Got some info to pass along. Dakota Southern RR is planning to scrap their locomotive fleet, coming up before long. They have a high nose Alco C420 and a S3; original high-nose ex MILW SD7s and SD9; and GE 70 tonners. I think they have a lot of spare parts also.

Info came from someone associated with the railroad. DSRC lost their line lease and has to remove all their equipment. I wanted to get this info out to a preservation site in hopes someone out there would be interested. If you have a serious inquiry, let me know. I was asked to pass along owner info only for serious inquires.

DSRC 213 is one of a number of former LIRR C420s; a number rapidly diminishing...

What kind of time frame? Tomorrow?
Any idea what prices they want?

Don't they have an ex-UP DD40? I believe I saw one there many years ago - for parts?

What happened? I thought they had recently received some track improvements and ag business.

I think Watco purchased the line earlier this year

The Centennial should probably be alright. Funds are supposedly being raised for it to move to a museum in Nebraska. As for the other equipment, I wouldn’t know.

DSRC was only leasing, and Watco's Ringneck & Western is the new operator of the line. I have not heard anything official on timing for equipment to be removed, but the railroad guys heard August time frame. Prices will be whatever is negotiated with the DSRC owner. This is 'scrapped unless buyer is found' deal.

Hard to move. I wonder how many of them we need to preserve, a marginally successful model only UP bought, and out of 47 built, 13 of them still around, including the operational one in UP's fleet, but also another derelict one without engines or generators in Fremont NE.

Sorry to hear about this. After a few phone calls with their diesel mechanic, I headed out there in late 2019. The bad fortune started with him being called away to work on other power out of state when I was there & then being immersed in some of the thickest fog I'd ever experienced in my life. I got an okay from a track foreman to look around the yard, but took not one photo owing to the dark day.

I learned about this interesting operation a few years too late. That's the way it goes sometimes. I hope that some of the stuff is saved, particularly the Alco S-3 as it is a former logging locomotive if my memory is correct.

I've heard from some contacts of mine in the area Mike Williams/Midwest Pacific has until 1 August to clear all of their equipment from the property. That should be the time frame. Williams is sending two of its locomotives elsewhere, the former McCloud River SD38 #37 and a GP40 painted for the Bountiful Grain & Craig Mountain, both as of a week or two ago were sitting in Mitchell awaiting paperwork to be sorted out. The SD38 at least now carries St. Maries River Railroad reporting marks. If anyone knows where these are heading, I'd be interested. Watco bought a few other locomotives DSRC had on the line at the end, but the rest is up for scrap.

And yes, that S-3 has quite a history. Originally built 1952 for Brooks-Scanlon Lumber Company of Bend, Oregon; sold 1956 to Oregon & Northwestern Railroad, Hines, Oregon; sold 1968 to City of Prineville Railway, Prineville, Oregon; sold in the early 1980s to the Kewash Railroad, Keota, Iowa; and then to Dakota Southern. DSRC initially bought it for use on the Sisseton Southern, they had been using the 70-tonners on that operation and needed something with a bit more guts, but right after they bought it the line's owners changed operators and the Alco went to Chamberlain instead, where it's been ever since.

And what people have wrote here is correct, the State of South Dakota decided a year or two ago to sell its many hundreds of miles of rail lines. Watco submitted the winning bid on that railroad, though I've heard Williams has some form of a minority stake in the Ringneck & Western.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV

I hope they find a home for the Alco S3.
See that engine in the 1950s and 2018:

The C420 is really a museum piece and deserves some kind of preservation effort. What is the reason she's sat on deadline for so long, and what precisely is wrong with her?

So I dealt on the 213 (the C420) about 5 years ago for a potential shortline I was working with. At the time, the DSRC guys told me they parked the 213 with a burned TM. They started work on replacing it, but were told to stand down by the line's current owner, who is all EMD all the time. At that time, there was nothing else wrong with it, again according to the guys on the RR. It also was supposedly interchange ready with good wheels.

The shortline I was working with suddenly decided to stand down, and I walked away from the deal. I did not get to the point of doing an on-site inspection, so cannot attest personally to actual condition.

