Grassroots Railroad Sports?

Pennsy had some weird battery-electric rail tractors for working urban/dockside tracks in Baltimore and Jersey City. They had rubber tires and couplers on both end and could be used to move cars around in cities after they no longer wanted steam locomotives in them anymore. They did not have flanged wheels, which made them really useful because you could just unhook from one end of the car, drive around to the other end and head off in the other direction. Later on, PRR swapped the battery power out for gasoline engines, and they lasted surprisingly long.

You can see that this one has been converted to gasoline power, with the muffler on the roof and the radiator cut in the side of the body

Once those got too old, they were replaced by these big bruisers.

The Buckwalter Electric Tractors replaced the runtiest of PRR steam power, the A5s 0-4-0. 

Great-looking little machines, with the Belpaire boiler, short wheelbase and slope-deck tender. There's one preserved, but it's entombed at the Railroad Museum of PA, sadly to never see operation again.

In reply to NickD :

How did the weird battery-electric rail tractors steer?

In reply to VolvoHeretic :

Tiller steering, like a lot of your early automobiles 

I'm headed east to Vermont tomorrow for the Trains charter on the Vermont Rail System, featuring Green Mountain Railway RS-1 #405. The event is to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Vermont Rail's formation, and the #405 will be wearing it's original Rutland Railway lettering for the 2-day event, which will include rare mileage round trips from Rutland to Bellows Falls and Rutland to Burlington with photo runbys along the way. The Rutland shut down in 1962 over a strike by workers, and sat dormant for over a year, as labor and management tried to come to terms, and eventually the state of Vermont, desiring to save the only north-south route through the state, purchased the railroad and sought operators for various segments. Vermont Railway was formed to operate the Rutland-Burlington main line, as well as the branch down to Bennington, in 1964, while Green Mountain Railway was formed by Nelson Blount to take over the Rutland-Bellows Falls portion and give his Steamtown USA a home, the 26 westernmost miles of the Rutland's Ogdensburg Division between Ogdensburg and Norwood was taken over by NY state in a similar state-owned/privately-operated fashion, and the 132 mile east-west segment between Burlington and Norwood, NY was torn up in '64. The Rutland's Alco RS-1s and RS-3s were split up between VTR and GMRC and over the years were sold off or scrapped, but RS-1 #405, which had made the last official move of the Rutland Railroad, hung around at Green Mountain Railway and never left home rails. Eventually, VTR would acquire the Green Mountain, as well as the NY-owned segment at Norwood, making VTR the owner of the entire remaining Rutland Railroad system. The #405 is still lettered for Green Mountain, which reused the old Rutland livery but with different lettering, and has largely been relegated to hauling occasional excursions, as well as sometimes pinch-hitting in switching or freight service when VTR has power that's out of service.

I think that VTR/GMRC #405 is the oldest diesel to never leave home rails. It was built in 1951, and for 73 years has operated over the exact same rails. There are some diesels that have left and come back to home rails, but I don't think any other diesel can challenge the #405's records. Hell, it's not that far behind UP #844, a steam locomotive, in age and staying on home rails and never being retired. The #405 was built in '51 and the #844 is just six years older.

I also have to pass near Eagle Bridge, NY tomorrow, so I'm going to check and see if there are any signs of life at the elusive Batten Kill Railroad. They operate a mix of Alco products on what was the old D&H subsidiary Greenwich & Johnsonville and the remains of the D&H Washington Branch but they run on an "as-needed" basis and that bassis is extremely erratic. If nothing else, I might be able to snag some photos of parked motive power. Originally I had been thinking I got my hotel for Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday night, and I was thinking that I could get two cracks at maybe seeing the Batten Kill in operation, on Friday headed east and on Monday headed home. Then I looked at my hotel reservation and realized I only reserved it for two nights, and this time of year in Vermont, you can't extend your hotel stay because they're completely booked up.

I recently discovered this guy's channel. His vids share a lot of knowledge about the business & operations side of railroading. I especially thought this one was pretty cool. 
 

Did I say that I was going to Battten Kill? I lied. I woke up and said "I can go to Batten Kill and roll the dice and likely lose, or I can go to Rutland and definitely catch some VTR freight." So, at 4:30am I hoped in my Spyder and drove to Rutland. I got there to catch train no. 263 (Rutland-Bellows Falls) sitting at the south side of the yard in Rutland, with GP38-2 #208 and SD70M-2 #431 on the head end. The GP38-2 was originally built for Penn Central, while the big SD70M-2 was acquired from Florida East Coast, along with a sister engine, and allowed them to retire a lot of their older power.

I headed down to the other end of the yard after hearing a horn, and caught a VTR crew switching the yard with a GATX/GMTX leaser and another GP38-2

Their other SD70M-2, #432, was sitting down by the little two-stall engine house, and there was another GATX/GMTX leaser in the engine house.

I had a cool angle for a shot of the train leaving Rutland, but while I was down seeing what was running at the other end of the yard, I heard a horn honking and knew that the train was leaving. Now, let me explain here, I had no clue what that train was, where it was going, and I didn't have any idea what spots to go to for photos. I changed my plan at 4:00am to go see what was running on VTR, so I hadn't done any research, so this was a lot of running and gunning. "Hey, it's headed that direction, the roads head in that direction, let's see if that gets me where I need to go." This was approaching North Shrewsbury, RD on it's way out of Rutland, VT. I do wish that the SD70M-2 was leading, since that big thing looks pretty good in the VTR red.