Nostalgia & History > A dead SW-1 in the weeds for SW-1 Saturday

This forlorn-looking pup was ditched on a weedy siding along Conrail's ex-Water Level Route in Palmyra, NY back in July 1977.
Can still see the Pennsy road number to the right of the headlight - must have been confusing to have two road numbers!
 

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Austere front end without the hoses, did all SW1's not have MU ?
Also excellent carbody and aged scheme detail, wealth of information here for hard core PRR/PC fan or model builder too.
Many thanks for posting.
So by then was it common for PC to leave old units like this just lying around on weedy sidings until someone figured out where the unit was and had it sent sent to Enola to get salvaged and cut-up?
    This is a great photo.

It was more common to have SW-1 locos without mu than with. If a railroad needed more horse power it made more sense to use a single 1000-1200 hp unit than a pair of 600 hp units.

The Milwaukee Rd which had light rail branches where consists of 4-5 SW-1s were the only solution.

fbe Wrote:

> The Milwaukee Rd which had light rail branches
> where consists of 4-5 SW-1s were the only
> solution.

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,2312527
http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1601582

My guess is that it was on its way in-tow to a major shop for work and it developed some issue and had to be set out. It wasn't the usual power for the switch runs here, but may have worked the Marion branch out of Newark, NY. I've seen  pics of this unit at Selkirk in 1979, so it lived on maybe into the '80s
Atlpete Wrote:
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> Austere front end without the hoses, did all SW1's
> not have MU ?
> Also excellent carbody and aged scheme detail,
> wealth of information here for hard core PRR/PC
> fan or model builder too.
> Many thanks for posting.
> So by then was it common for PC to leave old units
> like this just lying around on weedy sidings until
> someone figured out where the unit was and had it
> sent sent to Enola to get salvaged and cut-up?
>     This is a great photo.