Sitting beside the diesel shops in Burlington Northern’s Interbay Yard is BN E8A 9947. As should be evident from its silver and stainless steel appearance, this locomotive is a former Chicago Burlington & Quincy engine, numbered CB&Q 9947A. (The ghostly “BURL” art deco just fore of the BN logo also helps!). With the CB&Q, GN, NP and SP&S merger on March 2, 1970, this engine became part of the new Burlington Northern’s diesel fleet. When photographed, this engine had been a BN locomotive for seventeen months of its twenty-one years, having emerged from EMD’s construction bays in September 1950 to haul the “Q’s” many stainless steel passenger trains (and thus the CB&Q’s unique stainless steel side panels, to match the cars), including the famed California Zephyr - which may explain why someone has scrawled on the flank of this elegant E-units “Interbay Zepher” [sic]. This locomotive would later be sold to Amtrak, becoming their number 341, and would be retired in five more years, in August 1976. (Seattle, Washington – August 1971)
Photos of North America's favorite First Generation locomotives. EMD, ALCO, Baldwin; essentially anything that represents the OG wide cab diesel locomotive
