New York Central RR Alco S-4 #8598

Greetings All,

In November I was looking for non EMD switcher for assignment to Bedford Park Yard to work the industries and the Ford Motor Company plant located there. I wanted to add a more powerful unit to alternate with the Penn Central GE 44 Tonner that I stationed there in September. I came across a very reasonably priced Bachmann NYC Alco S-4 numbered 8598 at modeltrainstuff.com. The new S-4 is in a later NYC paint scheme with the large NYC oval on the cab side which fits nicely with my time period of late NYC early PC.

Here's a roster shot from my Terminal Yard.  

The S-4 is a turbo charged 1,000HP switcher locomotive built by Alco and Canadian licensee Montreal Locomotive Works beginning in 1950 and closely resembles the previous S-2 model. The S-4 was popular and when production ended in 1961 Alco had sold a total of 782 units. The New York Central purchased 43 S-4s in 1952 classified DES-11K. Here is a picture of the 8598 in 1957.

As is our tradition with these late year purchases I gave it to my wife to wrap for me for Christmas. A few days after Christmas the S-4 and a pair of 86' boxcars from Santa have made it to the basement to pose for pictures before entering service. 

 The S-4 on it's maiden run at Terminal Yard

 UGH...

A dubious way for the S-4 to join the fleet!! The unit is getting lube and oil as it was bone dry. It appears to have sat in its box for about five years prior to my opening it. 

The S-4 was a pain in the neck to deal with and in hindsight I should have just boxed it up and returned it before getting involved with the repairs. When removing the control board some of the wires broke off. When re-attaching them with the factory clips the clips cut the wires. Out came the soldering iron!

While I had the engine apart I figured this would be a good time to add some Kadee couplers. I was surprised to learn that the Kadee #5 and the Kadee whisker style #148 did not fit. The coupler boxes are tight to keep the EZ mates from drooping which is good. However they are too tight to allow the Kadee couplers to move freely. I'll use the EZ mates going forward and if they fail I'll deal with that then.

Here's 1/87th scale AT JOE complaining to Kar Knocker that the Kadees don't fit!

Once the S-4 was put back together I gave it another  run.

It ran better and over several more days of it's break in period it quieted considerably. 1/87th scale AT JOE now wearing his Alco Joe moniker assures conductor John the engine will be fine as he readies to take this hot car of auto parts to the Bedford Park Ford plant.

Some track workers catch the S-4 coming out of Terminal Yard

Now at Bedford Park Alco Joe prepares to work the Ford Plant 

Pulling automobile cars from an earlier era out of the Ford Plant. The 50' cars were a pleasure to deal with!

Shoving the 86' boxcar into place. The GE 44 tonner would struggle with this. The S-4 handles it easily.

 Highballing back to Terminal Yard

 This four car consist was no problem for the S-4

It sailed up the grade back to Terminal Yard with ease.

Continued testing of the S-4 revealed it had a limit of about twelve 50' cars for getting up the grade to Terminal Yard which was pretty good for this little engine.

The 1:1 NYC 8598 would enter the Penn Central roster as PC #9729 and work out of Buffalo NY. The PC 9729 received a pretty shabby paint job though. The last report from PC-Railfan on page 15 has the 9729 still assigned to Buffalo in revenue service in April 1975.  

PC 9729 would make it to the Conrail roster in 1976 retaining the 9729 number. I lost track of it after that but it does not appear on the CR 1980 roster.

This S-4 certainly did not enter the fleet as planned but as of this writing it's working out pretty well. I did send in my warranty registration card to Bachmann in case there are any further issues. 

Coming Soon!

Later today the N.Y.C.T.L. will be participating in a two layout  P.C.C.M. 55  Unit Coal Train Op that will start this afternoon on the K.P.D.  I plan to post my installment on Monday the 7th.


Per a reader's request I have started to diagram the layout for posting along with pictures to help with my limited artistic ability.

 See ya Soon!

Thanks for reading!!!