LwS EXTRA: “PRR Diesels, 1970”
This episode of LwS EXTRA is an introduction to what will eventually be a full episode of Living with Steam featuring John’s open-reel tapes. Chasing down John’s tapes has been a struggle of mine for many years. John made dozens of tape recordings of railroad operations after 1955; where at that point he retired his wire recorder in favor of a more reliable tape recorder.
The tapes pictured above are the same he brought to my house back in 1995. At that time, he wanted his wires copied to cassette first since the many of them weren’t heard since the day he made them. The tapes were an afterthought. “Please copy these when you have time”, he told me. Back then, “digitizing” meant copying the tapes to Digital Audio Tape, or DAT.
John had these tapes rubber-banded together for some reason and had numbered them from #1 through #5 along with a short description of what was on each tape. At the time I made the copies, there WERE five tapes in this set. When I received the tapes from the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in May of 2023, there were only four. Tape #4 was missing and its whereabouts are still unknown.
The picture above shows the tapes as I received them from the RMoP. The box at the bottom was a random tape the RMoP had in John’s archives and was not part of the original set of five.
In order to keep the upcoming episodes of LwS a surprise, I’ve blurred what John wrote on the box of each tape. You’ll just have to keep listening.
Above is an image John took in Buffalo in 1962. Engine #5710, an EP-22 was passing Tower FW when John snapped the picture. When John recorded #5710 in Franklinville, NY in September 9, 1970, it had been painted over in Penn Central colors (black) and renumbered to #4280. In the recordings, #5719 (#4280) is pulling both trains 575 and 574, which were Buffalo to Harrisburg trains.
Above is an image of EP-22 engine #5715, that John shot in front of Tower FW. The engine and it’s helper, an E7A) have just come off Train 575 at Buffalo Central Terminal and are more than likely on their way to the PRR engine servicing facilities in Ebenezer. John took this picture in June of 1963.
John shot this picture of engine #6078, and EF-30A, as it passes Tower R in Braddock, PA. The photo dates from October of 1966. EF-30A engine #6046 is featured in the recording John made in Tyrone, PA and was more than likely painted in Penn Central colors although it retained the original PRR road number.
Above are two additional images of PRR EF-30A engine #6046.
In September of 1964, John took this picture of PRR Train #16, the Duquesne, as it made its way around Horseshoe Curve. The train is being pulled by five EP-22s. Below is engine #4308, the engine pulling the Duquesne when John made his recording in Tyrone, PA on September 29, 1970.
The above image, courtesy of The Center for Railroad Photography & Art, shows PRR Engine #7224 coming off the low grade at Driftwood, PA. When I first heard this recording, I initially thought John had recorded it quite far from the tracks. A thorough examination of the area (on Google Earth) gave me a better idea of how and where John made this recording.
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