A second vote. I still can't understand why she wasn't saved in the first place. IRM...where were you?

Les

IRM was tiny, cramped, and on swampy ground in 1968, and did not own any RR sized diesels until a few years later.
Jeff

Remember also that the New Haven and successor Penn Central had a much less molested than Christine, DL109 in storage until 1969 in the Boston South Station dead line. I seem to recall reading that PC, knowing the significance of the loco, offered it to several organizations at the time, with no interest (it would still be a decade before diesel preservation started to take off). It was then scrapped.

My comment about the DL109 vs. a Babyface or Centipede is simply about it having an incredible appearance that even the average public would find striking while both of the latter would be to them, not really that much different than an E or F. I don't think the public would care about the Centipede running gear.

Steve

Matt, you are correct. It spent its last years under the highway overpass for a reason. The General Foreman at Dover Street tried to keep the DL109 out of sight of the management to allow some additional time for preservation groups to get their act together, but there was little intergroup discussion in those days, and no coordinated effort developed despite members of several organizations being interested in the PP716. Although the locomotive was partially gutted mechanically, it still could have been restored into a very acceptable display unit.

In the cases where there was not the funding, the resources, or the organization to save units when they were still around, it is difficult to see how any successful effort could be developed nowadays to build an authentic replica. Remember that the effort to build duplicate pistons and liners put a great financial strain on the Flying Yankee restoration. Reverse engineering is expensive, and reverse engineering designs that had known problems would not make the best use of donor funding. The museums are better off doing affordable repairs on equipment that is more practical to use.

And this is particularly true in the case of marginally successful designs like the DL109. Way back in the late 1960s I interviewed several people from Alco who were involved with the delivery of DL109s, and they had many stories to tell, a lot of which involved very serious problems they encountered with the locomotives.

PC

The NH DL-109 was PP 716-- "Power Plant". It was used to provide 600 VDC for testing the third rail setups on the ill-fated NHRR lightweight trains of the late 1950s, and then languished at the Boston-Southampton St engine terminal for 10 more years. It had one 539 engine left in it.

Just before the PC cleaned the place out in late 1970 (all sorts of HH-600s, passenger cars, Alco RS-1s and other exotic "junkers" lay there as parts sources), Jim Bradley, of preserved Pullman car fame, tried to purchase it. PC refused to deal with fans by that point, at least regarding that boneyard's carcasses.

A few prescient folks at the not-yet-open Valley Railroad in Essex, Conn. tried to drum up enthusiasm for saving PP 716, but were quickly shot down by VRR management, primarily Oliver Jensen. VRR and the two volunteer groups on site (ESRM and CVRA) were still struggling to be open to the public by July 1971, and even if there was a realization that a New Haven DL-109 was historically important, there were few resources to save it.

Howard P.

DL-109 makes a lot of sense since most of the "unobtanium" hardware can be cribbed off the glut of broken down S1-S4s and RS-1s all over the nation. Not sure where you get A1A trucks.

Seems to me that forward movement in diesel preservation did not develop until the baby boomers came of age and were able to vote with their wallets.

DPK

And speaking of New Haven...lets go to Brazil, and grab one of their GE electrics from 1938, bring her back.....rework the power trucks....and - BOOM! - EP4 !!!

Are there any wide gauge PA's left down there?

Steve

Sorting slides again this evening I came across this shot that I took 55 years ago...........

PC

And here is Christine..................

PC

Old threads never die.

Looking back through this, I was surprised to see no one suggested an M-10000, which I always found to be much cooler looking than its Budd Zephyr competitor.

I'd like to see someone do an M-10000 with the original nose, which was far better streamlined and bore a substantial resemblance to the UA Turbotrain.

Come to think of it, someone should restore a Turbotrain, along the same lines as the T1 Trust project, to see if the problems with it could be resolved with modern materials and techniques...

But the real thing that someone needs to replicate is something never actually constructed: the Ingalls Shipbuiilding 2000hp passenger unit: two Superior diesels connected to Bowes Drives, with mechanical transmission. Speed capability well over 120mph without any issue of birdsnesting, or very much back EMF. And low-speed torque comparable to anything with a hydraulic torque converter drive...

But we have the M-10000 at home.
The M-10000 at home:

https://flic.kr/p/89MjYx