The Trolley Museum of New York's 1943 vintage Whitcomb diesel was on work duty today. After scrap ties were unloaded from the flat car, the train was run to Kingston Point where this picture was taken.



Photo by Arjun Lal 4/2/16.

I have walked around one these before and was rather amazed at how small the walkways are on these things. If you're the engineer on one of these, you dare not take lunch while you're in the cab, lest you be unable to get back out.

And this one was narrowed to fit on the Interborough Rapid Transit (New York Subway). So its more of a sideways suffleway instead of a walkway.

I'm glad to hear that hear that she was out running yesterday.

I feel as though I recall hearing something that this locomotive's traction motors being severely damaged after the flooding caused by Hurricane Sandy. Is there any truth to this? Did the damage just end up being less than what was anticipated?

Thanks,
-Andrew

Water from Hurricane Sandy came to just above axle height, so we feared water got inside the motors. But when we did a megger test afterwards the motors passed (just barely) so we've been nursing it along. Last year it took volunteers several days of fixing wiring and air lines throughout the locomotive to make it serviceable again since it had sat so long anyway, but from here on we plan to use it on a regular basis.

Most of the military 65-ton Whitcombs were built to fit European clearances; i.e. darn tight. The big batch that was brought back from Europe after VE day that was go to go to Japan for the invasion were piled in the port of Baltimore and never left. Some were sold as war surplus, and a batch were bought back by Whitcomb and upgraded to a vertical-sided slightly wider cab and resold again. The one that's up to WK&S is a good example of that.

But the original WWII profile (narrow frame without cab extension) and the sloped-side cab looks to be what's here, and that's very historically significant. Those narrow and low clearances are what made it useful to the subway system as well.

Although there were a lot of these that went to industries and shortlines after the war that are well-known, there's only a couple left in operational condition and darn few left even if you search the dead lines and weed-covered sidings.

There is one at the Hocking Valley Scenic Railroad with bad traction motors.

The guys (and girls?) at the Trolley Museum of New York are a great bunch!

It's just too bad the trail people got a hold of their tracks and ripped them up!

Just for clarification here - the trolley museum track is not in play for any of the trail conversion moves in Ulster County. This is all east of CSX.

The remnants of the original U&D 'mainline' uphill from the trolley museum site to the CSXT main (featuring the low deck girder bridges with 9'9" clearance) are being converted to a trail after sitting there post-Conrail for a long time. This ROW had some pretty tight street running as it got through Kingston - the Hospital then built across the U&D ROW, tracks all torn up in the street running, other significant commercial encroachments pretty much severed it beyond recognition as it got closer to CSX. Hard pressed to even locate it now and it's difficult to spot even on an aerial west of 9W. The ROW is even pretty much gone once you get west of 9W, even to the consternation of the trail advocates. It wasn't saved for anybody.

The last plan documentation I saw was rail-with-trail out to Kingston Point, by widening the ROW slightly, but no concept of crowding or limiting the trolley line.

The hill line up from what was then the U&D shops at Rondout was an amazing piece of 1868 engineering to climb up the bluff from the Hudson, reverse curves, a tunnel, and a very steep grade. Historic photos show doubleheaded 4-6-0's to get relatively long trains of wood cars up there. The skill of the U&D crews on bringing stuff back down that hill impressed me as the history of the line seems to include few catastrophic incidents.

^The trail has been built next to the railroad tracks out to Kingston Point. It looks great!

But, why wasn't the same done for the track from the museum up to Kingston?

Do any survive in Italy or elsewhere overseas? Several of those bought by the Italian State Railways were still running at the dawn of this century.

The British produced magazine Todays Railways - Europe had a 2 page article about the surviving ones in their November 2012 edition.
There appeared to be about 14 still in use then, with another 9 in storage. A couple have also been preserved.

Not sure what their current status is, but one of the Italian private lines is still using an ex London Midland & Scottish Railway/British War Department jackshaft drive diesel shunter built in 1941 !

A similar Whitcomb was used by the Bureau of Reclamation on the U.S Government railroad between Boulder City NV and Hoover Dam. The line had been built to support the construction of the dam, and during construction was operated by "Six Companies"

After the dam was completed it was turned over to the Bureau, who acquired a 30 ton Davenport gas/mechanical locomotive in 1936 for operations. I assume the Whitcomb was acquired war surplus after the war.

The line was abandoned in 1961 and scrapped in 1963. We don't know the disposition of the Whitcomb but the Davenport has been preserved and is on display at the Nevada State Railroad Museum in Boulder City.

We assume the Whitcomb was c/n 8810...

Randy

8810 was the USATC road number. The c/n would be in the 60515-60624 series, the last group of the 65DE19A locos ordered during WWII. The order was originally for 110 units but was quickly cut back to 30 units when the war ended.

All Whitcomb diesel-electric locos have c/n's in the 60001-up series.

I'd love to see this in Army markings someday.
Of all the photos I have of them, it appears that most ran outside the US in either yellow or grey paint. I just can't tell which from b/w photos and I've never seen a color photos of one running in Army service during WW2.
Stateside diesels were often black, but most modelers demand they paint Army-marked diesel (and steam) locomotives OD green for some silly reason. Yeah, a few diesels were OD green during WW2, but not many at all.