Herbert Trice Collection
ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES PLACED ON LEHIGH LINE
Gasoline Driven Type To Operate
Between Elmira and Canastota -- Hill
Test is Provided
Ithaca Jan. 2 -- Two gasoline electric locomotives will start the new year in hauling passenger trains on the Elmira to Canastota line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. This new type of engine will succeed the steam locomotive for passenger service through East Ithaca, Freeville, and points north to Canastota and it is expected that the steam engines will not be brought back into use again on this branch of the Lehigh Valley system.
For some time the gas electric locomotives have been pulling passenger trains on the Cayuga Lake division of the Lehigh Valley road between Ithaca, Auburn and Fair Haven, but the trial of the new locomotives on the Elmira to Canastota line is a departure from past practice and the experiment will
be watched by Lehigh Valley officials with interest.
Though the Cayuga Lake route is practically level and affords no bad grades the tracks between Elmira and Van Etten Junction have to run over a steep ridge where the grade is said to be the steepest east of the Rocky Mountains. Whether the new gas electric motors will be powerful enough to pull the passenger trains is the question that the Lehigh Valley authorities are waiting to answer.
In past years many steam locomotives have had to wait near the summit of the steep climb for enough steam to make the hard pull in zero weather and if the electric motors prove a success this delay will be eliminated.
[These cars used on this route used until April 30, 1933 when service reduced to daily mixed trains]
Car 30, Built by Brill, 1926 Trailer T-66 6 cylinder, 250 HP Scrapped 1945 RPO compartment Trains 321-326 later used Sayre-Towanda
Car 31, Built by Brill, 1926 Trailer T-74 6 cylinder, 250 HP Scrapped 1945 Trains 322-325
