The Philadelphia Chapter of the

National Railway Historical Society

Established in 1936

It was three years ago this week that the pride of Conrail's locomotive fleet, the E8's, were once again reunited. Although Norfolk Southern would acquire a larger overall percentage of Conrail's equipment as part of the split (NS getting 58% to CSX's 42%), due to a quirk in the method of actually dividing the assets, CSX got two of the three Conrail Executive E8's. Unfortunately, none of the units were ever used in excursion service by their new owners, with CSX leasing two F40PH's from Amtrak and NS continuing to use ordinary road power for its office car specials. So the E's sat, but not for long.

Juniata Terminal purchased NS/PRR 1000, the former CR 4020, in the summer of 2000, and by that winter it had already been repainted as PRR 5809A and had operated in charter service for Conrail SAO. Also that winter, the other two, CR 4021 and 4022 (renumbered CSX 9998 and 9999 on paper only), were auctioned off and were purchased by Juniata Terminal. After spending a few weeks at Camden's Pavonia Yard, the pair finally made the trip back over the river to their new home on March 30 2001. CR 4021 would later become PRR 5711A. As for the fate of 4022, this is an opinion editorial from Railway Preservation News January 2001.

These shots were taken on the day the units were delivered.