There has been some interest in the 213. While active on DSRC, its trucks were changed out to standard Alco freight gearing, replacing the Long Island's passenger gearing. The high short hood still contains a disabled steam generator complete with asbestos lagging on the steam lines. Although the locomotive is equipped with alignment control draft gear, one coupler was replaced with a non-alignment control shank type as a result of a being hit by a string of runaway cars while under prior ownership at a defunct ammunition plant in Provo, SD. There was a spare alignment control coupler, but it may have been consigned to scrap as Mr. Williams has a cutter crew at work. The toilet, wedged in with the steam generator, does not meet current FRA standards. The unit retains its pressurized engine compartment powered by a hydraulic powered fan directly above the main generator. Some of the electrical cabinet hardware was stripped by Mr. Williams' people as replacements for equivalent parts on some GE's used elsewhere. I'm reliably informed the wiring to the removed relays was cut for convenience rather than unbolted.

The S-3 has a grounded main generator. Fairly unusual for a 660 hp switcher, it was equipped with MU since it normally worked paired with a sister for its first owner.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Williams will do with the remaining EMDs. He retains a lease on the Napa-Platte line to the south where DSRC got its start in 1985. The first twenty miles remains intact and part of it is used for car storage. He also owns under a different company a car storage facility now served by RWRR. He has some open track there and could move equipment there for dismantling.

Already cut up are two Plasser-American model PSPT (Plasser Switch and Production Tamper) which were able to line and surface track to within 3/32". Assembled in 1985, the machines' electronics have been superseded and were never used by Mr. Williams after he and his wife bought DSRC on Oct. 1, 2009. Fourteen were sold in North America. Also cut up are two chase tampers that were sold in tandem with the PSPTs. Having identical tamping units but no brains, the lead machine would line/surface and tamp every third tie, followed by the chase machine which merely tamped. Only five were sold in North America.

As this is written, the cutters are nearing completion on cutting up the first of two Jordan spreaders. Built in 1928 as s/n 719 for the Missouri Pacific, it was an early type A (also known as a Model 3. It was featured in a Trains magazine article when it was sent back to Ludington to be upgraded with the cabin installed ahead of the main posts and the newer "bat-wing" vertical snowplow in front. The second spreader, #1028 (its serial number) is a Model 2-180, aka Standard Model built for the NP. It was bought out of an Aberdeen, SD scrap yard in 1986.

Under its first owners, DSRC's policy was "we buy it second-hand if we can't buy it third hand". Over the years, attending railroad surplus auctions, DSRC acquired a fair inventory of parts at scrap metal prices. One thing DSRC never acquired was an enginehouse. The "shop" next to the last passenger station built in South Dakota (1953) in Chamberlain had unlimited overhead clearance and excellent lighting when the sun was shining. Parts were inventoried and shelved in two boxcars, aka Walmart and K-mart, next to the station.

Watco, owner of Ringneck & Western, isn't fond of alfresco shops and intends to build one on property they have acquired in Plankinton, SD.

July 13, 2021 Update on ex-MILW SD7L 512, nee-2212, and ex-SP SD9 4427.

I learned yesterday that these two active units have been purchased by Watco or more likely, its subsidiary, Webb Asset Management (WAMX). 512 was DSRC's only power in 1985/86.

On Saturday, July 10, 2021, the long time storage boxcars next to the Chamberlain depot, informally named Walmart & K-Mart, were lifted off their trucks and hauled off.

Thanks Alex for the informative post.

And one note on the pictures of the S-3 posted, they are not the same machine. The photo of the Brooks-Scanlon engine is the #101, the other Alco B-S bought. That photo is likely lifted from one of my websites, I’m not aware of it being anywhere else online. Jerry Lamper collection. Alco’s intent when built was the two switchers would run together most of the time, that didn’t pan out for various reasons and they spent most of their four years in Bend operating as single units. Oregon & Northwestern did operate them together on occasion when they filled in to run the main line when their AS-616 #1 wasn’t available, but they spent much of their time on the Edward Hines logging railroad out of Seneca, Oregon. ONW sold the 101 to Longview Fiber after buying a second AS-616 in 1964, the 102 was the principal logging railroad engine up to the point it closed around early 1968, at which time they sold it to the City of Prineville, where it regularly operated in mu with COP’s other two Alco switchers.

Edited to add that the 101 survives in the Battle Ground, Yacolt & Chelatchie Prairie Railroad Association collection near Yacolt, WA.

Jeff Moore
Elko, NV