Nostalgia & History > How did this happen?

CDAY, April 1st 1976 went off as planned. Railfanning in the east could have used a government shutdown to delay the fastest disappearing act in the history of railroad amalgamations. It seemed overnight that the now heritage railroads began dissolving and divesting. By months end, Reading GP35s were in Indiana, Lehigh Valley big Alcos were in Cleveland, Penn Central was Penn Central, Jersey Central was in Hornell NY, Lehigh and Hudson River became hump power at Allentown, and the Erie Lackawanna was everywhere. For extra fun and games, much of the Reading and Lehigh Valley's newer EMD power turned the Delaware and Hudson into a General Motors property for the first time. This was the sweetener that was supposed to turn D&H into a Northeast competitor to the new  government backed juggernaut...wink wink, nod nod!
Any fan who remembers the first couple of Conrail years, I am certain, can remember the excitement of not knowing what was going to show up on any given train. The rainbow assortment of power was a bittersweet trip for any fan of anyone of the above mentioned roads. It made for fascinating, once in a lifetime lashups, but the obliterating of the former roads names and heralds on the locomotives gave one pause in knowing that the end had indeed arrived. Truly, the most interesting places to be were servicing facilities where power congregated. At Allentown on any given day in that first year, it was possible to see power from all six heritage roads, plus power from the new and improved D&H, and even Chessie for a brief period. The picture here gave me a laugh when I scanned it. It is from my first visit back to the Southern Tier of New York in May of 76. Like the fascination of watching a train wreck, I was drawn to the area to see what happened to my beloved EL, and my second favorite Lehigh Valley. The shot is at the Lehigh Valley yard at Sayre from that famous footbridge. As an aside, this was actually the first time I actually met JJ Young. For younger guys that do not know the name, John was a legendary railfan photographer with an oversize personality and heart. John lived in Binghamton.  How we had never crossed paths in the Binghamton area can only be explained that John loved Alcos and GEs. EL was those, but also heavy in the EMD department. GM did nothing for John. Thus he spent copious hours on the D&H, while they were always a sidebar to me in those days. Anyway, back to the photo. Pretty typical for the mixed bag arrangements at the time. My laugh is in looking at all of the railroaders in the photo. They all seem to be looking at the Valley unit trying to figure out why all that other stuff is in the service area, and "their" unit is sitting off to the side. It looked like a where are we moment. I'll be doing a few other first months threads in the future.

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/25/19 08:25 by Roadjob.

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Interesting photo - especially the tank turrets in the lower left corner.  M60's ?

and not a patched unit in sight!

boejoe Wrote:
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> Interesting photo - especially the tank turrets in
> the lower left corner.  M60's ?

Yes, they are M60A3s but what is really interesting is that it looks like they don't have main guns installed yet. Maybe going from one factory to another to get the main guns. They were all built by Chrysler but I don't remember where they were built.

RayH Wrote:
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> and not a patched unit in sight!

Give them another week! I saw patches after two weeks of startup, 

First-class very early Conrail photo. I still remember the very early local (Northeast Ohio) Conrail rumor that it would be five years before major changes were made. How foolish some of us were!
Bob

Nice to see the folks that make it go round in the photo.

Posted from iPhone

How about that heavy duty crane boom seen overtop of the shanty!

Posted from Android

Rmosele Wrote:
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> boejoe Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Interesting photo - especially the tank turrets
> in
> > the lower left corner.  M60's ?
>
> Yes, they are M60A3s but what is really
> interesting is that it looks like they don't have
> main guns installed yet. Maybe going from one
> factory to another to get the main guns. They were
> all built by Chrysler but I don't remember where
> they were built.

Detroit Arsenal.

Posted from Android