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From: MDelvec952 mdelvec952 AT aol DOT com
Date: Tue, 7 Sep 2010 00:55:23 -0400
Subject: DL&W F3 Volunteer -- Back-to-back at Lackawanna Railfest
"maiDEF.jpg" - image/jpeg, 2000x1420 (24bit)



Labor Day weekend brought a sight not seen in about 50 years to Scranton, two back-to-back F3s in Lackawanna's freight paint scheme. Steamtown National Historic Site and its employees put on a terrific show. Steam and diesel powered trains were running almost constantly, including a vintage freight train. In the middle of it all were the F3s, seen by everyone, the 663 facing Hoboken and the 664 facing Buffalo. The weather couldn't have been better -- mild and windy with lots of sun. ARHS and Tri-State had people there answering the multitudes of questions but mostly hearing praise and gratitude for the great job we did on these units, and for bringing this image back to life. All involved can be justly proud as these units are indeed a fine show-piece at the ultimate venue. Thanks again to everyone who had a part.

Next plans for the F3s are to stage them with a vintage freight train along the entrance road where the Reading 2124, the Grand Trunk 4-8-2 and the Rahway Valley 15 sat before asbestos abatement began. Before that happens, though, the pair will be sitting on one of the turntable radial tracks alongside the roundhouse, facing the diamond and the mall ramp. Which engine faces which direction remains to be seen. While both units are currently operable, we are still in the process of satisfying the paperwork needs of the Park. The exhibit permit is in ARHS's name, and at a recent NPS meeting the Park requires that all future dealings will be with one party, including and especially the arrangement of and the rules governing work sessions. More on that later.

The two most-often asked questions were: Will we ever restore them to Bangor & Aroostook? Why don't the stripes line up?

First, restoring them to BAR is for another generation. There is one more BAR F3 extant though not running, and it's available if a museum were willing to make a proposal for it. We bought these in 1985 to wear our favorite paint schemes, and we're doing that without apology.

As for the stripes, that's a mechanical issue. Long-time Tri-Staters will recall that later in the 1990s facing possible condemnation and fines because four of our eight wheels were barely thick enough for service, we opted to buy eight new wheels so that we would never have to replace them. ARHS bought a couple of new wheels, but not all. We spent $18k at UTC in Philadelphia to mount new, hard-steel wheels on our axles, and we hired the Winchester & Western to do the mechanical work. We received a $3500 grant from the NRHS toward this work. As part of this, our trucks and running gear were inspected and repaired as necessary. In addition, the trucks under the 663 were completely remanufactured in 1970 by the Santa Fe, so the springs and other equalizing components were new then. The trucks under the 663 came from Santa Fe CF7 2649, which was originally bluebonnet freight F7 262C. The significance of this CF7 is that it was the first one built, in February 1970. ARHS boug
ht it from the Blue Mountain & Reading to use the prime mover, main generator and electrical gear while restoring BAR 46, CNJ 56, now DL&W 664. ARHS tried to give away the hulk from 2649 after discovering it was the first-ever, but there were no takers. The hulk went to scrap with the 46's trucks under it. BAR 44's trucks are under the 664, which have the wheels and springs that came down from Maine in 1985. The result is a little less than two-inches difference on level track. ARHS is planning to put newer wheels under the 664 in time.

Once again, thanks everyone who had a part in making our appearance at Railfest happen. We still have much to do, and we even had a work party adding the porthole rings and doing other detail work during Railfest. There is still more interior work to do, and we'll be scheduling a steady stream of work sessions, mostly weekends as I ran out of vacation time and spent my last few weekdays in Scranton working without pay. If anyone can spare some weekday time, Tom Kelcec's schedule is flexible. Please let me know and we'll continue to arrange weekday work sessions.

Photos follow from Sunday at Railfest. ....Mike Del Vecchio




Tony Traglia brought the painted porthole rings to Scranton that morning, and we installed them as quickly as we could. We wrestled with the new rubber gasketing, which isn't quite correct, so we installed them without glass until we get the proper gasketing. The porthole rings help complete this image not seen in 50-ish years. External details remaining include the flagholders, the stainless steel kick plates, builders plates, trust plates and the red markings around the fuel tank gauges and emergency items.




Sunday morning saw bright sun and stark shadows. There's an interesting trait with the way the new digital cameras expose an image. Most compare the image in the finder with several stored images, rather than averaging like our SLRs from film days. Even my little Kodak camera is easily fooled by the stark compositions I like to play with -- bright items against dark shadows. I'm interested to hear how these F3s look on film, as many of the digital images are making gray look almost white and the yellow very loud. In this image below, the gray is correct.




The arrangement of a classic pusher set in Scranton, while the art-deco image direct from the streamliner era is great to see. Above the nose of 663 in the distance is Liggett's Gap, for which the railroad was first named in 1851.






Good ol' Kodachome from 1955 of in-service F3s. Looking forward to seeing ours on Kodachrome. Processing of that famous film ends forever this December. I have two rolls, one will be kept for posterity, and the other will be sent for processing on that final month. Images of 663 will be on it.







Here is Santa Fe F7 262C in the 1960s that became the first CF7 ever built, which is riding on the trucks that are currently under Lackawanna 663. Railroads swapped trucks between units often as part of routine rebuilds. Even the DL&W was swapping trucks between groups of F-units and Geeps for consistency in gear ratios among freight and passenger units. Not the Santa Fe used the same jeweled number boards, made by Rayflector, that were common among units running on the Anthracite roads.
--639a9943-978d-4196-98ff-5411f694ccc7

maiDEF.jpg

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