Nostalgia & History > 3 of Central of Georgia Passenger Trains

1. Central of Georgia EMD E7A 802 built Aug. 1946 with Train 19, the Man O' War at Columbus, GA Feb. 1968.  Rick Burn Photo

2. Central of Georgia EMD E7A 804 built Aug. 1946 with the Seminole at Columbus, GA Feb. 1968.  Rick Burn Photo

3. Central of Georgia EMD E8A 812 built Aug. 1950 with the Seminole, Opelika, AL with Western Railway of Alabama crossing, Feb. 1968.  Rick Burn Photo

 

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Wonderful passenger pics, especially for a nostalgic, miss them times Saturday.

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Nice shots.

That 3rd photo looks more like Illinois Central than Central of Georgia.

HotWater Wrote:
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> Nice shots.
>
> That 3rd photo looks more like Illinois Central
> than Central of Georgia.

Maybe taken the same day as these:

Western Railway of Alabama GP 7 523 meets GP9 531 at Opelika

For the IC's City of Miami the segment on the C of G used IC colors on the C of G units.   If you look close at the logo you can see it marked Cemtral of Georgia within the normal IC green diamond herald.   Wayne Johnson was president and wanted the uniformity of the trainset.
 

kyicfan Wrote:
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> For the IC's City of Miami the segment on the C of
> G used IC colors on the C of G units.   If you
> look close at the logo you can see it marked
> Cemtral of Georgia within the normal IC green
> diamond herald.   Wayne Johnson was president
> and wanted the uniformity of the trainset.

The Seminole also ran in IC colors.

Those CofG E units were in a power pool with the IC for the City of Miami,  Not being a daily train meant the City of Miami's power had a long layover in Chicago.  The Cc took advange of that regularly and used the CofG units on other trains that would get the units back into Chicago in time to return on the next southbound City of Miami.  We saw these appear fairly regularly on the IC's Hawkeye to Iowa during this period.   Quite a shock back when I knew little about passenger trains beyond the Iowa Division.

Great photos

Norm

Only the two CofG E8 units, 811 and 812, were in the IC paint. The E7 units, 801-810, were delivered in blue and gray. A few of them got "collards green" before Southern repainted everything except the E8 units into black and white. Southern disposed of those E8s shortly after Amtrak Day, when the City of Miami no longer ran. 

CofG had some passenger-equipped GP7s, but photos of them on passenger trains are very rare.  

NCA1022 Wrote:
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> Those CofG E units were in a power pool with the
> IC for the City of Miami,  ...

They were not restricted to the City of Miami. Plenty of photos show them on the Seminole, too.

One of my early railfan memories circa 1964, was see the mostly orange and chocolate Seminole close to Opelika AL while traveling with my family to see an Auburn football game. "Illinois Central" south of Birmingham was something that I did not know about at the time. Can't say whether the engines were IC or CofGa, but my recollection were that they were in IC colors.