These were trying times in the 1980s. The railroads were beginning to recover from the 1970s. Train crews were getting smaller, cabooses were gone, Conrail was turning away loose car traffic in favor of the unit and stack and piggy back trains. One fun spot was the Susquehanna, a streak-o-rust purchased by railfan attorney Walter Rich. He stared down Conrail and won the lucrative cross-country Sea-Land stack train traffic, business that allowed the rebuilding of the old Sparta Mountain route up and over the highest rail summit in Northern New Jersey. To move that traffic, NYS&W bought a fleet of Burlington Northern EMD '45 engines -- both SDs and Fs. As good as all of this was, the Susie won a FRA directed service order to operate the Delaware & Hudson while owner Guilford Transportation Industries was trying to settle a strike. Susquehanna yellow-jacket SD45s could now be seen up and down the Eastern rail scene. Here we see the F45 3636 and an SD45 grinding hard to lift a long train through the fall colors from Binghamton, NY, up and through the Beldon Hill tunnel. In D&H days this was a pusher district. Today this line is operated by Canadian Pacific.
From a hint of "Bee" (NKP 765), colorful "Bees" (KCS), "Bees" w/ "attitude", to "Bees" that "sting" your eyes, in their own way they have "Bee" on display! Equipment that "Buzzes" with Yellow & Black colors! ("Bees" can still "Bee" entering this "hive"!)
