(erielack) EL power assignments

[Christopher Thurner <crthurner_@_yahoo.com>]

Listers:

Here's a western NY perspective limited to the
Wellsville area, as I didn't have a license then and
the lack of one precluded me from fanning anywhere
else in WNY (e.g. River Line, Buffalo area, BS&W,
Bradford branch (the last two I didn't know until 10
years ago or so when I got back into rr's).

Pig freights:  Mostly SD45s and variants, with
occasional appearances by U33 / 36Cs and rare
appearances by GP35s and U25Bs.

Mahwah auto freights:  Again, mostly SD45s & variants,
U33 / 36Cs.  

Other manifest freights: Anything goes, but mostly SDs
and U3xCs.  Very rare were GP7 / 9's in a brace on
these. (70's time frame).

As I recall, C424s and 425s were rare here during the
70's.  I do remember some of them from the late and
possibly mid-60's.

Many 60's era manifests had braces of EMD F units in
varying configurations of A & B units.  I especially
remember many long reefer trains in the mid 60's as a
young boy.  Also, the other thing that stands out in
my mind is the variety of boxcar names (i.e. rr
owners) and schemes from that time and how much more
colorful they were (touches on our recent logo
discussion).

Also there were some pig trains in the 60's, but they
weren't that common.  I do remember my Father
introducing me to the term 'piggyback' and informing
me that it was the 'wave of the future' for rr's. 
From that point on, I thought pig traffic was really
cool (and still do for all intermodal!).

GP7s were used on some manifests in the 60's.  I don't
really remember them being intermixed with F units, or
later SD's, U3xCs, GP35s, etc.

Wellsville had a local based there in the 60's, that
would be parked down by the passenger depot on the end
of the team track.  From say about 1965 or 66, (the
earliest I remember, as I walked by there to go/from
school everyday) there was usually a EMD switcher
(e.g. SW7, 8 or 9 - I didn't know versions at that
time) and occasionally an Alco switcher.  Later, say
68 or 69, they were replaced with a GP7.  

My guess is that this local stopped being based in
Wellsville around Hurricann Agnes time (i.e. 72) and
service in the area was out of either Hornell or
Salamanca.  (Do any EL vets on the list know where
these were based out of afterwards?)  

I saw a few of wreck trains which had an Alco RS unit
(again I didn't know that the 2 and 3 versions
existed) on them.  Some were (I would GUESS) out of
both Hornell  and Salamanca, based on their travels to
and fro the scene of where they were needed.  I would
also (GUESS) that possibly they may have come from
Buffalo (via River Line or BSW) or Gang Mills /
Elmira.  

My guess on these however, is that no particular unit
or class of units were assigned.  I would think the
power assigned here was what ever was around, in good
working order and most importantly, convenient to hook
onto the wrecker consist to get them out and the
affected section of track back into service.  

While on this thought, I do once remember a cut of 15
cars or so being dropped into the Wellsville yard (I
can only speculate as to why, such as a busted draw
bar, bad journal, etc.) and a GP35 coming over on
either a Saturday or Sunday to pick them up.  (This
stands out vividly, as it was around 65 / 66 and I
thought any of the new locos with a chopped nose, were
just SO COOL.)

One ballast train in the mid 60's had a set of b&y
FA's with a string of old black Erie hoppers with
Dunmore on the end.  (Pls. don't ask me if the b&y
scheme was EL or Erie; or how many bays were on the
hoppers, as I don't remember).

Work trains would have either a RS unit or a GP (most
likely a 7, but maybe occasionally one of the rare
Erie 9s).

One day pre-CR (say 73 - 75) a business car special
with 2 - 3 passenger cars headed up by a pair of E8s.

Lastly, I do remember up to the mid-60's seeing
occasional trains headed by both Baldwin units (RS
type) and FM trainmasters, both in b&y.  I don't
remember seeing either of these type of units in GMY.

There's my $0.02.

Regards,

Chris Thurner






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End of EL List Daily V3 #1732
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