#70

Knox & Kane Railroad's Marienville (PA) Yard featured this fairly rare Alco RS36 on the day we visited. No. 70 was built for the Nickel Plate road. She was later property of Norfolk and Western, then Gettysburg, and finally KKRR. As you can see, the 70 still sported Gettysburg colors in 1999; later they'd paint the name over but would leave the color scheme intact.

K&K was a mixed tourist and freight line, with the main tourist attraction being the very tall Kinzua bridge. When a 2003 tornado effectively destroyed the trestle, it also undermined the railroad's viability. The road limped on until 2006, and an arsonist put an end to any hope of a revival of the line's fortunes early in 2008. Everything was sold off late in that year, and much of the track has been pulled up by the scrappers. #70 has also been scrapped. The right-of-way will become a trail, which isn't a bad fate, but is a sad end to one of the more interesting short line operations.

For a railfan, as opposed to a casual tourist, the road's glory was its small but diverse collection of locomotive power. Besides this Alco, the road owned two steamers--an old Baldwin 2-8-0 and a Chinese-built 2-8-2. And, apparently, this.