Today, we are announcing the acquisition of our first piece of equipment....
LEHIGH VALLEY RAILROAD SW-1 #119!

With this acquisition we have reached a very important milestone for our organization, and with it, our official start into the preservation realm.

We would like to thank everyone who has worked with us so far, guided us, and as well as everyone who will continue to aid us through the more challenging part of getting her home!

Now that we have acquired the locomotive, the real fun begins to bring her home to PA. Once ready for shipment, she’ll come home from Ohio to Hazelton, PA for storage in a safe and secure location.

What are the plans for 119? Once she is home, we will start on a mechanical and cosmetic restoration back to her Lehigh Valley color scheme as delivered from EMD.

Where and When? The locomotive will be moved by rail to Hazelton, PA where we will have a safe and secure location for us to work on it. As to the when, while we want to bring her home as soon as possible, we also understand these things take time. That being said we do not have an exact time-line on her movement back to Pennsylvania, but plans are progressing enough to do it sooner than later .

What about fundraising? We’ll be starting a fundraising campaign soon to pay for the work to make the locomotive interchange worthy and pay for that movement east on Norfolk Southern as we are a non-profit 501(c)(3) any donations are widely accepted and appreciated!

So STAY TUNED! More details to come in the next few weeks!

Congratulations Mr. Haydt!

Nathan, what can you tell us about your organization?

How much will this entail? If it is more than COTS etc., i.e. replacing plain bearings with rotating endcap roller bearings, you might be better off trucking it. Just don't hire the outfit that moved the Monon SW-1 from ITM.

The Historic Railworks is an organization with the mission to save history any place we can. That doesn't just include Railroad history or just railroad equipment. Industrial, and Military history aren't out of the question, what happened is us 3 founders knew our way around the railroad industry the best, and it is our personal favorite so this is where we started. But history is our passion, and that includes ALL of history!

We hope to build this organization up so that when something happens that equipment has to leave or get cut up, we can reach out and hopefully save those pieces if other groups more local to that piece can't. We would then bring it to PA, restore it, and if we don't keep it for our collection, covey it to a museum where it does fit in. Anything that leaves our grip will go with a contract with a clause that says the piece can never be destroyed for any reason.

This idea was formed over the last year, and is based off recent events concerning historic equipment that desperately needed a new home for one reason or another. That is the base mission and ideals of our organization. The 3 founders live here in PA, we've all been actual railroaders at one time or another, I myself worked for the Delaware-Lackawanna from 2012 to 2018, 2013-2018 as a full-time freight conductor. I've been a mechanic for the D-L, and for tourist railroads. My other founders have similar backgrounds. We've learned all the lessons, and practiced them for years, needed to run this kind of organization, and now we're combining our experience to do just that.


As for the fundraising. We have several options for the move, we have a preferred method in mind that we're aiming for, but we're still working out those details, so the final plan will be described in detail when the fundraiser is announced. It certainly does involve more than a COTS, but its nothing we can't handle and we already have half of the equation down. The costs for all this we have solid ideas on, but will be revealed with the fundraiser announcement.

And...its in Ohio, we'd certainly prefer not to have to convince Ohio DOT that trucking a locomotive on their highway will be ok and then paying for those permits, we're looking to avoid that like COVID-19!

Congratulation from Canada. Great to see one more save. I follow to see somes updates



I hope hahaha. This guy surely never drive a oversize road truck again

I have to be perfectly honest, this is an idea I wish someone had thought of sooner.

Where you guys located, or where is your collection going to be?

I don't think you can make that engine interchange worthy. Friction bearings means a truck swap, no alignment control couplers means more expensive work, it will be much easier to put it on a flatcar and ship that way.

Northeast PA, we have a temporary location picked out in Hazelton, PA. We are on the hunt for a more spacey, and permanent location.



You would think that, but, if one were to have access to dummy trucks, and someone who can do coupler blocks, then it is far cheaper than paying for cranes at 2 different locations. I assure you, she can, and will be made interchange worthy for far less than what it'd take to get her on a flatcar and take her off that flatcar.

All the airbrake valves and such will need to be changed out per a tri-annual air change to be interchanged. My go to company is Buncher Corp. Multi-serve in Leetsdale PA. They can overhaul just about any airbrake valves to be AAR certified. Coupler blocks even welded in ones are probably a no go. By the early 2000's no western railroads would accept them in interchange. As I posted in another thread two nonalignment control locomotives to be delivered to us caused a nasty little derailment in UP's Provo Utah yard because they were coupled to center beam flats. After that UP said no more of that! And it is possible that the AAR may have a prohibition on them now. The name escapes me from 16 years ago but one company made alignment control draft gear and couplers that could be installed in the original housing. I advised one customer that being hauled on a flat might have been 15-20% more expensive but a lot simpler. He tried to do it piecemeal and that loco ended up cut up. Not to mention a lot of industrial locomotives the wheels and the couplers will not pass interchange because they are totally worn out. I would advise you to have competent railroader to inspect it. The railroad will certainly have one of they're inspectors check it to be accepted. Best of luck to you!

