RAILROAD SIGNALS of the U.S.

DL-701's
aka RS-11's

This page covers one of my two favorite engines, Alco's RS-11.....

 
A Penn Central local freight in Cockeysville MD, on a cold winter day back in February, 1972, with RS-11 #7634.  The freight is coming out of the industrial park, headed back up to the mainline siding.

What a difference a month makes!  This picture, from March, 1972, is only a couple hundred feet away from the above photo, with the train being on the mainline between Baltimore and Harrisburg.  If we only knew today what was coming six months later, this boy would have been out every day taking pictures along the NC, for that's when hurricane Agnes hit Maryland and tore up the Northern Central.  The "no turn on left sign" disappeared years ago, and up until five years ago or so, the MTA kept a speeder in a small shed on the left side of this grade crossing, so MOW could inspect the R-O-W.  Everything is completely overgrown, and as of DEC 2006, NS filed for abandonment of the NC line, due to the fact that the MTA had the line torn up for double tracking and nothing was moving.

You can't really tell from the photo, but those are New Haven DL-701's pulling a northbound Penn Central freight through Queens, New York in May of 1969.  It was really impressive to watch a NB and SB freight pass each other here, and I never caught it on film   :-(  The track is no longer a straight shot, as they curved the track maybe ten years ago so they could straighten the terrible "S" curve on the BQE (on the very left of the photo).

NEW 1/10/2007
Last Updated: 06 Jul 2010