Nostalgia & History > My Good Friend, B&O 6932

Did you ever have a certain locomotive that you ran across on several occasions, like a lot of occasions?  Like it was following you around, or it knew where you were going to be, so it decided to be there, too?  It became your friend or nemesis, depending on what type the engine was.  Meet my good friend, B&O GP30 6932.  It seemed to always be there, and I'm certainly not complaining.  Having a GP30 follow you around is a good thing, and when it's in the classic B&O blue or Chessie colors, it becomes a great thing.  I thought I'd share some portraits of my good and faithful friend with you.

1.  The 6932 is leading the priority westbound freight, the Chicagoan, and about to roll under Burnham Ave in, you guessed it, Burnham.  Half the train is in Illinois and the rear half is still in Indiana in this shot.  The Chicagoan handled TOFC traffic on its head end.  When it got to Barr Yard, it would cut off the freight cars and head up the hill to Forest Hill with its pig traffic.  This was shot in February of 1980, just when I was going through the hiring process of being employed by the B&O.

2.  A close up of my good friend.

3.  My relationship with the 6932 was taken up a notch when I made a road trip out on Chessie's New Rock Sub.  Our lead unit was the 6932, of course.  I should have known...
Here it is sitting at Depue, while the crew was inside the depot, plotting their next move.  Shot in May of 1982.

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4.  On a different trip out on the New Rock, I found my buddy working on the Henry Job, which went west from Ottawa and down the Henry branch.  Here's the 6932 in the shade headed up a small grade at Putnam, IL

5.  The Henry job, with the classic GP30 passing another classic, the huge old Rock Island cantilever signal at Bureau.  This is where the Henry job left the main and headed south.

6.  I had changed railroads and the 6932 had changed paint schemes when I found the EMD sitting at Barr Yard in 1988.  Dressed in Chessie colors, the GP30 still looked good.  Sadly, this would be the last time I would see my old friend, as I was about to start working for my third railroad and would move to Milwaukee.

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Your friend really looks good. Wish he was still around.

Randy

Great story and pics.!

Excellent stuff, I remember fondly the GP30s in the early years of the New Rock Sub.

As for the shot in DePue: Crew was in all likelihood NOT in the depot but went to lunch at the cafe a half-block south of the grade crossing. I can say this with some certainty as I ate lunch in there with them a couple of times. Also, the DePue depot was not leased by the Chessie (or any of the post-shutdown operators), so they would have had to break in!

NZ 

NebraskaZephyr Wrote:
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> Excellent stuff, I remember fondly the GP30s in
> the early years of the New Rock Sub.
>
> As for the shot in DePue: Crew was in all
> likelihood NOT in the depot but went to lunch at
> the cafe a half-block south of the grade crossing.
> I can say this with some certainty as I ate lunch
> in there with them a couple of times. Also, the
> DePue depot was not leased by the Chessie (or any
> of the post-shutdown operators), so they would
> have had to break in!
>
> NZ 

I think you may be right that the crew had gone to eat, and I stayed on the engine to take some pictures while I could.