So, was on a trip from Wilmington to the Big Apple yesterday on the NEC. Around MP 83 we passed an abandoned factory site and yard. Surprisingly, there was a consist of of equipment stored behind a chainlink fence. An Amtrak coach, E8A (no visible number), a flat car, 2 PRR B60b baggage cars and a PRR N5. I was wondering if anyone had info as to owners.

Bennett Levin's warehouse.

And it's not abandoned.

It's just intended to look "uninteresting".

James,

This is intended as a question not a criticism.

Many of us on this board are aware of Juniata Terminal's facility in the express building at Fairhill. We also are aware that uninvited visitors are not terribly welcome. My real question for you is why you considered the building abandoned and the equipment lost prior to asking if any of us knew what it was that you saw?
'Lost' and 'Abandoned' have very specific meanings which do not apply here. So far as I know the building is not abandoned (Was there a City notice on the door?) and I believe Brother Levin is aware of where his equipment is.

Now if some of what is inside had been sitting outside that would really have been interesting.

GME

Being from Philadelphia and knowing how much of an armpit this city really is, that section of the city is rough. Most of what lines that section of the Northeast Corridor is pretty run down looking and can in most respects look abandoned. Riding the Regional Rail through some sections can be sketchy too. All of this can be seen in this spectacular video shot from the tail end of a PV from New York Penn to Washington DC. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCS2wdnAFw Bennet's building can be seen around 1:42.30 on the far right hand side.

This raises another question for me. The building has rail access inside. What was this building before it was a storage location for the Es?

-J.T.

I believe it was a Pennsy freight station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juniata_Terminal_Company

Train lawyer, it did not look to be in the most savory part of town, and the warehouse from the west (rail side) looked closed or abandoned. Mr. Levin does some amazing work, and being from Michigan, I was, until now, unaware of his equipment being stored or kept at that location in Philly. I do know some of his well known pieces sometimes hang out at 30th Street Station with other Amtrak equipment. To me, it looked to have been in a collection that had been forgotten, as there was heavy graffiti on most of the equipment and the PRR N5 looked to have been bombed out. Also, noticing the conditions of another PRR cab we pasted a few miles before (heavily graffitied and in need of TLC) in a community garden, I wondered about the equipment, hense why I asked.

As a follow up question, what is the history of that particular E unit stored there?

It's a former B&O unit that was acquired "on the cheap" to provide a spare nose in case there's ever a grade-crossing accident with the Pennsy duo.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4019

(quote) "It's a former B&O unit that was acquired "on the cheap" to provide a spare nose in case there's ever a grade-crossing accident with the Pennsy duo."

This may be true, but Levin also has the cab and nose from an ex-BN commuter E9 tucked away inside the shop. I guess you can never have too many spares...

What's the condition of the B&O E-unit? Restorable, or beyond hope?


Les

My report in the 2002 thread:



In addition, it was missing both prime movers and all its traction motors.

If you're desperate to "save" a B&O E-unit, go help the West Va. RR Museum, which "saved" the other of the two E-units that showed up there, in marginally better shape.....

put a model railroad in it, we've had an O scale layout in a real South Shore car...

B&O/WVC 92 at Belington, WV May 2011, by Alex Mayes, shared with permission.

The hole you see under the cab window/sand fill hatch and to the right of the ladder is one of two rusted-out holes I enlarged to shovel out dozens of hypodermic syringes while prepping it for shipment in Baltimore.......

Here is a more recent picture of the same, taken in October of last year when I randomly found myself driving through Belington. The nose has apparently received a coat of primer, which I guess is progress, but the West Virginia Railroad Museum people have their hands full at the moment. (That's West Virginia Northern 2-8-0 No. 8 under the blue tarp behind the E-unit, to point out just one example.)


-Philip Marshall