PORTLAND, Ore. — Genesee Valley Transportation has agreed to acquire the Alco PA locomotive restored by preservationist Doyle McCormack and will run the unit on main line passenger excursions, the short line company announced today.
McCormack and GVT Rail President Michael D. Thomas finalized the agreement in a meeting Wednesday at the Oregon Rail Heritage Museum in Portland where the locomotive, built for Santa Fe and later operated by Delaware & Hudson, but restored by McCormack as Nickel Plate Road No. 190, has been stored and displayed.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to obtain the ‘Spirit of St. Louis’ of locomotives,’ Thomas said in a press release. “On behalf of our ownership group and the entire time at GVT Rail, we are ecstatic that Doyle has entrusted us with the stewardship of his great gift to rail preservation.”
The GVT board and its now-retired chief mechanical officer, Don Colangelo, had a longstanding relationship with McCormack, and has long made it clear it was interested in acquiring the locomotive in the future, said Charlie Monte Verde, GVT Rail’s vice president of strategic planning. GVT officials had kept in touch with McCormack about the unit on a regular basis.
Monte Verde told Trains News Wire that the PA will travel east “sometime soon,” and suggested that this might occur as early as April. Arrangements are being made for its journey, emphasizing security of the locomotive and efforts to streamline the movement over various Class I railroads. The PA’s travels will be covered on GVT’s Facebook page.
Monte Verde says there may be a “gala welcome event” when it is delivered to the Delaware-Lackawanna yard at Scranton, Pa.
Upon arrival, the engine will go to GVT’s Von Storch Locomotive Shops in Scranton, to determine what needs to be done to make it operational. Monte Verde says that he understands that the prime mover can be fired up.
Monte Verde said initially the PA will be used to power GVT’s Office Car Special, which makes regular business train runs on D-L. He says that the railroad runs other passenger events, and they likely will see the PA on the head end. “There is a lot of potential for this locomotive,” he says.
The locomotive began life as Santa Fe No. 62L, built in December 1948. It was one of four PA1s sold to the Delaware & Hudson in 1967 for use on the railroad’s New York-Albany-Montreal passenger service, retaining the warbonnet paint scheme, but with D&H blue replacing Santa Fe red. No. 62L became No. 18.
The units became expendable when the Albany-Montreal route was not included in Amtrak in 1971, and all four were shipped away, with two leased to Steam Tours Inc. of Akron, Ohio, and two traded in to General Electric for new units during a period when Erie Lackawanna management was essentially overseeing the D&H. But under president C. Bruce Sterzing, the railroad reclaimed the four PAs — the tour company was behind on lease payments, and the planned purchase of new GEs had fallen through — and eventually used them when Amtrak restored Albany-Montreal operations. During this period, all four locomotives were rebuilt by Morrison-Knudsen, with their 2,000-hp 244 prime movers replaced by 2,400-hp 251 engines. The rebuilds were dubbed PA4s.
They again became expendable when Amtrak began using Rohr Turboliner trainsets on the route, and after brief periods in freight service and on lease to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, they were sold to Mexico in 1978. In 2000, the shells of two of the locomotives, which was all that remained, were returned to the U.S. with the help of the U.S. and Mexican governments and the Smithsonian Institution. One shell is under restoration at the Museum of the American Railroad in Texas; McCormack acquired the other.
“It’s been a long road and a remarkable story for this locomotive,” McCormack said in the GVT press release. “We couldn’t be happier than to see NKP 190 go to a family of railroads like GVT Rail.”
— Updated at 11:42 a.m. with information and comments from GVT’s Charlie Monte Verde; updated at 12:30 p.m. with additional historical information.
Scott A. Hartley contributed to this report.
Since Doyle McCormick had stated the prime mover is able to be turned over, and I believe work had already started on the electrical cabinet, and I thought Doyle had six traction motors to use for the eventual operation, unless something had changed, getting it operational may not be far off. Of course the brake system and wheels have to be addressed. Let’s hope for the best.
No better place in the entire world for this sweet baby to go other than GVT. Maybe Mr. Colangelo will come out of retirement to help get her operational as there are not many that know ALCOs as well as him.
What the heck who cares about paint scheme, just to hear, see, even smell a PA in action–sweet. Now on the other hand the current scheme is fine but Santa Fe, Southern, SP…………….
I’m sure there would have been a real bidding war if more knew it was available.
I hope they leave it in the current paint scheme and not repaint it in GVT orange and black.
Alexander – I believe you are thinking of the Genesee & Wyoming. This is Genesee Valley Transportation. They are a smaller outfit that is very ALCO centric, unlike the the G&W which is international and has a corporate orange and black. GVT has a little some variation in their scheme, but it appears that the corporate scheme over their three railroads is white and grey: https://www.gvtrail.com/about-us/
That said, I think the NKP scheme is a good one to keep. I sure hope to see the loco running some day. It is amongst my favorite, if not my favorite, diesel locomotive designs aesthetically.
I believe you are thinking of Genesee & Wyoming’s orang and black paint scheme. This is a different company know as a haven for Alco locomotives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesee_Valley_Transportation_Company