Soo .. is there any limit to how many pictures you can or should put here? I have a lot of shots of the 4449 in 2000 and in 2001 - is there interest? I hate spamming this section if no one wants to see them!
Ok. The first set is of the 4449 in completely black livery. If you can see the tender, it even has the BNSF logo on it! Apparently BNSF paid to have the loco and tenders repainted in basic black with BNSF logos on them. Kinda cool. Some of the shots show the hellaciously long set of passenger cars trundling along behind the 4449 Daylight, and also the shiny new 4449 GE loco. I'm not posting everything I have - I'd like to go back and slap myself for not taking better shots. It was a digital camera, but 17 years ago digital cameras were more a curiosity than a reality, so the resolution and lens are pretty poor compared to what we have now...
Intermission - some various shots on BNSF. I guess this one is the "Heritage" engine?? A shiny "new" SD40-2: Oakway Leasing apparently provided a lot of these for BN - guess since they were leased, they never painted them to BN colors? I wish I had a better shot of the second loco - the warbonnet BNSF wasn't very common, at least around here?
I went to add the 4449 trip to Yakima, WA in 2001, but Photobucket won't let me upload right now. So - I'll post more tomorrow, most likely. Don't want you to get bored, anyhow...
If you have photos of trains, this is the right place to find people who like to look at them! And your photos are great! Thanks for sharing them! (anyone here who doesn't enjoy looking at trains just ain't right in his mind... )
Max, thanks for those shots of 4449 in black. She was "hired" by BNSF to conduct a series of employee specials for the road. She stayed in black until after 9/11/2001. Then Doyle decided to repaint her to the American Freedom Train red white and blue, and she made a trip from Portland to Bend in 2002 which really drew the crowds as people came together after the twin towers attack. A few years later, he painted her back to Daylight colors and she has been so ever since. That's Jack Wheelihan, fireman, in your second photo.
No boredom here! Speaking of those blue/white Oakway units, do you also recall the EMD leasers they had, back late 1980's or early 1990's? Those latter were never repainted, etc.
March 15, 2017 at Killian, SC, a grain extra makes its way south with UP 8669 providing a welcome splash of color:
I think i read somewhere that on the day of the golden spike ceremony, that some reporter from back east decided on his own that "Promontory Summit" just did not have the journalistic punch as "Promontory Point". So, he arbitrarily changed the geographic location of the historic event and to this day, people still get it wrong. Even the Union Pacific, in some of their literature put "Point" instead of "Summit" as the location. Today, the railroad actually goes to Promontory Point via the Lucin Cutoff, which is on the end of a peninsula jutting out into the Great Salt Lake. Well, enough rambling, here is a painting depicting the event at Promontory Summit.
Somewhere too I recall that Temperance organizations disliked the evidence of liquor in this widely published photo:
First time putting a pic here. Just came out after a new paint job at the CSX shops in Huntington,WV. Curtis
