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PHOTOS: Last Week

Posted by kp5308 on Sat Apr 30 15:35:16 2016

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Saturday April 23rd on the Allentown & Auburn. Pennsy gas car #4666 (actually repowered by the PRR with a 425HP Hamilton V8 diesel) was fired up & ran on a short straight section of track near the Topton shop area:


The Brill arrived from the Black River & Western on its own wheels over NS on April 17th. Shown here being dropped off for the ALLN. Photo by Jim Schlegel:


The privately owned car is the last of the 6 ordered in 1930. It runs a lot better than it looks. For more on the career of #4666 click HERE :



Eric letters the Reading HTh hopper brought in from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania:


Most of the rest of the shop force was at work on the Jersey Central coach inside the building:


Mike Bast, ALLN operations president informed me that a PRR X29 boxcar, also from the RRM of PA was being delivered via truck to the Kutztown end:


Complete with correct trucks:


Before manning the Reading Railroad Heritage Museum on Sunday Kevin & I dropped by Port Clinton & checked on the progress of the restoration of ex-Reading T1 4-8-4 #2102 by Reading & Northern shop forces. Nothing unusual has been found so far:


Firebox work is the main focus at this point. Steam up should be around this time next year:



While we on museum duty the 4666 ran a few round trips on ALLN & was found to run hot & have a cranky fuel pump. Two Jim Schlegel shots depict the car passing the recently completed picnic grove at Hinterleiter:


And crossing Main St. in Kutztown:


Next to arrive at Topton will be this unlettered & unnumbered orange Alco S2. It left its home in Indiana on CSX on the 9th & was deposited in Reading Yard by NS on Friday the 29th. This switcher is the last surviving diesel from the Lehigh and New England, delivered as #611 in 1948. It ended up at Emporia Grain & had been replaced by newer power several years ago but was kept & fired up from time to time "just because". It was sold for scrap last year but the scrapper knew the historical pedigree of the engine & worked with the Lehigh Valley Chapter NRHS until funds were raised to purchase & move it. I understand it needs minor mechanical work to return it to service. It will be painted in the as delivered L&NE black and white:


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Re: PHOTOS: Last Week

Posted by chud1 on Sat Apr 30 15:42:27 2016, in response to PHOTOS: Last Week, posted by kp5308 on Sat Apr 30 15:35:16 2016.

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5 drooling stars out of 5 drooling stars for these pictures and narration.
chud1.
:).....

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Re: PHOTOS: Last Week

Posted by chuchubob on Sat Apr 30 17:13:33 2016, in response to PHOTOS: Last Week, posted by kp5308 on Sat Apr 30 15:35:16 2016.

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(actually repowered by the PRR with a 425HP Hamilton V8 diesel)

After a tragic fire, gasoline powered doodlebugs were forced to convert to diesel. The law, however, specified standard gauge gas-electrics, which is why the East Broad Top three-foot gauge M1 is still gasoline powered with its original engine.

Great pix, as usual, Kev.

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Re: PHOTOS: Last Week

Posted by kp5308 on Sun May 1 08:53:58 2016, in response to PHOTOS: Last Week, posted by kp5308 on Sat Apr 30 15:35:16 2016.

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Since I can't get the link to work I'll post the text of an excellent article Don Smith wrote & posted on Train Web/Old Time Trains a bunch of years ago. Reading through it disclosed an error in my original post about the Hamilton repowereing:

In the twilight of that somnolent season when internal-combustion power was always a bridesmaid to railroading, never a bride, the Pennsylvania Railroad issued order 22848 under date of January 20, 1930, to the J. G. Brill Company of Philadelphia for five Brill Model 660's, PRR Class GEG415 gas-electric motor cars, Nos. 4666-4670. The survivor, 4666, was delivered on June 20 of that year. The 139,400 pound, 75-foot, 66-passenger baggage passenger combine, powered by a 415 h.p. Hall-Scott gasoline engine, was capable of pulling four 50-ton trailers (reducing top speed from 60 to 43 mph on level track), which could be heated by its oil-fired Petersmith-Otis boiler. One of 54 gas-electrics ordered for U.S. service in 1930, the 4666 raised Pennsy's ownership of such cars to 65. One of its first assignments was local passenger service between Baltimore and Parkton, Md., 28 miles.

In 1942 the Pennsy repowered the 4666 with a new inline, 4-cycle, 6-cylinder Hamilton diesel rated at 425 h.p. at 950 rpm. The car was then reclassified OAG415. At that time the railcar assumed its present operating characteristics: 17,000 pounds maximum tractive force, 5100 pounds continuous tractive force, maximum speed 60 mph. As re-engined, 4666 weighs a total of 142,000 pounds, with 93,400 pounds on the front power truck and 48,600 pounds on the trailing truck. All wheels are 36 inch diameter.
No. 4666 operated in New Jersey for several years after World War 11, with monthly inspections and repairs being handled at Morrisville, Pa. The car closed out local passenger service between Trenton and Red Bank, N.J., on May 29, 1962. Its last revenue run on the Pennsylvania closed passenger service between Camden and Trenton on June 28, 1963. The car was deadheaded to Wilmington, Del., that day and placed in storage.

