Greetings All,
New Foreign Road Power Pool Locomotives
Locomotive Power Pooling
With the advent of the diesel locomotive railroads were able to combine motive power to reduce costly switching and transfer operations at interchange points. Railroads could now block entire trains including locomotives for interchange with connecting railroads.
The New York Central and later the Penn Central had one such power pool agreement was with the St Louis Southwestern RR (SSW) a subsidiary of the Southern Pacific known as the Cotton Belt. The power pool arrangement was between Cleveland, Ohio and Pine Bluff, Arkansas via St Louis.
Penn Central-Southern Pacific / Cotton Belt
Power Pool Arrangements
An article in the Penn Central RR Historical Society PC POST volume 23, number 3 by former PC railroader Pat Maher t focused on operations in and around the sprawling Collinwood Yard in Cleveland. Of note were two photos and captions.
From Caption #1: SP pool power was a regular visitor to Collinwood and often came in on either Train NY-6 or NY-8, both with an East St Louis origination.
From Caption #2: Cotton Belt 601 was one of a small group of SSW GP40 assigned to Penn Central to help equalize mileage and motive power hours in the PC-SP/SSW run thru power pool.
And the search was on!!
After almost a year I found a pair of Atlas SSW powered and non powered GP40s for a very reasonable price and pulled the trigger.
The Models
Here they are fresh out of their boxes. The 7606 is the powered unit.
Thanks for reading and watching!!!
See you soon!!!
Nice additions to the railroad! Pooling power is nothing new to the railroads and the PC (and the NYCTL/EBRR) took full advantage of these arrangements. They do look good on the railroad and will serve the NYCTL well.
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Sir Neal!!!
DeleteThat's excellent! An article prompts an interest in replicating a pooled power move. Your efforts to find models to represent the SSW Cotton Belt units paid off as this pooled power move is very interesting and eye catching! Local railfans around Empire City will do a double take! Nice video!
ReplyDeleteThank you very much Ralph!!!
DeleteVery interesting information about Cotton Belt pool power! This coverage reminded me of when the Cotton Belt and Southern Pacific pooled power with the Illinois Central Gulf in the late seventies. On one particular day, I climbed aboard a new SP SD40T-2 that was on the head end of a train tied down in the yard on the ICG of my old hometown of Jackson, MS. I was amazed at how clean it was on the outside and inside. The cab interior was immaculate.
ReplyDeleteThanks Robert R!! Cool info on the SP/SSW-ICG power pool. From the videos I've seen the SP SD40T-2s didn't stay clean for long!! Good timing on that visit to catch one new.
DeleteNice addition to the roster and operations. It will give you a Coast to Coast outlet to route your trains through 😎🚂
ReplyDeleteThanks atjoe!!!!
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