D&H #4112 becomes A&A #114!

What is old sometimes becomes new again. Such is the case with D&H RS3 #4112, which was rebuilt by the D&H in the mid-1970s along with some sister engines into a new class of RS3m (or RS3u). She started off as a regular Alco RS3, as shown below in March 1971.

Here she is in September 24, 1974, in Watervliet just months before being sent out for rebuilding. I have no idea if the word "bye" on the end was a D&H employee's foreshadowing of the event or not, but it is ironic if nothing else.

I wrote about the rebuilding several years ago on my blog here, and at the time mentioned that I was interested in this engine because it had been repainted by the D&H in a classy red/white/blue scheme and numbered #1976 for the Nation's bicentennial celebrations. I even opined here that there was a good chance that it took part in one of the many gathering of bicentennial locomotives that was sponsored by Kalmbach Publishing Companies' Trains magazine. Here she is nearly two years later on September 25, 1976 in Bellwood, Illinois. The Rock Island engine behind her suggests a gathering of bicentennial engines.

After the D&H renumbered her #506 to fit in with the roster scheme of the other RS3m engines it kept on going. This is what she looked like in May 01, 1977 in Bethlehem, PA.

Unlike many of the D&H's Alco engines, she survived through the period when the NYS&W was appointed operator of the D&H. This shot shows her in August 1989, working with another leaser engine. 

Finally, she was sold to the Tioga Central Railroad, then the Wellsboro & Corning Railroad, and then the Western New York and Pennsylvania Railroad in 2014. The WNY&P repainted her solid black with yellow chevrons in October 2014. Sadly, I didn't have the foresight to take pictures of it when it was on the Tioga Central in its faded but showing bicentennial colors. 

I lost track of the engine after 2014 and didn't think much of it until last year when it was acquired by the shortline Arcade & Attica Railroad, of which I have written about much on my blog. I have yet to go out and see her in person, but I hope to correct that soon. Here is what she looked like in August 2023 after just being received by the A&A. They numbered her #114, which was the next slot in line (they already have engines numbered #110, 111, 112, and 113). 

Note that Bowser has announced HO scale models of these engines in several D&H paint schemes, as well as one in the WNY&P. Can we hope that it will someday offer it in the A&A #14?