No. 4666 was sold on October 6, 1965, to the Penn View Mountain Railroad in Blairsville, Pa., but never operated by that owner. On June 1, 1967, Raymond L. Kennedy of Toronto purchased the car, which was moved dead to the Arcade & Attica Railroad in western New York state. Kennedy and his Old Times Trains partners did not get its two engines running, and the car never entered service on A. Instead, he sold the 4666 on July 13, 1971, to the Historical Equipment Association, which stored it at New Hope, Pa., on the New Hope & Ivyland. The Association's Hugh Jenkins, a Reading engineer, together with Lester V. Rockafellow and Fred Mensing, restored the two powerplants of the 4666, and subsequently the car was placed in passenger service by NH.

In April 1975, No. 4666 was moved under its power from New Hope to Ringoes, N.J., over the Reading and Pennsylvania via Morrisville, Pa., and Trenton and Lambertville, N.J., to the Black River & Western, which took title to the car December 26, 1978.
Item: An older (1925) near-sister, twin-engined Brill 4662, works in the employ of Historic Red Clay Valley's Wilmington & Western.
The 4666 is a bidirectional creature, its controls of throttle, reverse, generator and diesel engine controls, air brakes, horn, bell, sanders, and lights being located at each end. The design of the electrical transmission requires an auxiliary engine, currently a constant-speed, 2400 rpm, 30 h.p., 4-cylinder, 4-cycle Waukesha Model 180 located in the engineroom. The Waukesha powers a 220-amp, 40-volt auxiliary generator which, in turn, provides power for battery charging, some control circuits, lighting, the 32-volt air compressor, and excitation for the main generator; also a small 12-volt D.C. generator which charges the 12-volt battery used for starting it. In other words, the 4666 is going nowhere without its auxiliary engine.

On to the big Hamilton. It cranks in much the same manner as an automobile engine, except that because of its size, two starting motors, fed by the 32-volt battery system, are needed. The engine is directly connected to a self ventilated 600-volt DC General Electric DT-524 generator, rebuilt by Westinghouse in April 1958. Its rating is 336 kw, with a continuous rating of 560 amps and a 1-hour rating of 650 amps. The main generator supplies electricity to the car's two GE Model 710-A 600 volt DC, 220 h.p. traction motors, one mounted on each axle of the power truck through single-reduction gears with 20 teeth on the motor pinion and 55 teeth on the axle gear. The motors have a continuous rating of 220 amps and a 1/2-hour rating of 340 amps.

Both diesel engines operate on No. 2 fuel oil, carried in two 200-gallon tanks. In a typical 5-hour, 50-mile tourist day, both engines consume under 30 gallons. A 60-gallon lube oil change of detergent SAE 40 commonly lasts a season.

The air brake system employs Westinghouse AML equipment, with a M-31c engineman's valve and an L-3 triple valve. There are two 16x72-inch air reservoirs; the brake cylinder is 18x32 inch. Air for brakes, horns, pneumatically-operated bells, and other controls is supplied by two compressors, one powered by the auxiliary engine's 32-volt generator and the other by the main 600-volt generator.
As delivered by Brill, the 4666 was fitted with Union Switch & Signal continuous inductive cab signals in both cabs. When the car passed out of PRR ownership, the cab signalling equipment was removed, but the indicator lights remain in the cab and can be lit, but just for show. They serve no function. Also, in 1958 a supplementary emergency brake system was added at Morrisville Shops to meet Jersey Central requirements for operation over the New York & Long Branch, but this feature, too, has been disconnected long since.


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Re: PHOTOS: Last Week

Posted by kp5308 on Sun May 1 09:01:13 2016, in response to Re: PHOTOS: Last Week, posted by chuchubob on Sat Apr 30 17:13:33 2016.

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Thanks Bob! Hope to see you and the South Jersey Gang at the daytime WJC meeting on the 14th :o)

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Re: PHOTOS: Last Week

Posted by b/p rupture on Wed May 4 02:26:47 2016, in response to Re: PHOTOS: Last Week, posted by kp5308 on Sun May 1 08:53:58 2016.

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Since I can't get the link to work I'll post the text of an excellent article Don Smith wrote & posted on Train Web/Old Time Trains a bunch of years ago.

Link fixed: http://www.trainweb.org/oldtimetrains/pennsylvania.html, complete with some photos, (although the click to enlarge links in the article don't work).

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