LT&L RS-2 #371 painted in MTRR orange & green

When the LT&L started to dieselize their road locomotive fleet, they did it with a fistful of MLW RS-1s & -2s; The RS-2’s were purchased early in that production run, so were not quite as reliable as they could have been, and despite the TdM shops doing heroic efforts to keep the 244-equipped fleet on the road, weren’t able to reduce their shop time to acceptable levels.

So in 1966 the railroad decided to rebuild or retire all of their 244-equipped engines. Four of the RS-2s (371, 372, 375 & 377) were rebuilt to either RS-2ms (prime mover upgraded to “250” specs) or RS-251s (prime mover replaced with a 251), one (#376) was converted to a slug, and the remaining two (#373 & #374) were sold to shortlines.

The two RS-2m’s were sold in the 1970s and #375 went to Musée ferrovaire de Parsons Vale in 2024, but the slug & #377 are still on the roster (377 had a generator fire in 1999, sat in the TdM shops deadline for 12 years, then was remanufactured as a RS-250 and is now running on the Allegany County Railroad).

  • Copyright © 2024 by Jessica L. Parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us) unless otherwise noted
    Sun Sep 12 15:33:26 PDT 2021