D&H RF-16s 1205 & 1216: Heritage, Specs & Where They Ran

Last revised: September 6, 2026

Delaware & Hudson 1205 and 1216 are the last two Baldwin RF-16 “Sharknose” diesels left anywhere. Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton finished them at Eddystone for the New York Central as 3805 (December 7, 1951, construction number 75361) and 3816 (January 25, 1952, construction number 75372). The Central renumbered the class in 1966, traded the survivors to General Electric, and the Monongahela Railway bought them for coal drags. By 1972 they were the only RF-16s still able to move under their own power. In 1974 the Bridge Line, under president Carl B. Sterzing Jr., swapped about $6,000 worth of scrap boxcars for the pair, overhauled them at Colonie, and put them in blue and gold. They were not a museum set. They pulled D&H freight—and the occasional railfan extra—until April 1978. Jim Shaughnessy photographed them at the Colonie shops in February 1975, the month the railroad was showing them off. That is the picture on this page.

Delaware and Hudson RF-16 Sharknose diesels 1205 and 1216 pose at the Colonie New York shops in February 1975

Delaware & Hudson RF-16s 1205 and 1216 pose at the Colonie, New York shops in February 1975. Jim Shaughnessy photo.

On this page: At a glance · New York Central 3805 and 3816 · Monongahela coal · Sterzing and Colonie · Where they ran · Specifications · After the D&H · Related reading · Sources

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad (this page)	Delaware & Hudson (reporting mark DH), 1974–April 1978
Road numbers	1205 and 1216. Kept through NYC 1966, Monongahela, and D&H
Builder / model	Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton RF-16 (class DR-4-4-1600/1 SC), Eddystone, Pa. A-units only
1205	Baldwin c/n 75361, serial 82, completed December 7, 1951. Built New York Central 3805
1216	Baldwin c/n 75372, serial 93, completed January 25, 1952. Built New York Central 3816 (not 3812; see heritage note)
Prime mover	De La Vergne 608A, Elliott H704 turbocharger, 1,600 hp at 625 rpm
Wheel arrangement	B-B (AAR); Bo′Bo′ (UIC)
D&H service	Mainline freight plus publicity and railfan extras, August 1974–April 1978. Not a parked display pair
Typical D&H geography	Roamed the Bridge Line rather than one assigned district. Photographed most often at Colonie, Kenwood Yard (Albany), and Whitehall, N.Y., and on the Binghamton–Sayre detour
Sold	Listed December 1977 at $40,000; sold April 1978 to Castolite Corporation, Minneapolis
Location (2026)	Privately stored on the Escanaba & Lake Superior, Michigan. 1205 indoors at Escanaba; 1216 at Wells since December 2, 2021. Not on public view

Construction numbers and completion dates follow Baldwin works records as tabulated on this site’s RF-16 production roster. Information compiled September 6, 2026.

New York Central 3805 and 3816

The RF-16 was Baldwin’s Standard Line road-freight cab: 1,600 horsepower, B-B trucks, Westinghouse electricals, and the Sharknose carbody. Domestic buyers were only the Baltimore & Ohio, New York Central, and Pennsylvania.

The Central ordered eighteen A-units, 3804–3821, and eight boosters, 3702–3709, in the winter of 1951–52. 3805 and 3816 sat in the middle of that A-unit block. In 1966, a few years short of the Penn Central merger, the railroad recast the cabs as 1204–1221. Arithmetic is simple: 3805 became 1205, 3816 became 1216. They kept those numbers for the rest of their working lives. The surviving pair was then traded to General Electric.

The Sharknose carbody is Hadley, Ryder & Pedersen’s redesign of Baldwin’s unpopular “Baby Face,” not a Raymond Loewy job. The myth comes from the nose’s resemblance to Loewy’s Pennsylvania T-1.

Monongahela coal, then a scrap dealer

In the winter of 1967 the Monongahela Railway bought a handful of the traded Central Sharks—seven cabs and two boosters, including 1205 and 1216—for coal-drag service out of Brownsville, Pennsylvania, and the West Virginia mines. Baldwin’s Westinghouse motors were at home on slow, heavy trains. The MGA already ran Baldwin S-12s; the RF-16s were a secondhand fit, not a collector’s purchase. Dan Cupper photographed 1205 at Brownsville on September 21, 1971, still in that work.

