FROM CORNELL TO CORMAN


Red diesels return to Allentown


BY OLEV TAREMAE/PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR


CORNELL RED, TUSCAN RED, and their countless other variations were the familiar colors of the Lehigh Valley Railroad locomotives that plied the rails in Allentown, Penn., until April 1, 1976. On that date, known as “C-Day,” the new Conrail became an operating entity. The red diesels be- came displaced by the black of the Penn Central, the yellow-and-green of the Reading, the blue, green or red of the Jersey Central, the grey with red and yellow of the Erie Lackawanna as well as the colors of other railroads. In time, all of these locomotives were either re- tired, sold or repainted into Conrail’s ubiquitous “business blue.” Allentown was without red locomotives.


30 FEBRUARY 2012 • RAILFAN.COM


Within Allentown city limits, Conrail acquired two yards, the Allentown hump yard (once the pride of the Jersey Central) and the Lehigh Valley’s small East Penn yard. A number of lines were also acquired, including the Reading’s East Penn line, the Lehigh Valley’s Main Line on the west side of the Lehigh River, the Lehigh Valley’s L&S Main Line on the east side of the Lehigh River, the Lehigh Valley’s West End Branch and the Lehigh Valley’s Barbers Quarry branch. In the last years of LV operations, most of the traf- fic proceeding railroad west/geographi- cally north toward destinations such as Lehighton, Hazleton, Sayre, or Buffalo was routed on the L&S. (The Lehigh &


Susquehanna had been part of the Jer- sey Central’s main line until it with- drew from Pennsylvania on April 1, 1972). The Lehigh Valley main line op- posite the L&S was used for trains that bypassed the Allentown yard such as the high priority intermodal train the Apollo and as an alternative routing. Also, its more generous clearances made it the route of choice for high and wide shipments. Conrail, which had been formed to perform the impossible task of restor- ing railroading in the Northeast to profitability, used “rationalization” (the abandonment or sale of duplicative and unprofitable lines), as a chief strat- egy for the turnaround. The presence of


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