Lehigh Valley locomotives were known by the road’s early Cornell red and black paint scheme. Later, units carried gray-and-yellow and white-and-black colors.
Lehigh Valley locomotives included railroading’s only Camelback 2-8-2s; No. 261 was built at Schenectady in May 1907. The handrail below the sand dome that ends abruptly at the cluster of hot injector pipes must have been cursed by engineers. Alco photo LV 4-6-2 No. 2024 rolls a freight into the Sayre, Pa., yard in the late 1940s. Situated in the middle of the system, it was one of the busiest spots on the 450-mile main line. H. D. Runey photo A westbound freight, led by R-1 2-10-2 No. 4053 rolls into Coxton Yard off the Mountain Cutoff. The diverging tracks to the right are the more direct line to Wilkes-Barre. Coxton was a crew change point and helper locomotive base. W. R. Osborne photo Wyoming-type 5103 was built by Baldwin in 1932. The odd rear tender truck originally carried a booster. The 4-8-4 wheel arrangement was more commonly known as the Northern type throughout the industry. Ray Ollis Jr. In the late 1930s and early ’40s LV streamlined several of its named passenger trains. This is the John Wilkes, decked in Cornell red, near Glen Onoko, Pa., in 1939. This resulted in some Lehigh Valley locomotives also being streamlined at the time. Wayne Brumbaugh photo Alco PA 613, one of 14, leads No. 28, the John Wilkes, at Flemington Junction, N.J., on Oct. 12, 1960. Dick Steinbrenner photo An RS3/RS2 duo leaves Easton, Pa., in October 1960. Alcos seem to be LV’s best-remembered diesels, though they comprised only one-third of the road’s eventual 282 units. Dick Steinbrenner photo Lehigh valley opted for low noses on its four Alco RS11s, delivered in 1960. Alco photo The C420 has a long nose with no notches, and has the new style of cab front found on Century series locomotives. The three middle filters indicate dynamic brakes. Alco photo Delivered in gray and yellow in the mid-1960s, three Alco C420s display their latter-day dress at Treichler, Pa., in May 1974; the Valley’s big C628s carried a similar scheme, but with a giant white flag behind the cab. LV’s final new units, U23Bs and GP38-2s, wore a similar livery, but without the big white flag and with smaller nose emblems. Mike Bednar photo Three Lehigh Valley locomotives, Alco C628s, are at East Penn Junction in Allentown with LV-4 on May 4, 1974. Mike Bednar photo On their first run, four of the 12 U.S.-financed U23Bs roll SJ-4 into Easton on Dec. 17, 1974. John P. Scharle photo, Mike Bednar collection Norfolk Southern shop employees in Altoona, Pa., stand with one of their heritage unit creations, Lehigh Valley-painted heritage unit No. 8104, on the day the unit rolled out of the shop. The unit is representative of all Lehigh Valley locomotives on the NS roster. Norfolk Southern: Casey Thomason photo
The Lehigh Valley dieselized with EMD FTs and F3s and Alco FAs (the last steam ran in 1951), and remained a prolific Alco customer through the 1960s. For a small railroad, the LV had a wide variety of locomotives, from Baldwin as well as EMD and Alco. The LV had struggled financially through the 1960s, declared bankruptcy in 1970, and became part of Conrail upon its creation on April 1, 1976.
i remember LV coming thru Binghamton NY when i was a kid in the early 60s. Big red and black diesel engines pulling coal trains and doing pick up/drop off of box cars at the Endicott Johnson shoe factory and IBM in Johnson City.