By 1972 only 1205 and 1216 would still start. The rest of the Monongahela Sharks went to scrap. The last two followed them to a dealer and sat there until 1974. That is how a pair of 1951–52 New York Central freight cabs became available to a New York–Pennsylvania–Vermont bridge line that had never bought a Baldwin road unit new.

Sterzing, scrap boxcars, and Colonie blue and gold

Carl B. Sterzing Jr.’s Delaware & Hudson already had a reputation for keeping older power in the public eye. The four ex-Santa Fe Alco PA-1s (16–19), bought in December 1967 and later rebuilt as PA-4s, are the famous example. The Sharks were the Baldwin counterpart: a power shortage on a small roster, plus a president willing to put distinctive secondhand cabs on the point. The railroad traded roughly $6,000 in scrap boxcars for 1205 and 1216 around August 1974. Colonie Shops at Watervliet/Colonie, New York, overhauled them and painted them into the D&H blue-and-gold family that also dressed the PAs—Lightning Stripe / modified warbonnet, not Monongahela black or Central lightning stripe.

Shaughnessy’s February 1975 Colonie portrait is the shop showing the finished pair: 1216 nearest the camera, 1205 coupled behind, both in fresh paint, snow on the ground, shop buildings and a signal bridge behind them. The same month, Richard Allen photographed PA 18 and RF-16 1216 together at Colonie for a company view (February 8, 1975). The railroad understood what it had. Baldwin had left the locomotive business in 1956. Every other RF-16 was already cut up. These two were the last Sharks that could still earn a living.

They were not compatible with the rest of the D&H fleet in multiple-unit. Baldwin used air-powered throttles; EMD and Alco used electrical MU. Crews therefore ran 1205 and 1216 as a set, not mixed into a Geep or Century consist. Railfan later printed the crew verdict: the 608As sounded like John Deere tractors, and newer four-axle power outclassed them in speed. They still pulled. That was the point of Westinghouse motors on a 15:68 gear set.

Where a railfan found them

They were not assigned to one district the way a Colonie switcher or a Penn Division local was assigned. They roamed. The D&H in those years was a 700-odd-mile Bridge Line with a sudden extra map after April 1, 1976, when Conrail trackage rights stretched it toward Buffalo, Newark, Philadelphia, and Washington. A pair of incompatible Baldwins went where the power bureau could use two units that had to stay together. Photographers, not a published assignment sheet, are how the geography reads.

The densest record is the Colonie–Albany–Whitehall end of the Champlain corridor:

Colonie Shops (Watervliet/Colonie, N.Y.) — overhaul, company portraits, and layover. Shaughnessy, February 1975 (this page); Allen, February 8, 1975, with PA 18
Kenwood Yard, Albany — Shaughnessy again, circa 1975, the pair on the yard leads
Whitehall, N.Y. — Arnold Morscher, June 15, 1977, a side-on of 1205. Whitehall is the south end of Lake Champlain and the junction toward Rutland. It was a reliable place to wait if the pair was on the northern main

They also left the home rails on foreign-line detours during the mid-1970s power crunch. The best-documented of those is the Lehigh Valley Binghamton–Sayre run in July and August 1975. Railfan magazine was preparing a story on that line; the editors were allowed to ride a Shark cab. J. J. Young, Jr., published “Riding the Sharks” in the Spring 1976 issue. Jerry Custer photographed Lehigh Valley GP38AC 310 towing the D&H pair and their train into Sayre in August 1975 after the freight had come in off the Erie Lackawanna at the yard’s west end (the caboose on the head end is the runaround). Ed Betz caught them on the Sayre service tracks in the same period; that frame is the hero on the RF-16 type page. The Elmira Star-Gazette of July 26, 1975, ran “No jaws for these sharks” while the pair was in the neighborhood.

