AEM7 Arrives in Danbury

It seems the Danbury Railway Museum's collection of mainline electric collection is growing again. According to this video (source of the screen shot above), Amtrak 917, an AEM7 built by Electro-Motive in 1981, has been moved to the DRM property from its former storage location at a shipping terminal in Rhode Island.* This makes 917 the third AEM7 preserved, after 915 at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania and 945 at the Illinois Railway Museum. Of the three, it is the only example that was upgraded to AC traction around 2000 or so; the other two retain their original DC motors. This addition puts the list at 2,089 pieces of equipment.

As I wrote here, DRM is now in the same league as IRM and RRMofPA - not coincidentally, the other two owners of AEM7s - when it comes to its mainline electric collection. DRM now has 11 pieces of mainline electric equipment, compared with nine at RRMofPA and 11 at IRM. DRM might not have a locomotive of such national significance as Strasburg's DD1, or a crowd pleaser quite like the operable South Shore 803 in Union, but Danbury's collection includes unique pieces like the Grand Central Terminal wrecker, the last NYC T-Motor, and all three surviving New Haven "washboard" MU cars. Now, all they need is a GG1!

*EDIT: It appears that the AEM7 actually arrived in Danbury on June 7th.