Nostalgia & History > A Chicago Northwestern Black Friday

Chicago & Northwestern SD45 6544 is wearing the colors of its original owner, the Pennsylvania Railroad, as it rolls south on former CNW rails.  It's May of 1989 and the tracks now belong to the Fox River Valley RR.  First shot is at North Fond du Lac and the second shot is at West Bend, crossing the Milwaukee River.  I could have used a chain saw for that one, or maybe a lumberjack...

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It was built as PRR 6221, but the shiny areas of fresh paint suggest its most recent full paint job was Penn Central:

http://rr-fallenflags.org/pc/pc6221ags.jpg

From that scheme, it was first patched to CR:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4752658,4752664#4752664

...and then those patches were covered by CNW.  The unit did get a full "Zito Yellow" repaint, but was in storage by the time of the UP merger and was retired soon after:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,200980

It was rebuilt to an SD40M-3 for Helm, becoming HLCX 6500 in the process:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,1216329

Not sure what's become of it since then.

I saw these arrive on the CNW on their way to Oelwein for refurbishing and set up.  I never got them working like you did.  Nice shots, thanks for posting.  When I saw them, none were in Pennsy paint, most were in Penn Central paint but several were in Conrail paint, so I agree with Evan on the paint of this engine.

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA