What is the rarest locomotive, rail car, or any other peice of equipment you've seen??

[Anonymous]

I think my rarest sighting was an ALCo. S-6. Second was a BNSF GP60B.

[overall]

Mine would be a steam driven pile driver used by the Illinois Central to repair wooden trestles around Clarksville, Tennessee in the early seventies. They had taken over the Western Division of the old Tennessee Central that ran from Hopkinsville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee. There were about six or eight long wooden trestles around Clarksville.

George

[espeefoamer]

The rarest piece of equipment I ever saw were two Alcohaulics.There were only three built.I got a picture of them from a passing train. They were in storage at Roseville.At the same time I also saw the KM camera car.[:)]

[Anonymous]

I guess any one-of-a-kinder would rate. Around 1950 I saw NP A-1 2626, the "Timken Roller Bearing engine" stop at Vancouver, Washington, with pool train 408 enroute from Seattle to Portland. It made its last run on a fan trip in 1957, then went to the scrap yard.

[daveklepper]

The Seaboard's 1/2of an E5/6, a shovel-noser-baggage that powered the Sarasota connection (or was it Naples?) for the Silver Meteor in Florida, 1959. Having lunch in a restaurant in La Grange, IL in the summer of 1952 on the north side of the Burlington main near the Stone Avenue Station and having my jaw drop as I saw a 2-6-2, a genuine Prarie, on a local freight (usually using a GP-7 or a Q2 2-8-2 at the time). The blue Wayne bodied school bus on flanged wheels used by the Naragansett Pier Railroad (NP to the NEC at Kingston, RI) in 1950. A genuine Elevated Railroad cable car. One of the original Brooklyn Bridge gate cars, originally used with cable power before steam, in Iowa in 1952 on the Mason City and Clear Lake electric freight line, just sitting in the yard. (What in __ did they ever use the thing for? Passenger service behind a steeple-cab loco?) Riding the last three-phase AC electric with two overhead wires (last as far as I know) from Sondrio to Tirano in northern Italy. Trains once had an article on the Italian dual-wire three-phase, wish I had it with me. I think it is all dc 3000v today with just one wire instead of two. Finally a genuine Garratt at the Pretoria enginehouse, South Africa, 1985, in for repairs from Zimbabmei/Rhodesia.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

I would start with C&IM's RS1325's, only two were built. Then comes ATSF H12-44TS, only three built. Not rare but definitely exotic are export models: GT22CW and JT42CWR which were built by EMD and an RS8 from Alco. Slugs are a world unto themselves since most of them are rebuilt from something else.

I'm not sure if this would count as a rarity but I would also submit for your consideration, a four-wheel scale test car, properly located just ahead of the caboose.

[JoeKoh]

The winnebago on rails(or the csx inspection car!!!!)
stay safe
Joe

[bnsfkline]

My favorite sighting is me strangling John for being a topic theif.....Bad boy, no ALCo for you, go sit in that BN yard over there!

[#wstupid] [banghead]]

[CShaveRR]

I have a few instances of seeing freight cars of companies who own only a few, or even only one, car. Not necessarily the car type that is rare, but certainly the paint!

In my youth, I was on intimate terms (i.e., cab rides) with GTW's two RS-1s, which were built years after any other domestic units of that model. And--same town, a few years earlier--the most common engines around were C&O BL2s! I didn't find out how rare those were until about four months before they were gone.

[Supermicha]

There are so many rare engines whcih are rare. I have seen the german class 156 electric (4 were built), class 12X (1), class 242 diesel (6). In Germayn were many classes, where only one engine was builtt this would be a very long list.

Micha

[Anonymous]

I did not see this in person but in our local newspaper. They have a section called, "Arkansas Postcard" where they show an old postcard about life in Arkansas years ago. This one postcard showed a railtricycle. It had two wheels on one rail and a third wheel on the oposite rail. There was a seat and one man was setting on it. I don't remember if it could hold another man or not. I will have to dig it out and see. I did cut it out of the paper and put it in a scrapebook somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Mine was a CP rail freight car, still in Script type font. (1953+)

[cbq9911a]

The Baldwin DT-6-6-2000 (MN&S 21) and the E5A (CB&Q 9911A) at the Illinois Railway Museum. I've ridden the cab of both.

[mudchicken]

San Luis Valley Southern D-500 The ultimate "critter"

[kenneo]

An SP "Valley Mallet" 2-6-0 wheel arrangement. Could pull on the flat what it took an AC class (2-8-8-4 and 4-8-8-2 Cab Forward.) in the mountains.

And, in 1967, riding behind a DB 2-6-2T from Hannover to Wolfsburg, a regular train in regular service. Wolfsburg station was (partly) in East Germany.

Riding a Class 50 2-10-0 along the Rhein.

Seeing 3 2-10-0's (Class 43 and Class 50) lifting a coal train up the Mosel.

