RE: the ballast car, it has roller bearings but they are still inside the old plain journal boxes. Some railroads are concerned that hot box detectors will not get a proper reading from these conversions, as the journal box could have an insulating effect.

I have no idea how valid this concern is, the above is simply what I have been told by folks involved with a similar situation on another Class I, after that railroad declined to move a passenger car with the same style of bearing conversion (it ended up going on a flatcar).

The same Class I later moved a diesel locomotive to our site with roller bearings in plain journal boxes, so approval might also depend on the individual car inspector.

Anyway, it sounds like Nathan and the rest of his group know what they are doing. I'm looking forward to seeing what the future holds for them.

Yep, exactly, they were concerned about the hot box detectors not reading it, which is probably valid. They want anything they move to be equal to anything else they move, one of the dozens of cars that may be in a train, unsupervised for the most part. I think the important point (which your examples bear out) is that the class I may or may not allow your car or engine on their track, and you may go to a lot of expense to meet the letter of the regulations only to find out that you still need to move it by truck. I am biased in that I am not a risk-taker by nature and so that is why, IMHO, I would take the sure thing of a truck (Monon 50 notwithstanding).

The thing is, that ballast car, is ok to use in captive service on a railroad, NS still has "Jack-In-The-Box" cars in their MoW fleet. Heck, NS still has (at least into 2018 when i saw it last when i picked it up at interchange at the D-L) one of NYC's old 2 axle Scale cars, converted to rollers but still using the old boxes, and it was even painted on the car "BLT - 1923." And that is fine, now due to that cars specific service that is legal. Now, this ballast car appears to be a converted cement hopper, dating probably from the 50s or earlier, a freight car only gets 50 years in interchange, thats it, so aside from the hot-box detectors not being able to read it (which is the same reason you can't ship locomotives with jack-in-the-box journals), the car is likely too old to ship in AAR interchange, locomotives however do not have age restrictions. AAR does not actually say you can't ship plain bearing equipment, the railroads say you can't, AAR only limits the age and some other features, like specific trucks, no cast wheels, stuff that has been proven to actually fail commonly over the years. AAR also doesn't say you can't ship something without alignment control, the railroads just say you can't. So aside from the AAR rules, you have to know the route you are chosing and what the extra rules are.

The quote we DO have from Norfolk Southern states what they require of the locomotive being shipped, and the modifications we are making meet those requirements.

While shipping by truck is to a degree less work on our end, because we just contract 1 truck driver and 4 cranes (2 at each end), we don't really want to add another 25-30k to the fundraiser. Right now, between the quote from NS, 1 boom truck in Ohio, and shipping the plain bearing trucks home, we're looking at about 15-20k total for the move. Making these adjustments is alot less expense than contracting a truck for the move.

We're not going off the assumption they will just accept the locomotive, we are making modifications per their requirements prescribed to us in their quote and other related sources shared with us pertaining to the move.

On Friday, we were out at the engine again, we secured loose and valuable items off of the engine and did some other minor work as well as took note of what parts we may need for the mechanical restoration portion. We also have a siding to store it on in a fairly safe location here in Hazelton, also on NS, so once it is off mill property its a solid NS move east. We have competent welders and mechanics who will be joining us for the major work session in Ohio to do the truck swap, coupler and air-brake work which will hopefully take place in Mid-Late September, ideally before snow starts falling.

We appreciate all of the tips and concerns brought forward to us, and I assure you we've taken all of these into consideration at one point or another as we have all dealt with similar issues interchanging other equipment for other organizations. There will come a point, for example, where our organization would like a set of alignment control couplers just for moves like these so we can just swap out equipment, but that costs money we can't currently spare, and it is cheaper to weld in the blocks since NS does accept those per their own guidelines. The current combined revenue experience (not volunteer experience) for the board of trustees for our organization is over 50 years, we have a great group of individuals with similar ideals but different experiences that combined make a great team.