So the honest railfan answer is mixed. They did roam the system. They were not a Whitehall-only or Binghamton-only assignment. If you were chasing them in 1975–77, Colonie, Kenwood, and Whitehall were the highest-percentage D&H locations, and Sayre was the highest-percentage off-line location for a few weeks in the summer of 1975. After that you took your chances on whatever freight the pair was called for. They were popular because they were the last two, not because the railroad hid them on one branch.

Specifications (RF-16 A-unit as applied to 1205 and 1216)

Figures below are the Standard Line RF-16 A-unit card as published from Kirkland and this site’s type page. Both D&H units are cab A-units on GSC B-B trucks. Gear ratio on the surviving pair is the 15:68 freight set. No RF-16 order used the catalog 17:62 passenger gearing.

Item	Specification
Builder / model / class	Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton RF-16, class DR-4-4-1600/1 SC
1205 c/n / date	75361, December 7, 1951 (NYC 3805)
1216 c/n / date	75372, January 25, 1952 (NYC 3816)
Gauge	4 ft 8½ in
Wheel arrangement	B-B
Engine	De La Vergne 608A, inline 8, 12.75 in × 15.50 in, 15,832 cu in
Turbocharger	Elliott H704
Horsepower / rpm	1,600 hp at 625 rpm (some later summaries round a test figure to 1,625; Baldwin marketed 1,600)
Main generator	Westinghouse 471A (production later used 471B and 471BZ; these early NYC units are on the 471A card)
Traction motors	Westinghouse 370G (4). Later production used 370DL, 370DE, then 370DEZ
Trucks	GSC swing-bolster, drop-side equalizers; 9 ft 10 in wheelbase; 42 in wheels
Length (coupler pulling faces)	54 ft 8 in (A-unit)
Weight	250,000 lb (Kirkland / type page). Some Bridge Line notes print about 248,000
Gear ratio (this pair)	15:68
Continuous tractive effort	52,500 lb at 9.2 mph (15:68)
Top speed (15:68)	65 mph
MU	Air throttle. Not electrically compatible with EMD or Alco MU. Ran as a pair on the D&H
Carbody	Hadley, Ryder & Pedersen Sharknose. Not Raymond Loewy

Fuel capacity is not on the published Baldwin card used here; it is omitted rather than guessed. For the rest of the RF-16 production block, including B-units and the Argentine RF-615E export, use the type page.

After the D&H: Castolite, Michigan Northern, Escanaba

Sterzing’s tenure ended; the distinctive secondhand fleet was not going to stay. In December 1977 the D&H listed 1205 and 1216 for sale at $40,000. In April 1978 they went to Castolite Corporation of Minneapolis, a leasing outfit, and Castolite leased them to the Michigan Northern Railway later that year. Michigan Northern was a northern-Michigan short line working the former Pennsylvania / PRR Cadillac–Petoskey country. 1205 took cylinder-head damage, then a crankshaft failure, and came out of service. 1216 shorted a traction motor in snow. Castolite started repairs on 1205 and then went out of business. Both locomotives landed in storage on the Escanaba & Lake Superior at Escanaba, Michigan. E&LS owner John Larkin eventually took title.

1216 ran twice more on the E&LS: once in the summer of 1979, and again in the fall of 1982. A broken crankshaft ended that. 1205 did not return to service on the E&LS. Vandals later stole the builder plates. After that the railroad locked the pair away from public view. For a generation they were the most famous locomotives in Michigan that almost nobody was allowed to see.

Steve Glischinski interviewed Larkin for Trains in January 2020. Larkin said the Sharks would go to a museum upon his passing. He did not name the museum. On December 2, 2021, 1216 was moved out of the Escanaba storage building to Wells, Michigan, to free space for hopper-car cleaning and to keep the traction motors dry. 1205 was still in the Escanaba building as of November 4, 2023. As of 2026 both remain privately stored on the E&LS, indoors, not restored, and not a public exhibit. Do not plan a visit around them. The railroad has not invited railfans onto the property to look at Baldwin cabs in forty years.

They are still the only two RF-16s in existence. That is the current story until a museum actually takes them.