[PNWRMNM]

An Alco HH660 in a gravel pit at Stelicom (spelling probably not correct) WA

[rogerhensley]

I'll preface my entry by saying, the rarest still in operation. It is Emporia Grain's Alco S2 switcher that was originally the Lehigh & New England 611. It was the first of 6 Alco S2 switchers acquired by the LNE. (The LNE was a small, eastern Pennsylvania, coal-hauling railroad that was abandoned in 1961) This Alco S2 may well be the only diesel on the LNE roster that remains in existence.

You can find a brief writ up and pictures of it today and in better days on the NYC Michigan Division page of the RRsofMadCty at: http://madisonrails.railfan.net/mi_div_2.html

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by espeefoamer

The rarest piece of equipment I ever saw were two Alcohaulics.There were only three built.I got a picture of them from a passing train. They were in storage at Roseville.At the same time I also saw the KM camera car.[:)]

I have a brass model and a pic of the SP 9802 which was an ALCo DH-643 taken at Roseville in Oct. 1971. and the KM is in storage at the CRSM.

[TH&B]

I suppose the rarest thing I've seen is the TH&B steam generater car in the 80's wich is made from a coal tender for a NYC Hudson (didn't know that at the time but it looked interesting), possibly the only part of a NYC Hudson left on the rails.

[Anonymous]

I BELIVIE IT WAS A DM&IR SD18 WHEN I WAS A KID

[Anonymous]

My rarest locomotive that I had ever seen was if I remember right , A Delaware & Hudson Shark nose , Quite a few years ago the SOO LINE was transporting the unit for some place . It was parked on a spur track next to the Ladysmith Wi. station with SOO power hooked onto it . I was told that this was one of only two left in the world. I wi***hat I had taken pictures when I was a youngster back then.

[METRO]

I have seen quite a few rares for someone my age (Born durring the first Regan Administration) but the very rarest would have to be the rusty Alco PA-1 I saw railfaning in Mexico. After that it would be an only slightly modified GP-7 that I saw on a shortline siding in Ohio, and the NYC Subway fare collection train.

The rarest car I have ever seen was an abandoned old riveted tank car in western New York, around Dunkirk. The bottom of the car had holes rusted out and there was a large patch with no vegitation around the holes, which makes me wonder what the car was, at one point, containing.

[SSW9389]

When I first started railfaning 1969-70 I saw the hulk of the very last DL109 out in the weeds past South Station is Boston.

Saw one of the RS1325s in Powerton, Illinois in 1980.

[Anonymous]

I think that an ALCo-GE-IR 100ton 600hp box cab at the Portola RR Museum would have to be the rarest I have ever seen

[Anonymous]

I think mine would have to be, the big 4-4-0 that first topped the 100mph now in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.

[Anonymous]

Recently I saw a CB&Q (yes Chicago, Burlington & Quincy , the real deal, no patches) and FRISCO (unpatched) hoppers in BNSF iron ore service. Both cars were unaltered; original numbers, markings and all. I consider this a rare find in my book, would you all?

[BR60103]

The most unusual piece that I actually rode was one of the power cars for the Roger Williams (?), the B&M RDC-type train with the F-unit noses. On a train out of Boston to Springfield, back in 1973 or 4.

[Anonymous]

I have seen a number of one of's like the GM10 and GM6. I also count the B&O GP40 painted in gold as the GM50 in honor of the 50th year of EMC/EMD. I also saw the Amtrak LRC (being hauled by a F40 because it broke down). But what I hold as my rarest sighting was the remains of a standard gauge 0-4-0T in Damascus Virginia that the owners had removed some of the firebox and installed an old chevy engine and manual transmission connected to the rear axle. Yes a steam engine with a stick shift and a clutch!!! When I saw it 25 years ago it had not run in at least 10 years. I doubt it is still there, but I wonder.

[wcfan4ever]

QUOTE: Originally posted by stokerk

My rarest locomotive that I had ever seen was if I remember right , A Delaware & Hudson Shark nose , Quite a few years ago the SOO LINE was transporting the unit for some place . It was parked on a spur track next to the Ladysmith Wi. station with SOO power hooked onto it . I was told that this was one of only two left in the world. I wi***hat I had taken pictures when I was a youngster back then.

The locomotive you are talking about I beleive is sitting on Escanaba & Lake Superior out of public viewing. My rarest sighting was the Union Pacific United Way #3300 in Bulter, WI.

[starwardude]

I'd have to say the 2 and only cab units of the Roger Wiliams,owned by the New Haven RR, which is where br60103 possibly made a mistake. It ran between NYC and Boston. I saw them @ the Danbury RR Museum. Also there is the only ex-NH Mack Railbus in a museum in the US. @ others still exist , with one trundling around in the NYC subway system and the other on a railroad in Spain.[{(-_-)}]