Reading Railroad Diesel Locomotive # 903 was one of the first six FP7s ordered by the railroad in March 1950 to replace passenger steam locomotives. It and sister Reading 902 were completed on June the 1st of that year and delivered to the Reading via the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The pair pulled their first train on June 6. In the following years, the two locomotives sometimes worked together, and sometimes were split, depending on the size of their trains.
SEPTA inherited the units in 1974, and they were renumbered by the new Consolidated Rail Corporation in 1976, the 903 becoming 4373. It was the first FP7 to receive SEPTA paint in February 1978. During the SEPTA years, the FP7s usually operated in push-pull. SEPTA ceased all diesel-operations in 1981, and the locomotives were retired.
Locomotive 903 was purchased by the Philadelphia Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society (NRHS) in September 1983 and was stored at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania along with its sister, the 902, which was owned by the Lancaster Chapter of the NRHS. Restoration on the two began in 1986 and was completed in 1995.
This was my second trip to the outside restoration yard at the museum. The one locomotive I knew I definitely needed to re-shoot was the 903. The last time I shot her I didn’t feel I did anything with the composition so I wanted to try incorporating the tower from the Strasburg Railroad which is located across the street.
Taken on Saturday 8-22-2009 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, Strasburg, PA.
For more information on the museum, visit their web site at www.rrmuseumpa.org/index.shtml. For more information on the FP& diesel locmotives, visit this site.
I shot this as seven bracketed RAW frames and then combined them into an HDR with Photomatix Pro and finally, tone mapped that image to create the final product.