Congrats on the #119.

I was confused on the location at first, when you said Northeast PA, as that's the town near Erie where the cool Lake Shore Railway Museum is located....

When you said Hazelton, PA, I then figured that you meant the Northeastern part of Pennsylvania. :)

Good luck on getting the locomotive over here from Ohio. It sounds like you have some plans in place.

I agree that the Class Is will hesitant to move a switcher, roller bearings or not. They don't even like to move their own switchers, because the short frame length leads to troubles with coupler height when cresting hills etc. while connected to longer units. In the early nineties SP sent a lot of SP switchers, especially SW1500s, from CA to the old Rio Grande Burnham shop in Denver for work (mostly to catch up on years of deferred maintenance), putting them right behind the head end power, and more than once a train broke apart when cresting the Moffat Tunnel grade, and crews became overcome by carbon monoxide. I lived alongside the RG about fifteen miles from there then and saw ambulances heading up there once, they had to send guys in with air tanks etc.. They experimented with ways to get them to Denver, but they were very wary of any train that had those units in them. I really doubt anyone will be happy about moving one for someone else, especially an antique.

Welded coupler blocks are the preferred method by Norfolk Southern (This is headed EAST from Ohio) if complete alignment control couplers are not available, and are acceptable per NS's quote to us to move the locomotive from it's current location to Hazelton. Dummy Trucks are being placed under the engine with nice fat 40" wheels on rotating-endcap rollerbearing axles with good tread profile. The #6 brake system is being bypassed with an ABDW system that we are building and will be welded to the deck on the long hood and piping into the trainline and locomotive brake-line effectively making it a boxcar. We've made the calculations and know the reservoir requirements to deliver the required braking effect for the dummy trucks given a 90lb brake-pipe pressure. All of us on the board of trustees for The Historic Railworks have been railroaders at one time or another, for myself I worked for the Luzerne-Susquehanna 2010-2012, And the Delaware-Lackawanna 2012-2018, I had been volunteering for railroad organizations since 2008 and still am to this day (And in all of those cases I was part of mechanical forces as well as being a conductor), I believe that covers the "Having a competent Railroader" part of the above quotes. We're not guessing at what we're doing here, we have a solid plan that plays by all of the interchange rules, including those specific to NS. I know its odd to see someone interchange something this old, but it is legal, it can be done properly, and honestly isn't as hard as everyone makes it out to be. We will gladly show everyone what we're doing, how we do it, and what else to do, its not a trade secret. The more people that learn how to move this stuff cheaper and just as safe, the more stuff will be saved around the entire country.

Also, the fundraiser has started, I will be making a post about that probably tomorrow (Sunday), it will be separate from this thread (as we don't want it buried in this thread).

Never meant to ruffle any feathers!! Some people here can be rather prickly. I just like to put out information that these types of moves can be pretty complex and expensive. I have 38 years in diesel electric propulsion, 27 years of that on railroads. Good to know about the ABDW conversion and the welded blocks for the couplers. Just my dealings with both BNSF and UP over a twenty year span was that sometimes they could be a little difficult to deal with. From a BNSF employee telling me no loco, operable or not moves without current blue card. To the UP fiasco with our equipment in Provo. One FRA inspector told me I was the only person, I was CMO at the time, to prove him wrong using Gecor and CFR49. Sometimes the rules and regulations can seem to be rather ambiguous! And open to a inspector or railroad's interpretation. Really the only issue is to make your move as safe as possible. And that is why AAR interchange rules are so important. Since your move may only be over NS without an intermediate carrier makes things a little simpler. Once any railroad accepts equipment in interchange it's their baby. And anything that happens due to the accepted equipment is technically their fault for taking said equipment from the originator of the move. Hence UP paying us for two derailed and damaged locomotives. I said it and I meant it good luck to you! If we could be a little kinder and more understanding with each other things would be a lot better given the current atmosphere.

Hopefully you have received positive word from NS that they WILL move it as you describe, and aren't relying on the FRA rules. NS can still decline to move something just because they don't want to even though the regulations would seem to compel them to accept a car or engine for interchange. For example, in a saga I followed closely, below is a photo of a ballast hopper NS refused to accept in interchange from a preserved shortline a few years back even though it was converted to rotating endcap bearings (in what is now their own shop, by Conrail) which would seem to require them to accept it. The refusal came after the preserved line acquired the hopper car at what to them was considerable expense and moved it by truck, hoping to use the car to bring in ballast for their own track, only to be told it was useless now.