An Impostor, but still nice to see.
Ok, so this Alco PA was delivered new to the Santa Fe, and in later years worked for Delaware & Hudson, and then for Mexican railways. But now it wears a fresh coat of Nickel Plate Road paint.
Until Streamliners at Spencer, I’d never had the opportunity to photograph an Alco PA, a locomotive often cited as one of the most loved and most attractive (if not the most reliable) of the steam to diesel transition era.
The Nickel Plate Road merged into Norfolk & Western two years before I was born, so while I’ve photographed trains on the old Nickel Plate route, I never knew the railway either.
So there you go. It’s like meeting a ghost. Or, perhaps, seeing a James Joyce impersonator. Or, going to listen to a Led Zeppelin tribute-band.
When it comes to a Nickel Plate Road PA, I never experienced the real thing, and I never will. I never saw an Erie Triplex either.
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Of course many of the streamliners you saw last weekend are imposters. Probably the most blatant are the “Lackawanna” F3s, which were, of course, Bangor & Aroostook locomotives. PAR #1 is ex-CNR/VIA/Conway Scenic. I could go on but I don’t feel like doing the fact-checking at this early hour. Beauty is obviously more than skin-deep!
West Coast stuff was conspicuous by its absence… I’d have liked to have seen a Santa Fe warbonnet there myself, as well as a Black Widow…