An early departure and great light made for some great opportunities to see CN #3254 charging through the NE part of PA from Scranton, PA to Moscow. The trip ran to the Delaware River Gap but due to some track issues, a pair of Reading FP7's were substituted at Moscow.
Here's the steam portion of the trip - enjoy!
CN #3254 full plume by the former Lackawanna Station
CN #3254 under blue skies, nice plume and the resevoir at Elmhurst
/Mitch
Nice to see CNR 3254 in Service after all these years.
Thank You.
From what I have been led to believe, CN was ordered by the federal gov't to convert to diesel and do it fast. That might explain why engines were overhauled, parked, and then towed to the scrap line without ever seeing service. They were replaced before they returned to service by diesels. Management may have had other plans until they were ordered to convert to diesel, based on a feared coal strike in Pennsylvania, which was the primary fuel supplier for CN and CP locomotives in Eastern Canada.
Since CN's management and operations were dictated by politics, anything was possible. By the summer of 1960, most CN and CP steam locomotives, if not all, where gone and those that remained were running down the clock quickly.
Too bad it wasn't the other way around, with dozens of servicable American steam engines everywhere. I wonder what the ratio of surviving and even running Canadian steam is to American. Another interesting observation is the amount of Canadian steam that is running in the US compared to Canada itself.
Here's one other from the start of the day:
CN #3254 : Ready to board!
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