I live in diesel country on LIRR, and up until the late 1990's, and either before the Bitanic (FL9AC's with Japanese double deckers) or when the Bitanic was out of service or at other times, one typically rode antique rusted out hulks behind GP38-2's (great locos, IMHO), sometimes with 'power packs' on the west end. The cars, some of which had generators hanging below (usually, but not always with fuel), were so rusted out that in some spots you could see through the floor to the roadbed below. As to the Bitanics, they were an experiment with double deckers, which led to the C3 fleet, and while the rebuilt FL9AC's were beautiful, Metro North starved LIRR for parts like inverters, the computer systems were not ready for prime time, and overall the fleet was very poorly maintained, IMHO. They did 'set the standard' for the next generation of LIRR diesel pulled trains to constantly break down but unlike with the current cars, there were no spares, because the single spare loco (and supposedly a car) was cannibalized, so the train was frequently out of service.