Nostalgia & History > Soo Line Bandits at Savanna, Illinois

Our beloved Milwaukee Road faced its final bankruptcy in 1985. For awhile, it looked like the Chicago and Northwestern would be the successful bidder but thankfully, that never happened. After the Soo Line was successful in acquiring the Milwaukee (as it was known in the Midwest), they very tastefully, patched out "Milwaukee Road" on their locomotives with black paint and stenciled them for the soo line. This happened to all of the Milwaukee Road units that were retained in the merger and they continued to operated in their hideous paint for many years. This image was made in April of 1991 as the train approached the diamonds with the Burlington Northern. I've also included a shot of a "proper looking" Soo Line unit that was taken in October of 1991 at Lanark, Illinois, on the same EX Milwaukee Road trackage.

Image 1: Westbound at Savanna, Illinois May 1991
Image 2: Westbound at Lanark, Illinois Oct 1991

Thanks!

Dave



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/18 09:10 by GBW309.

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Is there an approximate date for the 'bandit' scheme to have been retired/re-painted? Somebody certainly gpt their money's worth from that scheme.
tia.

TCnR Wrote:
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> Is there an approximate date for the 'bandit'
> scheme to have been retired/re-painted? Somebody
> certainly gpt their money's worth from that
> scheme.
> tia.

There may still be one or two running around!

=DL

I found a few pictures of GP40's still running in the bandit scheme in 2014 and MP 15's in 2015. Pretty amazing since the GP 40's aren't even dash 2 models.

Dave

Like them both but most especially Photo 1.
ALLEN

Yeah, that black, IMO, is hideous, but you'll find someone here that likes anything including graffiti, and tattoos on women. <G>

Victor A. Baird
http://www.erstwhilepublications.com