Word out of W. Upton is that G&U No 212, an Alco S-4, has been cut up and is no more. Photo was taken a little over a month ago.

I had heard rumblings that this one had a potential new home up in Maine. A real shame, to cut up a perfectly fine locomotive in good condition.

(opinion section starts here)
The biggest barrier to this one finding a new home (and the previous unit as well, an original G&U loco) , is the refusal of connecting railroads to move anything old and/or weird. And they (the connecting roads) define "old and weird". No plain bearings, no plain couplers, no sticking out of mechanical department necks. These units probably were just fine to move, and 10 years ago this would have been a non-issue. Now, one has to factor a $25-50K truck haul, or a roller bearing conversion, into any acqusition and transport costs.

Scott K. seems to have managed to do, with his LVRR SW-1, what is increasingly impossble to do in New England.

Howard P.
Preservation Cave, CT

I am saddened to read this. I was the broker that got G&U and St. Louis Locomotive together on this deal, roughly twenty years ago. Sweet little machine-

Sad and shocking. Photo taken yesterday by Joe Podles, who happened to be driving by. Thanks, Joe.

This is disgusting

Too bad would have looked nice at the SFTM, might have even been able to get PanAm to bring it to us.

I think this is an interesting point, but one which warrants some discussion.

Would YOU want to risk your livelihood on someone else's "fun" project?

Sure, it probably wouldn't come to that, but it might.

The simple thing is to just say no. And that's what happens about 99% of the time. End of story.

But I doubt anyone was asking for the thing to be moved for free, and it would be subject to inspection before moving. If the journals are in good shape and the brakes work and the safety appliances are in proper order, then why not move it and make a few bucks? I don't think any freight trains on the connecting carriers exceed 50 mph in the New England region...

I think one part of this equation is that all of the Class One mechanical dept. people who knew and worked with the older stuff have retired, and the newer guys are unfamiliar with it.

Finally, I have a nice file of photos off the internet of assorted roller bearing wheelsets that have come to serious grief on Class One carriers. I thought those are always safe, and plain bearings are disasters waiting to happen....

Howard P.
Perpetual Cynic, NY

This is very depressing to see. Unfortunately Howard is right it is easy to just say no. With all the potential technicalities and liabilities involved no body wants to risk it anymore on the class ones end. Even if you were to get a loaner set of trucks without plain bearings you still have the #6, 24 and 14 brake issue in some cases. I was showing around a NS engineer at our Museum once and the exact response to our NW2's 14EL brake stand was "what the hell is that?".

Does the system work, absolutely. Does it separate the men from the boys, that's a different topic. But if there was an en-route failure would anyone on a class one know what to do, very doubtful. So I think fear of the unknown and liability does indeed play a huge roll in this dilemma, sad and frustrating to us as it may be to many of us. Looking at what it will cost them to have the main line tied up do to a mechanical failure of something they did not have to deal with in the first place its easy to fall back to the default and say no.

I've heard, many times, the 26 brake refered to as "the easy brake". as of a couple years ago CSX still had a section in one of thier brake manuals that covered 14,6 and 24's- that is how to cut them out,etc. It's not rocket surgery....just pay attention
of course, some people never learn to handle the brakes right..... I know a manager on a tourist operation who just couldn't understand that you can't just set and release the brakes constantly, he never understood why it kept taking more and more air to slow down or stop.....

The analogy I've used in the past is that dealing with the "old" railroad stuff is the equivalent of having to edit HTML or write computer code from scratch instead of just using the GUI built into Windoze, Mozilla, etc. Or conversely, it's like actually using Photoshop full edition instead of just clicking the "quick fix" or "remove red eye" buttons on a photo editing program. You actually DO have to know what you're doing with the stuff, and in fact a great many folks out there working for Class Ones simply don't, not on a basic "gut" level.

And, using the same parallel, we're the guy who shows up with two USB memory sticks at your office or home computer, and say "here, just let me install this program and upload a few files, send a few files out, and then go back and uninstall the program, OK?" Now, what would you say to this guy? Now, sure, your IT guy can vouch for him and tell you he scanned the thumb drives, but aren't you gonna try to talk him into using another computer first? Heck, I've run into resistance just trying to use nothing but a camera to upload pictures for their benefit!

Howard,

While this is very unfortunate scrapping, it can be very daunting, challenging, and expensive to move a locomotive over a class 1. I was extremely lucky that the folks at the plant where the LV 112 was stored where understanding to my time line. If I had to move fast on the interchange work it might not have happened.

So there may have been other factors involved other then just a pop decision the scrap this loco.

Just to put it in perspective, NS was good to work with however, just the shipping costs to move 112 over NS where $7650!!!!

Scott Kwiatkowski
Holy Crap, NJ

BTW, 112 has 14EL air.

Scott,

Was the 112 roller bearing when you acquired the locomotive? If not did you convert the existing trucks or have another set to use for shipment? I suspected 112 had 14EL and know you can move odd ball stuff having recently moved a locomotive with 24RL over NS. I think it depends on your inspector, I dealt with an Ex LV man that knew his stuff. NS was always very nice to work with even better then some short lines in my experience. As long as all your proverbial ducks are in a row and you follow the rules there is no problem. I also agree that the shipping rates are quite fair all considering.

The analogy that I like is big business corporate America and people that do not like to more then they are required to do or anything out of the box. If you get the right people you may be surprised what you can pull off. But sometimes those people are hard to find or simply do not exist anymore when historic equipment is concerned.

Tim Weidner

Analogyville, PA

I think the true crime is that both of their S-4's had been scrapped without even being parted out. Both engines just went into a dumpster. The past two years haven't been kind to 539 powered alcos in New England. I can count 4 that could have been made servicable and several others that could have provided parts. I wish they were saved but since it wasn't possible I wish they were parted out instead of scrapped.

$200 a ton, CT

112 had a very tired set of GE traction motored, friction bearing trucks. While all the TM’s megged OK, the decision was made to replace them. The trucks had thin wheels and damaged brake rigging.

Alan Maples knew of a good set of EMD traction motored RTO frictions that became the basis for the RB conversion. By doing share of the truck work and not putting all brand new parts in I was able to keep costs down.

You want sticker shock, call a loco recycler or a re-build shop and ask them what they want for a RTO or rebuilt set of roller bearing AAR switcher trucks.

Also, loading a loco on a flatcar and shipping is not cheap either and when its get to its destination you’ve spent a lot of money and still have a non-compliant loco with friction trucks! I ran all the numbers forwards and backwards and this was my best bang for my buck.

Having parted out this S-4 would be a good solution but then again the owner of the loco might not want to put up with folks himing and hawing about pulling the trigger and not making thing happen in a timely fashion.

Remember, these are business decisions not emotional ones.

Scott