Penn Central Cab Cars?

[Pensyfan19]

Greetings all;

I've returned after quite some time to ask about whether Penn Central (or NYC) used ACMUs as cab cars outside of 3rd rail territory. I ask this as Railroad Media Archives uploaded video footage of the Delaware and Hudson in the early 70s (although there's no specific date posted as of yet), and the first train in the compilation is a three car Penn Central train (early Adirondack maybe?) with what appears to be an ACMU as the last car. I haven't seen any photos of ACMUs attached to regular passenger trains like this, so I'm not sure as to whether this was common practice, or if they were used as cab cars for some intercity trains.

Link to the original video:

[R Paul Carey]

IIRC, NYC completed the near-equivalent of a mid-life overhaul of two ACMUs, 4550 and 4565. They were recognizable by the conversion to tinted glass and elimination of the interior window shades. I believe the work on these two may have been performed at Beech Grove by NYC pre-merger. Other ACMU repairs/maintenance was performed at North White Plains, except for trucks and wheel or "combo" work which I believe was done at Harmon.

Beech Grove also performed wreck repairs on NYC's passenger equipment. This post-merger (1968) photo (with an ex-PRR E-8) is from the period following retirement of NYC's ATS and likely predates Amtrak (1971). I do recall reports of a serious Penn Central derailment at GCT.

My best judgement is this ACMU is returning from a wreck repair performed at Beech Grove.

BTW, the NYC did experiment with a push-pull train set which I recall seeing on the Harlem Division in the mid-1960s.
The experiment was short-lived and not repeated.

[mackdave]

It was common for the NYC to "deadhead" equipment on the rear of scheduled passenger trains. As mentioned, the ACMU is probably going back into service on line east.

Dave Mackay