Nostalgia & History > Tuesday Two - Two Unit Lashups

Here are two two-unit photos for "Tuesday Two".
Image 1: B&O 3754 and 3747 head east in Akron, Ohio at the Wilbeth Road walkbridge in the late 1960's/early 1970's.
Image two: C&NW 1022 and CGW 1028 are working the C&NW yard in Oelwein, Iowa on August 15, 1976.
Bob

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I'll have some more of the first 2.

GRS

Nice ones.
Wilbeth Road - was that in the Kenmore area?
​Gary

Yes, it was. The walkbridge was built in 1960. Prior to that there was an at-grade crossing there.
Bob

In the mid-1970s and early 80s the B&O side of "Chessie System" officer in charge of motive power (I forget his name and his title) thought that two EMD newer locos at the time GP38/GP40 maybe of the "-2" variety; I never cared about the difference, could pull anything over the main line network. The few six axle EMDs that B&O had stayed in the coalfields west of Cumberland. By this time most of the F units and small fleets of Alco FA (usually kept East of Cumberland) FM road switchers kept around Baltimore, and Baldwin Sharks and Road Switchers (kept around Grafton) were gone. Some strangers from the ex-WM fleet showed up, but mostly EMD's. Ironically, B&O being a heavily EMD railroad from the beginning, had several quirks 1. It was the only RR that MU'ed Baldwin Sharks and road switchers. 2. It was the only large RR that had NO Alco road switchers (RS1,RS2 or RS3 or later), and three; it's last operable F units were from the WM!). So this guys assigned two GP-40s; (B&O had around 400 of them) two at a time to almost every train. I remember the CHTT screaming thru Wilsmere with two wide open GP40s and 85 long flats of trailers at 25-30mph. C&O controlled B&O since the early 1960s, but the power of both railroads was kept separate until the mid-80s. C&O did transfer some of its older units, even a few big Alco RSD's to B&O and they may have been re-lettered. Finally, in the late 1980s, C&O, which had bought some GE's of the period, infiltrated the Philly sub and locos got interesting again. I never liked GP40s and F40s, altho I know many do.  

Amazing information about the two-unit lashups. Thanks for posting it.
Bob

Really like both photos.
The B&O photo says railroad all over it.
Expect the crew was using cardboard in the windows as visors to keep out the hot August sun.
ALLEN

JLinDE Wrote:
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>. It was the only large RR that had NO
> Alco road switchers (RS1,RS2 or RS3 or later),

What was the heritage of the RS1's that were used around
Grand Central in Chicago?