I know I said there would be a separate post for the fundraiser today, we're making a video for that but the video is delayed, so I am including a link to our GoFundMe here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/project-black-diamond-lehigh-valley-sw1-119

We appreciate any and all donations, 1, 2, 5, 10 dollars, it all adds up, please consider donating, the preservation communitie's continued support will allow this organization to grow and gather additional pieces to preserve and when the time and opportunity comes, operate them, there is no better history than living history!

We appreciate the well wishes and will continue to keep this community up to date with news as soon as we have more to show. This is a fast moving project, but might slow down a little bit for a month, but should be quite busy next month, so STAY TUNED!

Attached is AAR rule 90 (AAR Field Manual 2020 Q1) covering what is prohibited in interchange on Freight Cars. They have nothing to do with this locomotive but have everything to do with the hopper example.

Locomotives come under different rules so they get treated differently.

PMC I remember talking to someone about that conversion when I worked for the Union Pacific. They claimed because the bearing is in that journal box housing it could give inaccurate readings when passing a hot box detector. I know both the SP #4449 and the SP&S 700 were getting some grief about their tender wheels (which are roller bearing) in the journal boxes for the same reason, and for a while the SP&S 700 was running with no journal covers on the tender which looked a bit strange.

As far as that SW-1 could they not put it on the rear of the train?

I would be interested to know what NS charges for locomotive moves.

Today we uploaded our update video so everyone can see the engine and what we're up to!

We brought any loose valuables home from 119 as well as got ourselves familiar with the heavy work that will have to be done next month.

There will be other update videos as we work on the ABDW airbrake rig and other events leading up to the heavy work session.

Please consider donating and sharing this information it really helps us out!

Youtube link here: https://youtu.be/lMljpAGCRWg

Our GoFundMe link is here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/project-black-diamond-lehigh-valley-sw1-119

Thanks for watching!

Good Afternoon Everyone!

We know its been a while since you've heard from us, and we apologize for being so quiet over the winter and early spring, but its time for us to start showing just exactly what we've been up to.

First and foremost, last year we stated we had a temporary home picked out for LV 119 and that we were hoping to ship it home last fall, unfortunately due to circumstances beyond the control of either party, that didn't work out, however, we have located a new friendly location that is looking forward to working with us and we will have more details on that as it solidifies.

Second, we have been gathering tools, parts, and resources required to get 119 ready for its trip home. We plan to make a trip out to the engine in June to start light prep work with the current goal as July/August for the final prep work for shipment.
In the meantime we have started to refurbish parts we already have here at home for 119, further posts about that will appear throughout the next couple weeks as things progress, old parts don't like to come apart!

On the fundraising front, our GoFundMe is still up and running, we are also currently working on T-Shirts and other goodies for everyone to enjoy and will make them available as soon as we can. We have added a paypal account to our non-profit and are also working on other friendly ways to donate and buy merchandise, all proceeds go to Lehigh Valley 119 and its ride home.

The Historic Railworks will also be posting a thorough list of surplus parts that we can not use in the near future. These parts will be posted for sale AS-IS, they can not be used on LV 119, but all proceeds again will go towards LV 119 and getting it home.

We greatly appreciate everyone's patience, as moving something like a locomotive takes a lot of footwork, funding, time, and the right people to bring it all together.

STAY TUNED!

Seeing as how there is little post-LV info on this pup, or even post-Conrail info, based on current description and location, can I assume that this is it at: 41.457323, -82.127161 ?
https://ibb.co/X8DBggv

That would indeed be a safe assumption.

The LV sold her to US Steel in 1974, she never made it to Conrail. 119 ran in daily service until 2003 at their Lorain facility. She was taken out of service for powerpacks, story is the new powerpacks they got for the engine were junk, they put the old ones back in, but since there were other operable engines, they didn't feel the need to get her running at the time, so it became her retirement.

Is this still an active project?

One of the group founders died and they've been trying to regroup. That was the last I knew from about 7 months ago.