Birth of A Fantasy Scheme Locomotive

 by TOM McINTYRE

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       (Tom's work and pictures have graced our pages before. This month, Tom shows how he painted two U23B's into a fantasy paint scheme, or what I call "retro" paint schemes. He also gives a brief history of the Lehigh & New England, and an explanation on what got him started. Enjoy. ......(Ed)itor

      The two LNE U23B locos A little while back I got into an interesting conversation with a couple of fellow modelers. It started with an innocent discussion of our favorite fallen flag railroads. We discussed the all the great points of each and romanticized about days gone by. Then the conversation took a strange twist with a simple question of what would they look like today if they were still around? That one question got the old wheels going.

     

      Over the last few years I had seen various fantasy schemes for modern locomotives depicting the PRR, Reading, and B&O to name a few. I now began to have visions of what one of the roads I model had survived into the 1980s.  The particular road that I am discussing is the Lehigh & New England which went out of existence in 1961. Notice I said went out of existence not went bankrupt or merged. I am no expert on the L&NE but I have found that the L&NE's demise maybe very unique in the annuals of railroad lore.

 

      The company that owned and operated the L&NE, the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company decided that the railroad was no longer in their long term plans and shut it down. They sold off the locomotives, and rolling stock. They also sold or gave away a few branch lines to the Jersey Central. The CNJ operated these branch lines under a new railroad called the Lehigh & New England Railway. The L&NER was short-lived and went out of business when the CNJ pulled all operations out of Pennsylvania. At that point the Lehigh Valley took over the one or two surviving branches until the formation of Conrail.

 

      The Lehigh & New England served the Lehigh Valley and anthracite coal regions of Pennsylvania. It also served as a bridge line from eastern Pennsylvania across northern New Jersey to Maybrook, NY. The line hauled anthracite coal, and general merchandise freight. In the later years cement became the primary commodity shopped over the L&NE rails.