Western Railroad Discussion > Plum River Visitors on the BN and the Milw.

BN hotshot #12 starts the climb up out of the Mississippi River valley at Plum River, just east of Savanna, Illinois on 3-22-94. The train is comming off the river line and will be going east over the C&I to Chicago. The BN was power short at the time and turned to the lease fleet to help out. WSOR and GATX
stepped forward this day to move hot tonnage eastward. You gotta love the days before the Dash 9's!!

---

Over on the Milwaukee Road (Savanna's other railroad) we have pooled Southern Pacific power bringing train #226 down the hill into Plum River and on to Savanna for a crew change. The date is July of 1984. You gotta love those L shaped windows on those older units!

---

What's the heritage of the WSOR F45? Or is it an FP45? As I recall FP45s had the door at the very rear of the unit. Is it an ex-BN unit that once again graced BN rails? Curious minds want to know.

The WSOR F45 1002 was built as BN 6642 and it is now MRL 392.

Great stuff. Keep it coming.

-Justin
RapidsRail.com

Your killing me i have to get a scaner . how about that AT&SF 90's you have richard

Thank's Scott. I remember one slide show we had a long time back where you put up a beautiful shot of a WSOR F-45 leading a freight at Savanna as well. Dig that slide out and get it on here! In this world of Dash 9's were now living in, cowl units are a hot commodity. But then again, most anything that isn't a Dash 9 is!

And if I recall, it was after I seen your shot at that slide show of the WSOR F-45 on the river line that got me up to Savanna in hopes of catching one too. Although it took several tries, I finally nailed one!

Yea i have it and a lot more some day i will get a scaner RSM

The WSOR F45 there is a Nick Buster for sure.

And how could any MILW fan along the KC route in the 1980's never forget 226/227. Ran with solid SP sets a lot of the time. I had a retired engineer from Marion tell me one time back when he was working out of Ottumwa(after the Iowa line closed) he took 227 out of Kansas City with some SP power. Brakie went back to one of the trailing units and found two illegal aliens on board. Must have come out of Texas he thought.

MILW86A