Every post card in my collection has its own story. Every Wednesday I post one of the 3,000 plus stories.
Wednesday, July 15, 2026
Is that a "Bluebird" that I See?
This website tells us almost everything we want to know about the front of this post card:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_U34CHU34CH
What we are seeing is one locomotive of a fleet of 32 that were built by General Electric for Erie-Lackawanna and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT). The locomotive is a U34CH fitted with heating equipment to handle commuter trains in northern New Jersey. This picture was taken in 1972.
The U34CH is a 3,600 hp passenger diesel locomotive built by General Electric between 1970 and 1973. In total, 33 U34CH units were built; 32 were built for the New Jersey Department of Transportation and operated by the Erie Lackawanna Railway and, later, Conrail, with the last unit coming as a later rebuild of a GE U30C for the New York MTA.
The 32 initial locomotives operated with new Pullman Standard push-pull coaches. The units were intended to replace locomotives in suburban commuter service out of Hoboken, New Jersey. The U34CH was the first GE locomotive to use steel crowned pistons to develop 3,600 hp and was the first commuter locomotive built with shaft driven HEP–that is, a Head End Power alternator driven by the locomotive prime mover rather than by a separate diesel. In the next sentence, F indicates a cylinder bore of 9 inches; D identifies the engine configuration with the master and auxiliary connecting rods; and L refers to the service as “locomotive”. To provide HEP at the proper AC frequency the FDL-16 prime mover ran at a constant 900 RPM, so traction horsepower was 3430 minus whatever was going into HEP. By contrast, when not providing HEP, the FDL-16 could produce 3600 traction horsepower at its usual 1050 RPM. To show their NJDOT ownership, the units were painted in a dark blue and silver paint scheme with NJDOT logo and were often called "Bluebirds" by rail enthusiasts. The U34CHs on the weekends were sometimes used in Erie Lackawanna freight service, often being on freight duty from Saturday to Sunday and returning to commuter service Monday morning.
The post card was published by Railcards.com
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