By Justin Franz
GLENMONT, N.Y. — The Danbury Railway Museum has about three months to raise approximately $125,000 and move two rare New York Central electrics to their new home in Connecticut, according to the project manager.
On December 19, NYC electrics S-1 6000 and T-3a 278 were moved from the spot where they have sat at an Albany-area power plant for three decades, to a temporary location out of the way of a soon-to-be-built wind turbine tower factory. The move came after months of work and worry as the new development threatened the extremely rare locomotives, which have been owned by Danbury for nearly a decade but had been unable to move until now. While the electrics are now out of the way, Project Manager Stan Madyda tells Railfan & Railroad that they cannot stay in their current spot forever. In fact, he estimates that they’ll have to move again within three months.
“We’re doing everything we can to make sure these motors are saved,” he said.
The two motors did suffer some damage during the move, specifically to the frames, Madyda said. However, he believed the damage could be easily repaired as part of an eventual cosmetic restoration.
“A little damage is a whole lot better than the alternative,” Madyda said.
The S-1 was the only of its kind ever built and was the prototype that all of the NYC’s future electric locomotives were built on, including the T-3a. T-3a 278 is the sole survivor of 36 such locomotives built between 1913 and 1926. The T-3a electrics were among the Central’s most powerful and hauled everything from commuter trains to the 20th Century Limited. Once larger and more powerful locomotives were acquired, the S-motors found a new role as switchers working in the subterranean depths of Grand Central Terminal, with some surviving in active service until 1981. Only a handful of electric locomotives survived into the Penn Central era, replaced by dual-mode FL9s absorbed from the New Haven fleet. T-motor 278 found a new home assigned to the wire train in Sunnyside Yard in Queens (since the T-motor could draw power from the third rail in the tunnels while the overhead wire was repaired).
The odd non-revenue assignments proved to be the only way these historic electric locomotives were saved. The S-motor and T-motor were acquired by the Mohawk & Hudson Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in the 1980s and given a cosmetic restoration and placed on display at the local fairgrounds. In 1988, they were hauled back to Grand Central Terminal to be used in a scene in the 1988 film “The House on Carroll Street,” starring Kelly McGillis and Jeff Daniels. After that, they were returned to M&H Chapter and moved to their present location in Glenmont. In the decades since, the Chapter was no longer able to care for the increasingly isolated units located on private property. While they have been heavily vandalized over the years, they remain good candidates for cosmetic restoration.
The effort to save the two electrics has become a decade-long saga, one beset with challenges for the non-profit Danbury group. Among those challenges is the location of the motors, which are cut off from the rail network and surrounded by infrastructure that hinders their movement. The electrics were joined by a number of other pieces of equipment, including a rare U25B, but it and others were sacrificed to try and save the even rarer electrics.
Those interested in making a donation can visit DanburyRail.org/electrics.
