I was going through slides to scan yesterday and found this
slide of the EMD MRS1s. Not the best slide of it, but the second unit back
is 1717. It has a three at the end of the numbering and only one EMD MRS1
had a three in it which was 1717. I believe this will be the only shot I have
of it. I have no idea why I did not take a separate slide of it, but back
then I tried to avoid shots with engines coupled to the front of them because
nobody would trade for them. It was taken in July of 1982 which makes it one
of the last ARR photos I took for a long while. It was unusual for the EMD
MRS1's to be out of the storage area like this, considering the date timing
do you think they traded them in on the GP38’s or GP49’s?
Photo courtesy of Stewart Sterling
Question: Any idea why the ARR painted the USN 65-00570 in
yellow & placed the #570 in large letters on the cab back in 78? A photo of
it in 1977 shows it in standard Navy lettering-but by 10/78 it was fresh yellow
with the large number.
Answer: Here is a link
to the information on ARR 1514 ex Navy 570. Only two of the EMD MRS-1 units
were maintained operational by the ARR. To use them they had to upgrade to some
FRA standards including the wider walk ways. This required some more yellow
paint so it appears they got a fresh coat of yellow as part of that process
along with new black safety stripes. 1718 went on to repaint to become 1818
and the power for the ALCOM command train, then to Clear AF Station and then
to MATI in Wasilla.
It is a guess that 570 was maintained in operational order as a backup for
the military, but probably stayed in number 570 for some legal beagle reason.
Some of those surplus transfers include responsibility for disposal etc. If
they never actually placed it in service with an ARR number they may have been
able to avoid responsibility. The other EMD units were robbed for parts to keep
the fleet running. -- Pat Durand