The RS-3 has been called the “definitive” Reading diesel during the steam to diesel transition. No. 492 two is typical of the very versatile “road-switcher” locomotives which served railroads all over New Jersey and the northeast.

No. 492 was delivered to Rutherford, PA in the summer of 1952, and went about replacing the Reading N-1 Mallet and I-9 Consolidation steam locomotives still operating there. Later, it frequently saw service on the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines in south Jersey. On October 26, 1973, it was sold to the United Railway Supply of Montreal, Quebec and subsequently acquired by the Roberval & Saguenay Railway as their No. 31. By the late 1970s, it was acquired by the Delaware Otsego System and renumbered as the Fonda, Johnstown & Gloversville 103, but painted in the attractive maroon scheme of the DO System. The locomotive was acquired from the General Electric Company by the URHS in 1989. In the fall of 1991, the locomotive was restored into the original Reading Company livery by Tony Zisa with help from the members of the Bergen-Rockland Chapter of the NRHS. Today it is stored non-operational in URHS’s Boonton Yard.