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NS River Street Rambler - Inquiry

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  • Member since
    September 2002
  • From: Redding CA
  • 56 posts
NS River Street Rambler - Inquiry
Posted by newusername on Thursday, May 1, 2008 7:12 PM

I would like to know if the Norfolk Southern's SW-1500 "River Street Rambler" #1733 used in Savannah GA was ever painted with the Southern Railway logo rather than the Norfolk Southern logo.  Information I have is that on June 2, 1984 the engine was re-painted into the black, green, red and blue "River Street Rambler" paint scheme and re-numbered from #2311 to #1733.  The reason I'm inquiring is that the actual merger of Norfolk & Western and the Southern Railway was June 1, 1982, and it seems strange that when this loco was repainted 2 years after the merger why would they have not applied the NS logo?

I see Athearn will be producing an HO scale model of this loco as the Southern Rlwy, and about 12 years ago they produced a special edition of this same model but with the NS logo.

  • Member since
    April 2002
  • From: Northern Florida
  • 1,429 posts
Posted by SALfan on Tuesday, May 6, 2008 3:30 PM
 newusername wrote:

I would like to know if the Norfolk Southern's SW-1500 "River Street Rambler" #1733 used in Savannah GA was ever painted with the Southern Railway logo rather than the Norfolk Southern logo.  Information I have is that on June 2, 1984 the engine was re-painted into the black, green, red and blue "River Street Rambler" paint scheme and re-numbered from #2311 to #1733.  The reason I'm inquiring is that the actual merger of Norfolk & Western and the Southern Railway was June 1, 1982, and it seems strange that when this loco was repainted 2 years after the merger why would they have not applied the NS logo?

I see Athearn will be producing an HO scale model of this loco as the Southern Rlwy, and about 12 years ago they produced a special edition of this same model but with the NS logo.

I'm 99% sure that it did carry the SR logo.  I saw it in the late 70's, before the merger was even considered, so it would make sense that it had the SR logo then.  I just can't specifically remember whether it had the logo or not.  As I recall it was painted in a Bicentennial theme, or a scheme containing large amounts of blue, which would not have been normal for a Southern switcher then AFAIK.  My memory is foggy because of the amount of alcohol in my bloodstream the afternoon/evening I saw it - I was in college at the time, and this was an evening on River Street.

  • Member since
    February 2019
  • 1 posts
Posted by artwhkg on Thursday, February 14, 2019 8:14 PM
I lived in Savannah from 1974 to 1978. After the Bicentennial, the Rambler was painted with the Southern Logo. It used to play Music as it switched the Sugar Mills just past River Street. I actually justed to ride it up and down River Street in 1978.
  • Member since
    December 2004
  • 707 posts
Posted by tdmidget on Friday, February 15, 2019 9:06 PM

No "sugar mills" for the rambler. The sugar refinery is in Port Wentworth several miles upstream. The Rambler came down River Street to service Southern Bulk Terminal,Southern Phosphate, American Cyanamid and several others. The River Street track is no longer in service. NS and CSX have a short line switching everything beast of Ocean Terminal.

 

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