On Monday, I was running errends. My timing wasn’t coincidental, as the Norfolk Southern New Holland Branch local often passes through my neighborhood around 9am.

The day before it ran a little late, but as previously posted, I managed to catch it anyway.

On my way to the market, I noticed that the local was stopped at Cork interlocking near Greenfield in Lancaster, so I completed shopping quickly. On my way back, I saw the train had moved on.

On spec, I zipped over to Jefferson Drive, where the branch crosses near our apartment. As I approached the crossing, I heard the throb of classic EMD engines.

The train was cautiously approaching the crossing. I stopped, parked, grabbed my Lumix LX7 (which I carry with me for just such occasions) and made this series of photos as it crossed Jefferson Drive.

It was the same pair of NS SD40Es, that I’d seen the day before. These engines had worked out of Cresson, PA as helpers, but have since been bumped to other duties.

I was curious to know more about these locomotive, and looked up their road numbers on-line. According to an SD40E roster maintained by Chris Toth on the site: http://www.nsdash9.com/rosters/6300.html , I found that NS SD40E 6304 had be rebuilt from NS SD50 6522 in January 2009, and SD40E 6342 was rebuilt in September 2011 from NS SD50 5430, originally Conrail 6753.

Learning that makes me curious. In the 1980s, I made hundreds, perhaps thousands of photos of Conrail SD50s. I’m sure I have an image of that locomotive in blue paint in my Conrail files. I’ll keep my eyes open for it and plan a follow-up post when I do.

Stay tuned.

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