in regular Class-1 service..I first posted this on a facebook group, "The Valley" refers to Waverly, NY, Sayre PA and Athens PA..one community
that happens to have a state border running through it..my hometowns:

Norfolk Southern GP38-2 locomotive number 5338, built as Conrail number 8171 in 1977..whats so special about this locomotive? and this photo? most likely, a lot!

To anyone in the Valley interested in railroads or railroad history, heads-up! history is happening *right now*! a major era in Valley railroad history is quietly passing away right at this moment, and if you dont pay attention, you could miss it..

If you currently live in the Valley, or once did, there are probably about 50% odds, or higher, that you are related to, or descended from, someone who worked for the Lehigh Valley Railroad in Sayre..Sayre *exists* because of the LV! Railroads made us what we are today..The Valley once had three seperate major East-coast railroads running through it, the LV through Sayre, the Erie through Waverly, and the DL&W (the Lackawanna) through South Waverly..today two of those three routes remain..(the DL&W is today buried under route 17.) Those railroads ceased to exist in 1976, when many North East Railroads went bankrupt and were "consolidated" into Conrail.

When did the last locomotive still wearing Lehigh Valley Red paint pass through Sayre? no one knows for sure..but many LV locomotives operated with Conrail for several years before they were repainted..technically the LV ceased to exist on April 1, 1976..but LV red locomotives, operating for new owner Conrail, could still be seen in Sayre in 1977, 1978, 1979..and possibly as late as 1980 or 1981..One day in the early 80's, the last LV locomtive in LV red quietly passed through Sayre, probably unnoticed, and would never be seen in red again..the same locomotive probably came back all through the 80's and into the 90's, but wearing Conrail blue paint..(today its possible a LV locomotive can *still* pass through Sayre! but now wearing Norfolk southern black paint! but there are only four of them, so odds are slim..but it can still happen!)

Conrail ruled the rails of the Valley, both the former LV in Sayre and the former Erie Lackawanna mainline through Waverly, for 23 years, from 1976 until 1999. Conrail blue locomotives were the norm, seen every day for those last decades of the 20th century..Then in 1999 Conrail ceased to exist, and was sold and split up between two railroads, Norfolk Southern and CSX..Since 1999 the two rail routes through Sayre and Waverly have both been part of the huge Norfolk Southern railroad system..Conrail was much larger than the LV, and in turn Norfolk Southern is much larger than Conrail...NS has been operating former Conrail locomotives in Conrail blue paint for the past 12 years..just giving them a new number, but not repainting them, simply because there were so many locomotives, that it has taken this long to get to them all! they just toil away in their old paint scheme until they get shopped and their time finally comes for new paint...but now time is finally running out..the last Norfolk Southern locomotives still in Conrail blue are fading fast! lists exist on-line tracking them.

In 1999 over one thousand Conrail locomotives became NS locomotives, in 1999 they were all still in Conrail blue, and NS began slowly repainting them.. a few years ago all but a few hundred had been repainted into NS black..as of right now, only 33 remain in Conrail blue! thats about 1% of the total NS fleet of locomotives..(NS has over 2,500 locomotives!) So someday in the next year or two, perhaps sooner, the last ever Conrail blue locomotive will quietly pass through Waverly or Sayre, like the LV red locomotive 30 years earlier, probably unnoticed and unremarked...at this point, anytime you see one, it could well be the last time you ever see a Conrail locomotive in regular Class-1 service..My photo above, could very well be the last time I ever see one personally! and in fact, that particular locomotive has now been repainted! She is now wearing a fresh new Norfolk Southern black paintscheme..Conrail locos in blue will still exist in museums and on shortlines, but not in regular service with Norfolk Southern..and soon we probably wont see one in the Valley ever again...So heads up! history is happening right now! get out there and look for Conrail blue before its too late!

Scot

Neat thread!

For me, my last sighting would be NS 5277 (since repainted) on August 16. I was in Bound Brook, NJ with railroad.net user nick11a, and it was the first catch of the night, returning to the yard on a Manville Local. Unfortunately, it wasn't leading, but at least it was there.
http://ns3010.rrpicturearchives.net/sho ... id=2690885

Hopefully, this won't be my last Blue sighting, but I fear that it will be...

While the end is coming for us east-coasters, there's still some Conrail Blue out of BNSF (photo not mine):
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=1935484

There's still a couple of them wandering around South Jersey as witnessed here just last week: http://rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThu ... x?id=74530

glennk419 wrote:There's still a couple of them wandering around South Jersey as witnessed here just last week: http://rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThu ... x?id=74530

My last blue sighting too as I got them on CA-51 last week-with great weather thankfully. Got an unexpected day off from work since it was a little slow-as if the RR Gods intervened to give me this last chance, LOL.

Well, this is just a thought. But since class 1 railroads routinely lease power when they need too, if any leased engines are still in CR livery then even after NS repaints the rest of the conrail fleet we may yet still see a blue engine on a class 1.

As an example: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2779041

This is a former CR sw1001, (NS 2111). It now works for a leasing company? Anyway, notice the CR logo is starting to bleed through again. If this engine ever gets leased back to a class 1 again... (assuming it still has it's blue paint)... then blue power on a class 1 always has at least a remote chance of popping up here and there. I could be wrong though, this is just my thought.

airman00 wrote:Well, this is just a thought. But since class 1 railroads routinely lease power when they need too, if any leased engines are still in CR livery then even after NS repaints the rest of the conrail fleet we may yet still see a blue engine on a class 1.

As an example: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2779041

This is a former CR sw1001, (NS 2111). It now works for a leasing company? Anyway, notice the CR logo is starting to bleed through again. If this engine ever gets leased back to a class 1 again... (assuming it still has it's blue paint)... then blue power on a class 1 always has at least a remote chance of popping up here and there. I could be wrong though, this is just my thought.

And having to look even LESS closely, it's READING yellow is showing through on the handrail stancions, coupler box and sill stripe.

I keep seeing the 2 SD60Is out in Pittsburgh on coal trains.

I think my last sighting CR blue was probably NS SD40-2 #3360 in and near Buffalo area at the end of last summer:

http://s857.photobucket.com/albums/ab13 ... ?start=all

While I'm not sorry to see Conrail gone as a business entity, I do miss seeing dress blue on the former CR routes.