Baldwin RF-16 — type encyclopedia, specs, complete production roster
Sharknose carbody — Hadley, Ryder & Pedersen, not Loewy; DR-4-4-1500 and DR-6-4-2000 sisters
Delaware & Hudson — Bridge Line company history
D&H diesel roster — all-time table, including the PA-1/PA-4s and this pair
New York Central — original owner, 3804–3821 / 1204–1221
Monongahela Railway — 1967–72 coal-drag home
Lehigh Valley — Sayre terminal; August 1975 detour
Escanaba & Lake Superior — present owner and storage
Baldwin Locomotive Works
Diesel locomotives

Sources

Kirkland, John F. The Diesel Builders, Volume Three: Baldwin Locomotive Works. Pasadena: Interurban Press, 1994. RF-16 class DR-4-4-1600/1 SC, 608A / H704, Westinghouse electricals, 54 ft 8 in A-unit, ~250,000 lb, gear ratios, Hadley, Ryder & Pedersen carbody (not Loewy)
Pinkepank, Jerry A. Diesel Spotter’s Guide. Milwaukee: Kalmbach, 1967
Solomon, Brian. Baldwin Locomotives. Minneapolis: Voyageur Press, 2009
American-Rails.com RF-16 production roster (/rf16.html): NYC 3805 = c/n 75361, serial 82, December 7, 1951; NYC 3816 = c/n 75372, serial 93, January 25, 1952; NYC 3812 = c/n 75368
American-Rails.com D&H diesel roster (/dhdiesel.html): 1205/1216 sold to Castolite, April 1978; 1205 correctly as NYC 3805. The 1216 line that reads “built as New York Central 3812” with serial 75372 mixes two identities; this leaf follows the Baldwin card
Bridge Line Historical Society, Baldwin RF-16 notes: NYC 1966 renumber 3804–3821 to 1204–1221; D&H acquisition; Castolite sale
Star-Gazette (Elmira, N.Y.), July 26, 1975, “No jaws for these sharks”: Sterzing purchase against a D&H power shortage; Colonie overhaul and blue-and-gold paint; mainline freight; incompatibility with EMD/Alco MU; crew comments on the 608A; Railfan Binghamton–Sayre ride
Ingles, J. David. “The power behind the pointless arrow.” Trains 36, no. 2 (December 1975): 22–29
Young, J. J., Jr. “Riding the Sharks.” Railfan 1, no. 6 (Spring 1976): 30–32. Lehigh Valley Binghamton–Sayre, July 1975
Cupper, Dan. The Patriot-News, December 30, 1977: D&H lists 1205 and 1216 at $40,000
Huff, Alex. “A History of the Michigan Northern and the Last Two Remaining Sharks.” Baldwin Diesel Zone / railroad.net, June 16, 2005. Castolite lease to Michigan Northern; 1205 cylinder head and crankshaft; 1216 snow-shorted traction motor; E&LS storage
Glischinski, Steve. “Baldwin ‘Sharknose’ locomotives will eventually go to museum, owner says.” Trains Newswire, January 10, 2020. John Larkin, E&LS, unspecified museum upon his passing
Glischinski, Steve. “Baldwin Sharknose moved in Michigan.” Trains Newswire, December 3, 2021. 1216 moved Escanaba to Wells, December 2, 2021
Jim Shaughnessy photograph, Colonie shops, February 1975: the pair in D&H blue and gold (this page, images/dh-rf16s-colonie.jpg)
American-Rails.com live photographs cited in the geography section but not reused as files on this leaf: Shaughnessy at Kenwood Yard; Morscher at Whitehall, June 15, 1977; Ed Betz at Sayre (RF-16 type-page hero); Jerry Custer, LV GP38AC 310 towing the pair into Sayre, August 1975; Richard Allen, PA 18 and 1216 at Colonie, February 8, 1975

1205 and 1216 are privately stored on the Escanaba & Lake Superior in Michigan and are not a public exhibit. It is advisable not to attempt to visit these locomotives, or the railroad at all, which is not a railfan-friendly property.

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