In 1971, the Newark Allentown and Harrisburg Railroad traded their two ex-NYC Erie-built cab units to ILW for the three ILW RSX51/630 prototypes. ILW workers gutted them, then hid the two carcasses in ILW’s boiler shop, where they were “forgotten” until the plague of 2019 (then became a unwanted tourist attraction.)
Concurrently, the LT&L was building a collection of first-generation streamlined diesels around the core of their three DL-109 units. They’d already purchased a pair of MLW FPA-4s from the Joint Locomotive Pool, three EMD E9m carcasses from Larry’s Truck & Electric, Algoma Central’s ex-D&RGW HEP car #78 (an Alco PB-1 that had been first converted into a steam generator car, and by the time the LT&L had purchased it, was the last PB in the world) and, significantly, the shell of the very last F-M Erie-built B unit in the world (RAMX 9460, which was the last survivor of the CPR’s Smith Falls CWR plant.
In 2024, the LT&L filled out their collection by purchasing, then having ILW remanufacture, those two Erie-built A units and the surviving Erie-built B.
These remanufactured units (ILW designation FM78) were updated with a new AC drivetrain, a reinforced nose, HEP, and a Cummins QSK78 prime mover to produce a wildly overpowered 3300 HP unit that was only saved from being slippery by having an AC drive with a fairly robust anti-slip system.
RAMX #9460 had been extensively modified while it was in service, so the remanufactured unit was only an approximation of how it looked when it was originally outshopped. Most significantly the old couplers were replaced with shelf couplers, but the panel spacing on the screening at the top of the carbody is offset from the way it used to be. Mechanically, the B unit is (aside from not having a control stand) identical to the A units, even if the interior arrangement is completely new construction.
These three units were outshopped and delivered to the LT&L in early winter 2026, and have joined the rest of the LT&L’s streamliner fleet at the roundhouse in Trois-Rivières.