Rohr Turboliners are coming! (from Rapido Trains)

Port Henry (July 1977)

Any fan of the D&H probably has an appreciation for the Alco PA locomotives that were lovingly saved by President Frederic C. "Buck" Dumaine in 1967 from scrap for service on the Laurentian passenger trains between Albany and Montreal. After that service was discontinued, they were used on promotional excursion trains by new President Carl B. Sterzing Jr. all over the system. When Amtrak and New York State decided to start up passenger trains again, the D&H had the four units restored by Morrison-Knudson in 1975 to pull the newly created Adirondack. When they rolled out of the shops, they were in like-new condition and should have lasted at least 20 years. Sadly, in part because relations between the D&H and Amtrak broke down they were quickly replaced with Amtrak's new Turboliner trains. Boo!

Albany (September 1976)

But, as someone who grew up in Rochester, NY in the 1980s and 1990s, I saw Turboliners quite a bit. I remember even riding one as a child, and the conductor was kind enough to ask my mother if I could go up to see the engineer in the cab. Thankfully, she said "yes" and away I went. Not only did I get to meet the engineer and see the world through the front windows of the cab, but I even got a cardboard Amtrak hat to wear. I have a hunch Amtrak would not allow anyone into their engine's cabs today! Because of these memories, I have very strong feelings for the Turboliners and have waited for years to purchase a model of one. Sadly, none existed....

... UNTIL NOW ...

A Turbo lurking in Colonie shops (April 14, 1977)
Sidenote: why is the front half of #2303 so clean?

Rapido has just announced (on Christmas day, no less!) that they are planning on bringing out the Rohr Turboliner in HO scale. In four different paint schemes no less, With the option for DCC and sound. It looks awesome. It should run well if it is from Rapido. And, like all good things, it won't be cheap (though the price divided by 5 cars isn't too bad). But after hearing the rumor several months ago I emailed Rapido who confirmed that they were planning on announcing the train this year, so I went easy with spending my hobby dollars and saved my pennies. While the "early" Amtrak scheme would be appropriate for my layout (and actually might have detoured over the Colonie Main), I am going to buy the "late" Amtrak scheme with the thinner red stripe and black roof that ran during the time period I actually saw and rode on it.

Rapido put out a video about their new project which shows them walking through the hulks of one of the remaining trains. It is a neat video, though I remembered the trains looking a lot nicer inside when I was a kid. That was 20 odd years ago though, plus the trains have been refurbished at least once (and attempted a second time before New York State sold them for scrap. So, my memories might be a bit confused. One highlight of the video is around 2:13 in where a train pulls into the Utica, NY station... a place where I saw the train several times while trainspotting at the station with my grandfather.

By the way, for anyone with even a casual interest in the history of the Amtrak Turboliners there is an excellent resource out there. Published in 2016, the book Trail of the Turbo covers in exacting detail all of the history behind the Turboliner trains from their initial development through the minor modifications to the final fiasco that became the New York State rebuilding process. Written by Dale Johnson, a person who had extensive connections with the project and apparently was an official photographer for Amtrak at the time, it goes into every nook and cranny. There are some chapters that contain so much detail that I stopped reading and just looked at the pictures. In additional to being historical, it contains a lot of technical data too. The last few sections are pretty depressing as it discusses them turning into piles of rust in Schenectady. Dale had had a table at the Springfield Train Show for 2017 and 2018 (I don't remember about 2019, and don't know about 2020) with books for sale as well as some Turbo memorabilia that he owned. If you can't afford the model train, I highly recommend the book.