Diesel Days is coming!!!

It's that time of year again! The Rochester Chapter of the NRHS is holding their annual Diesel Days event! August 24th & 25th the Rochester and Genesee Valley Railroad Museum will join forces with the New York Museum of Transportation to pull off this mammoth event. Visitors will board a rail vehicle at the N.Y.M.T. on E.River Rd. to begin their journey. At the half way point of their ride they will switch to one of several locomotives that will be running that weekend.
These photos were taken last Thursday evening while preparations were being made for the event. The first shows our former US Army, Fairbanks Morse switcher number 1843 pulling a train North up the line. 1843 is the ONLY operating Fairbanks Morse switcher in New York State! She is pulling an ex-Lackawanna M.U. car, an ex- Pennsylvania Baggage/ Mail car, ex- NYC baggage/ R.P.O. the "Alonzo B. Cornell" and an ex- NYC coach built for the Empire State Express.
The second photo shows one of our MDT reefer cars that were built in East Rochester, New York at the NYC's Despatch Shops.
The last two photos show my personnal favorite at the museum. This Alco is ex-LV #211, she has had a busy career. She was built for the Pennsylvania Railroad then traded to the LV. After serving the LV she became Conrail #5487 until her rebuild where her origional Alco powerplant was removed and replaced by an EMD. After leaving Conrail she was leased to the Rochester and Southern for a while then she was donated to the R&GVRR museum.
For more information about Diesel Days or information on the museum collection you can go to their website at; http://www.rgvrrm.org/ .
Thanks for looking! Hope you can make it out!

New York Central returns to Rochester!

Sort of anyway! On the night of August 12, 2008 Amtrak's train number 49, "The Lake Shore Limited" had the former New York Central observation car the "Hickory Creek" tacked on to it's rear end. The train was only about 18 minutes late, which ain't too bad, when it made it's station stop in Rochester on it's westward sprint to Chicago.

This car is truly a beauty! At 11:18 pm the locomotives lit up the night as they decellerated into the station. The train stopped with the "Creek" just 2 car lengths short of the platform. I had to walk down to get some pics as my last two attempts were stymied by both the weather and bad timing. What a sweet ride this would be to depart from New York's Penn station and glide along the Hudson. Viewing the scenery through the comparativly huge picture windows as you head west through the Mohawk Valley then across western New York's fertile farm country. That would be the way to travel!