Conrail Passenger Project

[David Leonard]

I believe the second unit in the photo must be NJ Transit (or NJDOT, as it was called then).  The photo is reported to have been taken at South Amboy (if I'm looking at the same picture.) All ex-Erie units were in EL colors long before 1980.

EDIT: Here's another view of the 4325: http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/njdot/njt4325irc.jpg

[Conrail Quality]

Also in terms of Layout how would be the best way to model Amtrak plus Conrail Operations.

If you don't want to model the electrified northeast corridor, your options are actually pretty limited, since no one seems to make an Amfleet II in N-scale. Still, you can do it, it just depends what limitations you are willing to accept. You could do Empire Service runs between New York and Buffalo with a Kato P42 and 4-6 Bachmann Amfleets. The problem with that is that Empire Service trains actually run with a P32AC-DM, not a P42. Still, they are close enough that unless you are looking for it, you would be unlikely to tell the differnce. The other option would be the Capitol Limited, which could be modeled with Kato P42's or F40PH's and Superliners. However, that would restrict you to the midwestern parts of Conrail (Ohio, Indiana, etc). The big problem with both of these is that by this time the Conrail commuter services were long gone, so the only Conrail passenger train you could run prtotypically would be the Office Car Special.

[Simon Greasly]

hmm i see well that helps out a whole bunch but i still don't know what would be the best coaches to repaint for a commuter train by Conrail i don't want to use the heavyweights unless they are prototypically accurate but i might not have a choice.

[brokemoto]

those Dl-109s you mentioned what ever happened to them are any still around today?

The NYNH&H, which had the most (sixty), was still using some of theirs on some commuter trains in the early 1960s.  I suspect that at that point they were more back-up power than anything. 

ALCo originally marketed them as passenger power; they had
A-1-A trucks.  While some freight power did have A-1-A trucks, in most cases, that was a passenger power truck.  The first purchasers of these, the Gulf, Mobile and Northern and the Rock Island, bought them as passenger power. 

NYNH&H also bought them with the intention of using them as passenger power, but their availability rate proved to be so high, compared to steam power, that the railroad began to operate them around the clock. The  NYNH&H   New York-Boston main line has a fairly flat profile.  These things had the 539 prime mover, which also powered many of ALCo's yard goats and the RS-1.  The RS-1 had the longest (and basically unchanged) production run of any US railroad diesel  (1941-1960).  Some RS-1s still operate to-day.  NYNH&H always operated numerous passenger trains.  The passengers ran mostly by day; NYNH&H operated most of their freight trains at night. 

Due to wartime urgencies, most of NYNH&H's DL-109s showed up with plywood sides(!).  Beginning in 1946, the New Haven began to replace the plywood sides with steel sides.  This resulted in some changes to the window arrangement and alignment.

ALCo produced the DL-109s from 1940-1945.  There were early models designated DL-103, 105 and several 'B' units that it designated DL-110, but they were also basically the same as the DL-109. 

The PA-1 superceded them in 1946.  The PAs, while arguably the best looking road diesel locomotives ever produced, did not prove as reliable as the DL-109s.  In fact, the NYNH&H was still operating its DL-109s after some users of the PA-1s or PA-2s had scrapped or traded in those locomotives.

I do not know if any survive; perhaps the National Museum of Transport has one.  ***EDITORIAL NOTE:  No DL-109s survive.  The last one was around until 1970.  Penn Central was using it as an electrical power unit, a use to which NYNH&H had converted it in the late 1950s.  Finally, PC ordered it cut up.  (NYNH&H became part of Penn Central in 1969).