WILLIAMSVILLE - 2021 UPDATES

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Williamsville Depot 2021

ALONG THE LEHIGH TRAIL - 2021
by Joe Kocsis

April 2021

The snow was all gone but the Christmas lights still shone bright on this cold early April night when Society member Geno Dailey took these fantastic photos. Geno used miniute long exposures and multilayer color correction to get these very true to your eye photographs. Thanks Geno!

After two years of planning and fundraising, The Western New York Railway Historical Society is proud to announce that Greenidge Generation LLC. in Dresden, New York has donated this EMD SW-8 diesel locomotive for display at the Williamsville Lehigh Valley Depot. The locomotive is a former Conrail EMD SW-8, #8666 and was used to shuttle coal cars around the power plant.

From our records, the locomotive spent a good part of its life switching freight around Ithaca, New York as Lehigh Valley Railroad #252. The engine found its way onto the Conrail roster in 1976 when they took ownership and renumbered it to Conrail #8666. Its was eventually sold to NYSEG around 1995 to switch coal cars around the plant. In 2011, the power plant was taken offline and shut down. The plant was then acquired by Greenidge Generation and was converted to natural gas.

Having no more cars to switch around the plant, the locomotive sat idle and unused. The locomotive sat in storage for the past few years when the plant converted from coal to natural gas.

In the spring of 2019, Marty Visciano, Devan Lawton & John Bond traveled to Dresden to inspect the locomotive’s condition and meet with the plant’s General Manager Paul Lucas to discuss the possible acquisition of the locomotive for display at the Williamsville Depot.

That was just the start of a long journey to bring this engine to Buffalo. Now the "fun" began. The first step was to raise the funding necessary to bring this project to a successful out-come. A meeting with Brian Kupla, the Amherst Town Supervisor, ended with his pledge of a $50,000 grant to help fund the endeavor. Later our local Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal committed an additional $30,000 to the project and a GoFundMe campaign plus solicitation of private donors raised an additional $30,000.

However, although we had some funding in place, the committee needed to find out how we would move a 115-Ton locomotive to the Depot. The engine would need modifications to move by rail to Buffalo and there was still the issue of transporting it from the rail yard to Williamsville. No one seemed capable of doing the work, or it was so expensive, it was beyond our ability to fund. The committee spent more than a year trying to find a way to move the engine.

In the meantime, the acquisition of the engine was not fully secured as Greenidge Generation was actively looking to sell the engine and without a firm estimates of the cost to move the engine, we could not commit to purchase it, which in the end would work out in our favor. After two short line railroads had inspect the engine, it was found that the locomotive engine had a cracked block and would need expensive repairs to put it back in service.

So, at the beginning of 2021, Greenidge Generation made a proposal to the WNYRHS that the engine would be donated to the Society if we could remove the engine from the plant by June 1st. What a deal!

Marty Visciano put things into high gear to figure out how this could be done. He contacted a new company, STX Transport out of Wayland, NY and found they had the special heavy-haul trailer for the job, but they could not load it. Step in our old friends at Winters Rigging in North Collins who had the equipment to load the engine.

In early April, TJ Winters, president of Winters' Rigging Inc., of North Collins, New York, agreed to load the diesel onto a specially built trailer owned by STX Southern Tier Express Inc., in Dresden and truck it to the Williamsville Depot. This is just another regular job for Winters but, it will required at least a three day commitment by them for which the Society is very greatful for their help.

Thanks to the Town of Amherst Supervisor Brian Kulpa and Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal for their monetary support for the project, along with many individual donors. Thanks to Zoladz Construction Co., Inc. for the donation of ties for the display track.

Sunday April 18th, 2021 was an exciting day at the Depot! Twenty Society members and friends laid over 40 feet of rail onto ties and prepared subgrade. The rails were then joined, bolted, spiked and ballasted. All this activity of course was in preparation for the arrival of our authentic Lehigh Valley Locomotive! Thanks to Joe Kocsis, one of our WNYRHS founding fathers and Joyce Haskell, "Official Photographer" of the Williamsville Depot, for many of the photos below.

We cannot express how grateful we are to our members and friends who came out to help with the track. We will still need funding to return the engine to its original Lehigh Valley paint scheme. Please consider a donation to help get the locomotive back into its Lehigh Valley paint scheme. Just use the safe and secure PayPal button below to make any size donation no matter how small, every dollar counts! Thank You!

On April 22nd, Marty Visciano received this letter from Paul Lucas - Greenidge Gas & Safety Manager and Dale Irwin - Greenidge President and CEO of Greenidge Generation LLC.

"Marty, The Western New York Railway Historical Society is now the official owner of Locomotive #8666 SW8-M. Congratulations!!!

It has been another journey in this locomotives history & assignments to get to this point in time. It is fitting for this locomotive to become a permanent representative of our regional rail history at the Williamsville Depot Museum.

Who would have thought when we began this endeavour, that it would take us a few years to reach this point!!

The upcoming move of Locomotive 8666 is by itself a feat of complexity, coordination and effort and could not have happened without the collaborative efforts of yourself, your membership, volunteers, supporters, community and the many others who have contributed to this endeavor. It is inspiring to say the least.

At Greenidge, we are proud to have the opportunity to donate Locomotive 8666 to the museum and see it go to a fine home where it will become a point of interest & enjoyment for people of all ages.

We wish you the best success.

Regards, Paul Lucas and Dale Irwin

We express our sincerest thanks to Paul Lucas and the management at Greenidge Generation LLC for their tireless efforts to see this project become a reality. Thank You!!!, Caryl Youngers - President WNYRHS.

Wednesday April 21st, 2021
by Caryl Youngers - WNYRHS President

We thought we were all set to go, however it now appears that we have to do some additional work to prepare the site. A visit with TJ Winters, President of Winters Rigging at Williamsville determined that the caboose and boxcar need to be moved east by 25 feet. If you do not know, there is a short service road directly behind the caboose. On Sunday April 25 at 10:00am, we will be having another work party to build a temporary track extension over the service road. About 8 ties, tie plates, rail connectors and rail will be laid down. No ballast work will be needed.

Why say you? The current location of the boxcar and caboose will interfere with the huge crane that is coming to lift the locomotive on Wednesday morning. As the crane rotates, its huge counterweights will need the clearance where the boxcar sits now. Mark and I have prepared the site and cleared out any obstruction on the track and under the cars. Special tools will be needed that may help with the work, such as keeping the cars from rolling off the end of the track, or keeping them in place for a few days, other than a 2 x 4 stuck under the wheels.

We had such a great team last Sunday of hard workers. The weather did not look as favorable. But we will have more of that delicious Johnnies pizza and drinks for lunch.

Sunday April 25th, 2021

On final work party took place today when we added an extra 25 feet of track. The work party made short work of the temporary track and the caboose and boxcar were pulled with chains using a four wheel drive pickup. Once the diesel is unloaded, the boxcar and caboose will be connected up to the locomotive. Thanks again to all the volunteers that helped out today who helped extend the track to make room for the locomotive. The short video below shows the movement of the cars.