I took this vintage looking black and white photo, at the Illinois Railway Museum during a June 1993 visit. This scene looks like something out of the 1950's here in North America. During the late 1940's and early 1950's, American railroading was going through what was known as "The steam to diesel transition period". Steam locomotives were being phased out as newer and less labor intensive diesel locomotives were coming about. It was a new age.During their final years of operation, many steam locomotives were being removed from passenger train assignments, and rolled their final service miles on freight train assignments untill retirement and scrappings. Many secondary passenger trains that hauled mail or express parcels, or even served as connecting trains to major stations and terminlas, had soon found themselves being powered by EMD GP-7 locomotives like this.
Many times, it was common for the secondary mail or connecting branchline trains to be seen using the old heavyweight 1920's era cars well into the 1950's and 60's. Most of the time, the locomotives were dual service models that were equipped with steam generators for electric power , heating and air conditioning in the passenger cars. A changing era reanacted in Illinois
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