Locomotive Eye Candy

Erie no.19 at 149th St yard. Date? Photographer?

One of the problems with acquiring historic photos is that one doesn't always know from who, where or whence the photo cometh. I can sleuth out that it is at the Erie Harlem 149th St Yard because of the crane, concrete pad an building (behind at right), which belongs to the neighbor (New York Central's Team Market building), but I don't know when unless I get super smart somehow.

One of the ways I get smart is by looking at Phil Goldstein's freightrrofny.com web site.He has no.19 being scrapped in November of 1958 at Meadville, PA, so I know the photo was taken before that. But wait, if I look in Westing and Staufer's book Erie Power, I see that there is a notation that it was scrapped, but with no date. Looking further at the same roster entry, I see that Erie no.19 had an Erie-Lackawanna number (19) as well. This suggests to me that it wasn't scrapped in 1958 because the two railroads didn't merge until 1960, or that it somehow made its way to the DL&W and then to EL, or that there was a misprint there. I'm inclined to go with Phil at this point because of the more specific scrap date. Perusing photos here and other places tells me that safety stripes on the ends came after 1939 for sure, and its brother no.20 didn't have stripes in 1935.The concrete slab is from an old freight house from the 40s, so it is sometime after that. The crane could also be dated as it looks like a diesel crane and I know from Phil's web site that Gerosa Crane Service was a client at 149th (and from searching Internet, there are photos showing a two-tonee paint job on their cranes). At some point I will follow up and get the references for this straightened out. In the meantime, I just love sharing the photo.

Erie no.1027 at Youngstown, OH 1960

A bonus photo show is a negative of Erie no.1027 at Youngstown, OH in 1960. It is an RS-3 built in November of 1951.