THE 80'S, PT1

The year is 1980, and newly delivered GP50 4817 sits in Hillsdale Yard with a retired wreck train. The crane and most of its accompanying cars are headed for scrap.

4817 shows off the Appalachian Railroad's final paint scheme; brown with a gold-trimmed black stripe. The unit itself is not in its intended service; it was purchased for fast intermodal trains. Today, however, it will pull the wreck train to Uniontown for its final disposition. As for the APRR itself, it,too, will soon be gone, as merger talks are in progress. In six years, the APRR will become the AP&WRR.

The retired crane sits with its boom car and tender. Like many of its brethren, it was steam powered to the end. At least the railroad kept it well-maintained.

A retired baggage car serves as a tool car. It will be the only car saved today, but it will still meet the scrapper's torch by the end of the decade. Note the wooden kitchen car. Rebuilt from a boxcar, it is even older than the 1940-built crane!

Another pair of wooden ex-boxcars, this time rebuilt into bunk cars. A relic of the time when wreck crews stayed on site overnight, as well as when MOW crews did trackwork, they, along with the crane and kitchen car, are surplus. Today, wrecks are cleaned up by contractors, and track crews stay in local hotels overnight -much better accommodations!