Tuesday, December 14, 2010









I spotted this historic photo at My link page Fallen Flags.Org to the right of Your computer screen.

One Chicago based railroad that I found interesting, was the Wabash Railroad.
Although the Wabash and the Nickle Plate Road had merged and became part of the Norfolk & Western in October of 1964 when I was a mere lad of two years old, their dark blue colors were painted on some of the N & W locomotives until 1971.

The Wabash diesel road power such as the first generation EMD E and F series cab units, The EMD GP-7 and 9 models and the Alco PA-1 passenger locomotives...had an attractive dark blue, gray and yellow lettering color scheme with a Wabash waving flag logo in red. The 2nd generation 1960's era EMD and General Electric locomotives, were painted in to a simplified solid blue with gold lettering and a red waving flag logo. Some of the older 1st generation diesels were repainted in to this color scheme too.

The yard switchers were another matter altogether. The Wabash yard switcher locomotives like EMD SW-9 # 377 shown here in this photo labled Chicago Illinois, July 5th, 1958, wore a plain black color scheme with yellow letters just like the steam locomotived that they had replaced. It was not a color scheme to write home about to say the least.

I believe that this photo, was taken at Landers Yard just east of South Kedzie Avenue in Chicago's Wrightwood neighborhood between West 79th Street and Southwest Highway.

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