Nostalgia & History > Last trip for RI GP-35, it,s junk! Just make it FRA acceptable!

This RI GP-35 allong with most of it,s sisters are making their final journey to the scrapyards in Chicago after years stored at Oelwein IA. This one suffered massive rear end damage but due to FRA rules has to have an acess ladder to travel. A lucky few worked for a time after the RI went down but soon ended up in the Oelwein deadline. Lisbon IA. on the CNW mainline about 1986?

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LMAO! That's a  classic!

Dick Samuels

Any more pictures?

Three and a half decades after the fact it's still heart wrenching to see how far down the "Mighty Fine Line" actually sank...

Posted from Android

I'm with Lance.  I really don't see anything so funny about this photo.  Maybe it's because I personally knew so many great Rock Island employees who lost their jobs. 

santafe199 Wrote:
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> Three and a half decades after the fact it's still
> heart wrenching to see how far down the "Mighty
> Fine Line" actually sank...
>
> Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/23/16 16:33 by Rathole.

Rathole Wrote:
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> I'm with Lance.  I really don't see anything so
> funny about this photo.  Maybe it's because I
> personally knew so many great Rock Island
> employees who lost their jobs. 
>
> santafe199 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Three and a half decades after the fact it's
> still
> > heart wrenching to see how far down the "Mighty
> > Fine Line" actually sank...
> >
> > Posted from Android

Not really funny...my take was they were able to do only what was necessary to move the unit...somewhat like a short line would do...wonder what Rock Island boxcar was the donor.

Dick Samuels
Oregon Pacific Railroad

In the early to mid eighties, I was working on the Sunset from LA to El Paso as a TM/traveling electrician.  During that time I met a former RI Road Foreman of Engines who had been hired by the SP to manage his former territory.
One story he told of the last year or so of the Rock was when his bank of 20 years wouldn't cash his RI paycheck!
G 

EXSPCondr,  I think it would be an interesting story regarding the TM/Electricians on the SP. I am unaware of any other road having this classification and most on TO would be unaware.

​Remember them well, when I operated large tours  between LA and Alpine TX on the Sunset Limited  prior to Superliners.  Some trips even had a full ex Santa Fe Dome lounge.

Oelwein, IA was on the CNW, was this after they took over some of the RI lines , quess i thought Silvis, IL was the repository of the dead and dying

As I recall, the owner of the 35's sent them there for storage/lease when the RI shut down.
I kmow the Iowa Northern had a couple leased in their early days but don't know if anyone else used them.
They were pretty much toast as they had been riden hard while on the RI.
zr190