A northbound Milwaukee Road freight passes the feed mill at Bixby, Minnesota, in September 1984. Powering the train are three of Milwaukee’s unique EMD SDL39s, essentially light-weight SD39 “branch line” locomotives, along with two rebuilt GP9s the railroad reclassified “GP20s.”
The EMD SD (special duty) series are a strong and reliable kind of locomotive which still serve America's rails today. They have proved themselves reliable by clocking in several million miles of freight service over several decades.
