NYC RS-11 pulling a passenger train

[BLS53]

I was watching a movie from 1967, "Valley of the Dolls", where one of the characters commutes from rural Massachusetts to New York City. The train is shown at several points in the film. It's powered by what appears to be an Alco RS-11. There's about 5 coaches of the smooth side variety, in the two tone scheme of NYC passenger trains of the era. The Alco is solid black. Now, I guess it's possible the producers rented this consist from the NYC to do some run bys for filming, but did the NYC ever use Alco road switchers to pull passenger trains?

[K4sPRR]

Rail scenes in the Valley of the Dolls were done on the NYC Harlem Division in Westchester County NY.  They used ALCo RS-3's in passenger service, I do not believe they used the RS 11 for such. 

An on line still scene from the movie shows an RS-3.

[daveklepper]

Yes, the RS-3s were the regular power for NY-Brewster North and even NY - Chatham trains north of White Plains North Station until after the New Haven was folded into PC, when they repleaced by FL-9s running through to GCT. The RS#'s had replaced the Pacifics and a few Ten-Wheelers in this service. They were also the last power on the Putnam, both freight and passenger.

[Overmod]

I took his question to mean 'notch-nose Alco road switchers' (or the equivalent) as it's well established that NYC used RS3s (and their Lima near-lookalikes) on a number of commuter services.

The RS-11s were delivered in solid black (I think the first units that were new in that scheme), with the 'script' herald made (in)famous on the Xplorer, starting in mid-1957.  There were nine of them, originally 8000-8008 but renumbered into the 7600s in 1966, so you can check the number to get an idea of when the actual filming took place.  I do not know where they normally ran these, or whether they were ordered with the intent of using them on a commuter service that was subsequently 'not proceeded with' or cancelled. 

This is right around the time the PRR was discovering the joys of Alco second-generation power on commuter trains (albeit with 2400hp six-motor units, the logical 12-to-16-cylinder step up from the DL-701) and there the level of ROI (or willingness for public agencies to subsidize what was essentially a public benefit) was not sufficient.  These would have been better than RS3s for commuter service in a number of respects, perhaps 'best' on the West Shore service that wound up cancelled in 1959.

[rcdrye]

New York Central's RS11s were classed ARS-18, which means that they were not passenger equipped.  NYC's 1500 and up HP passenger lcomotives included RS3s (various ARSP- classes), GP7s (ERSP- ) and even Baldwins (BRSP- ).  The RS11's contemporary GP9s were also freight-only.

New Haven had passenger RS11s, as well as GP9s, H16-44s and RS3s.  Nickel Plate had a pair of RS36s that used the same carbody the RS11 used.

[Overmod]

rcdrye

New York Central's RS11s were classed ARS-18, which means that they were not passenger equipped.

They were only ARS-18 after 1966, which I thought *might* have meant any steam generators were removed around that time, or implicit in the reclassification as given.  They were built as DRS-10A, with that "A" quite possibly indicating some variants of the class that were important enough to put in the class number but not important enough to merit a separate class number were present or anticipated. 

The fact that NYC provided this locomotive as the 'model' for filming a passenger train ought to be interesting.  I'm not enough of a green-team guy to be able to say why, except it might have been a sharp-looking unit that could be more easily spared from 'other duties'.

[BLS53]

Seems it was probably a RS-3. It just looked bulkier than what I remember a -3 looked life. This is about a 5 second scene, at a distance, from atop a hill. I knew it was an Alco of some sort.

[Overmod]

Went back and actually pulled up Valley of the Dolls on YouTube -- all the scenes I saw in the first half appeared to be done with boiler-equipped RS3s, except the one helicopter shot of the train entering the Park Avenue tunnel, which I invite comments on (it may be a New Haven locomotive and train).

I had no idea some of those trains ran that fast.

[daveklepper]

metrMetro North runs fast today.