@mlaughlinnyc posted:The single gold strip was a tragic occurrence
I dunno, I rather like it.
Rusty
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@Ron Moore posted:Was that GG 1 pulling passenger cars when it crashed into Grand Central Station ?
That would have been some wreck, tearing up a good chunk of Manhattan in the process. 
@mlaughlinnyc posted:If you want to recreate the image of the PRR in the 40's through 60's, Brunswick green with the stripes is the way to go. I've seen hundreds of PRR trains between 1949 and 1967. during that time we regarded the various other schemes as oddities. The single gold strip was a tragic occurrence
The color schemes used to publicize certain trains didn't mean a specific set of locomotives was used for those trains. I general, each train got the engine that was first out on the ready track when the crew came on duty.
Some motors had regular assignments. The sole R1 class, 4999 generally worked the westbound Broadway Limited to Harrisburg, returning to New York on a mail and express run. She was retired in 1958.
@Nick Chillianis posted:That would have been some wreck, tearing up a good chunk of Manhattan in the process.
Did you mean the Washington Union Station affair ?
@mlaughlinnyc posted:Did you mean the Washington Union Station affair ?
Yes, of course. The Federal, with engineer Bower at the controller of motor 4876.
I wish there was a sarcasm tag sometimes.
Still trying to figure out which path the train would take from Penn to GCT. North on 8th and east on 42nd, or west on 34th and north on Park Ave.
Correction: That would be east on 34th, not west. Short sleep.
@Nick Chillianis posted:Yes, of course. The Federal, with engineer Bower at the controller of motor 4876.
I wish there was a sarcasm tag sometimes.
Still trying to figure out which path the train would take from Penn to GCT. North on 8th and east on 42nd, or west on 34th and north on Park Ave.
Nick,
You left that one wide open!
How did the Federal get from Penn Station to GCT?
By subway of course......
Last time I looked, Park Avenue was East of NY Penn.
@Nick Chillianis posted:Still trying to figure out which path the train would take from Penn to GCT. North on 8th and east on 42nd, or west on 34th and north on Park Ave.
Or, on its way to Marshall Fields :
Rusty
@PRR Man posted:Last time I looked, Park Avenue was East of NY Penn.
My bad. I was rushing to get out the door for work. Operating on about 5 hours sleep and only one cup of joe.
You're 100% correct.
@Rusty Traque posted:Or, on its way to Marshall Fields
Rusty
My favorite line in that movie is when Gene Wilder tells Scatman Cruthers that the emergency brake cords had all been cut and Cruthers replies "D***ed hippies!".
Right after my wife and I were married, we lived in Hillside, NJ and commuted into NYC from 1975-1979 from the North Elizabeth Station. I saw many Penn Central mixed freight trains pulled by GG1s, which were either single or double headed. I do not recall any unit trains, although there may have been a few.
Pat
Any freight trains that you saw would have been to or from Oak Island Yard which is two miles south of the Newark station. There was no reason for a freight train to go north of that junction. Not likely that there would ever be a unit train on that part of the railroad because there were no appropriate destinations for a unit train.
BTW, after April 1, 1976, they were Conrail trains. PC was no longer in the railroad business.
Virtually all of the GG1s I saw still carried the Penn Central badging long after CONRAIL was formed.
Pat
I would visit Philly to see a college buddy during the years 1966 through 1969 and remember seeing the venerable GG1 in action pulling passengers and mixed freights along the mainline,I guess. Being from Western PA I remember being just blown away by those electrics. My buddy would just laugh!
Norm
@mlaughlinnyc posted:Any freight trains that you saw would have been to or from Oak Island Yard which is two miles south of the Newark station. There was no reason for a freight train to go north of that junction. Not likely that there would ever be a unit train on that part of the railroad because there were no appropriate destinations for a unit train.
BTW, after April 1, 1976, they were Conrail trains. PC was no longer in the railroad business.
Oak Island was a Lehigh Valley facility. Never had any catenary.
Electric hauled freight came off the corridor at Lane Tower at the south end of the former PRR Waverly Yard complex. From there it could go one of two ways. The first was was to pass under the massive LV bridge to skirt the north side of Oak Island on the P&H branch to Meadows Yard in Kearny. The other route skirted the south side of Oak Island through a facility called the Garden Yard, then joined the Lehigh Valley at the east end of Oak Island to cross the Upper Bay Bridge which crossed Newark Bay, to ultimately reach Greenville Yard and its carfloats. Both lines were electrified the whole way. After Conrail decided to route their trains off the Amtrak corridor, the former Lehigh Valley main became their main route into the area. That's when Oak Island became Conrail's main facility in the NJ/NY area.
Don't know of any unit trains per se, but GG1s definitely hauled Pennsy's crack "Trailer Trains" and also long strings of automobile racks.
@Nick Chillianis posted:
Don't know of any unit trains per se, but GG1s definitely hauled Pennsy's crack "Trailer Trains" and also long strings of automobile racks.
The intermodal terminal was at Kearney. It is east of Newark station but those trains used the freight cutoff. It left the main line at Waverly, went along the north side of Oak Island and was next to the Pulaski Skyway for a short distance before it crossed the Passaic River on a drawbridge.
I traveled that part of the Skyway west many times when Dad was driving to somewhere west and that was the main express highway west from the Holland tunnel -late 40's, early 50's, I never had the good luck to see a train on that track.
@irish rifle posted:Virtually all of the GG1s I saw still carried the Penn Central badging long after CONRAIL was formed.
Pat
One reason for that was that the Conrail operating department was trying to eliminate electric operation as fast as they could, limited only by the capital funds available to complete dieselization. They weren't going to waste a lot money on painting electrics.
@mlaughlinnyc posted:One reason for that was that the Conrail operating department was trying to eliminate electric operation as fast as they could, limited only by the capital funds available to complete dieselization. They weren't going to waste a lot money on painting electrics.
Only one GG1 was painted in the complete Conrail blue scheme, the original #4800, Old Rivets. Others received small CR initials and had the PC two-worms-in-love logo painted out. A few retained their DGLE paint and the single gold stripe while having all previous railroad names painted out (4883, for example). The ones owned by NJ Transit got stenciled "N.J. Dept. Of Trans. Owner" under one number on each flank (to the right when viewed from the side). Amtrak units either got the stylized Amtrak name in white, or some got painted in a clownish red, white and platinum mist scheme with a blue wide stripe that mimicked the PRR wide stripe.
Okay, I thought long and hard and it finally dawned on me, The GG1s most definitely pulled at least one unit train on a semi-regular basis. A very well known unit train. The twice-weekly, 60 car long, insulated boxcar Tropicana Orange Juice train.
It's original terminal was at Meadows Yard in Kearney.
The train was regularly handled by GG1s, E44s or sometimes a combination of both types of motors.
Good call. I remember when the Tropicana train began - a big deal both for railfans and the industry itself. Haven't thought about that one for years. I believe it was the first refrigerated move ever at a trainload rate.
I thought GG1's could only MU with other GG1's
