Sunday, March 11, 2018

PC 7757 Heading to Seaford, DE in 1975

PC 7757 on train D-200 near Seaford, DE on the Cambridge Branch in 1975, by Jim Shaw (Ed Sharpe collection)

Here is Penn Central GP38 7757 on train D-200 heading railroad northward (geographically eastward) near Seaford, DE on the Cambridge Branch in 1975, by Jim Shaw (Ed Sharpe collection).

What's interesting is that PC kept the former Pennsylvania Railroad job symbols right up until the formation of Conrail.

Although not published in the employee timetables anymore (that stopped after the PRR Chesapeake Region ETT #10 in April 1961), the D-200 signed-up in Cambridge & ran daily (except Sunday) to Seaford, DE. It operated to Preston, MD on Mondays, Wednesdays, & Fridays & to Vienna, MD on Tuesdays, Thursdays, & Saturdays. It returned to Cambridge as the D-201.

The 7757 (built by EMD in August 1969, B/N 35384) is one of 6 GP38's that were assigned to the Delmarva to replace the old former PRR Baldwin S-12's. This would be PC 7754-7759 block of GP38's. All of these GP38's would make it to Conrail, only to be sold to the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad in the early 1980's. She would become P&LE 2036 (then to Central Oregon & Pacific 5536, & then Northeast Kansas & Missouri 3860 & I'm not sure where she is now being the Northeast Kansas & Missouri sold their line to the Union Pacific back in 1999).

While working on the design work for the layout, I've (more than once) thought to be able to operate the layout during different eras. The Penn Central era will definitely be one of them & I'm slowly gathering equipment to do this.