CT Summer 2015:The way it was-NYC 1302

[CPM500]

Wonderful tale of a long gone locomotive class on the NYC. Credit the advanced (for the time) GE Amplidyne control system and the GE 752 motors for their ability to walk up the grades of the B&A without slip.

In what can only be viewed as serendipity, the Long Island  Rail Road had a need for such locomotives to serve as 'power cars' on their diesel service. A New York State Bond Issue of 1971 had provided funds to convert surplus MU cars to locomotive hauled push-pull coaches.

Retired FA units formed the basis of the power cars, providing both an engineers' control station and a source of 650VDC to power the coaches auxiliaries. Although the idea may have come from the fertile mind of Alco Service Mgr. C.G. MacDermot, it fell to GE to actually execute the concept at their North Bergen (NJ) Service Shop.

Numbered 600 in order to place it with the (6) ex L&N FA-2 powers, the former 1302 had a long second career in LIRR service. Subsequently, it was sold to the WNYRHS near Buffalo and survives to this day.

CPM500

 

 

 

[wabash2800]

Thanks for the info, I thought that it survived but wasn't sure. I think I recall seeing a photo of the 1302 in Railroad Model Craftsman in the early 1970s when RMC readers were sending in photos to the editor of rare EMD and Alco Fs still in service. At about the same time, someone sent in photos of a brace of Alco Fs at Lowell, Massachusetts, I belive, still in New Haven paint. A subsequent photo had the same Alcos in shiny PC black with "Ghetto Grills" on the windshields.

I sure wish one of the New Haven DL109s had been saved out of the bone yard.

Victor A. Baird

Estwhile Publications

Fort Wayne, Indiana