Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad E8 9942A eastbound at Naperville, Illinois on July 23, 1965, Kodachrome by Chuck Zeiler. Built in March 1950 (c/n 9683) on EMD Order 2012A, it became BN 9942 (after 3/2/1970), became Amtrak 337 (after 8/1/1972), and was retired and sold for scrap May 28, 1975. It is seen here as the rear unit of a Friday evening eastbound push-pull Dinky. All the locomotives were MU'ed together, so that's at least 9000 horsepower pushing a single coach. After the rush hour trains arrived in Aurora, the Burlington needed to get the locomotives back to Chicago for service and rotation into Zephyr service. This is likely Train #154, daily passenger due out of Aurora at 6:15 PM and arriving at Union Station at 7:15 PM. The process would be reversed on Sunday evening with locomotives off Zephyr service run out to Aurora on a single car Dinky for Monday morning rush hour. This situation would have been a bit different only a couple of months earlier. The CB&Q had just received gallery cab cars from Budd and had only recently started push-pull service. The previous procedure was to turn all the locomotives (cabs facing east) and head them back to Chicago pulling a single coach. |