Well, something which had never even crossed my mind, until seeing this photo- This is the first time I have ever seen any photo of NF&D motive power!
I was on a business trip and went outside to get some air. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Alco. Franklin, VA is peanut country and remains home to a large paper mill. I took this the same day. I think the SCL and N&W (which owned the NF&D) jointly switched area industries.
From 11/1989 is this image of a McIntosh & Seymour engine cover as found on an Alco being shopped in Cornelia, GA. McIntosh & Seymour was purchased by Alco in 1929 and their 4-Cycle diesel engine design became the foundation for Alco's production.
Cool shot Box! That is a great looking unit but of all the different paint schemes the PA's wore, I have always wondered why Mr. McCormick picked that one.
I never seem to be in this area, when sunlight is at a decent angle. The old MRS1 once owned by Toppenish, Simcoe & Western Railroad, as it sits and very slowly rusts away. #B-2070, (ex-US Army #B-2070), at Royal City, Washington, a decade back:
Two Alcos working on NJ's Black River & Western in July 1978. First is RS-1 #57 (ex-Washington Terminal) at Flemington and the other of RS-3 #1554 (ex-CNJ) at Three Bridges.
Appearing above, RS-3 CNJ 1554 is seen below two years earlier at Flemington, NJ on the Black River & Western in July 1976. My memory is hazy as to whether the locomotive was owned by CR or the BR&W at this date. There was an isolated segment of PC/CR track near the eastern end of the BR&W and PC/CR left the 1554 in Flemington to serve it. The BR&W eventually acquired the track and the 1554.
Also seen in the color image above, BR&W RS-1 57, former Washington Terminal. Here it is almost 48 years ago to the day, switching the Purina plant on 08/19/1975 at Flemington, NJ. Love that five chime horn package.
Even worse is the album on rr-picture archives dot net or similar showing the scrapping of a former Boston and Maine RS-3.
I was transferring some photos from thumb drives to a new portable hard drive (thanks to my son!) and eventually found these four pictures of The Ohio River Company's RS-1, #21. These are some of the earliest pictures I ever took and my guess this was ASA 100 or so (anybody remember film?) I don't remember the date but a guess is summer 1980--I was off to join the Air Force that autumn. A neighbor told me a year or so after I took these pix that 21 was scrapped, and by 2018 or so the entire rail-to-river operation in Huntington was gone, tracks ripped up and everything. Of note is that in fall 1996 I came back for a visit and an Alco C-415 was doing the switching (#4010 but the slides disintegrated years ago). The engineer was happy to have something besides the S-2's employed by the Company back in the 80's. A word about these photos, again these were the best I could get thanks to a cooperative employee. There was only the one photo I could get of the long hood so I tried to settle for the short hood and cab plus a closeup of the builder's plate. Not that great but you might be able to see the rectangular Alco plate. I don't remember if this was an "Alco Products" or "Alco-GE". I then took some slides of the inside, including the huge-diameter cylinders of that inline M&S engine. Those slides, sadly, are long gone too, but I don't know what happened. Anyway, here's hoping you have some good memories of Alco power. EMD stuff gets kinda boring after a while, no?
I can never get bored with Alco! Especially when there's two RS18s climbing the grade at full throttle northward out of Sainte-Thérèse into Blainville. What a wonderful concert!
1 of 26 ever built, the C-415. Oklahoma Railroad Museum. Built as Columbia & Cowlitz 701 - (today Burlington Junction Railway 701) in Nov 1968. Another view: https://www.railpictures.net/photo/836774/ http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/clc701.jpg
You're right about that part of Virginia being peanut country. While I was stationed at Langley, near Newport News/Hampton, one of the men in our unit was from Capron and had lots of stories to tell about that crop. To keep a railroading theme going, I wonder where these peanuts would have been shipped and in, boxcars? reefers? Anybody have any info?