Death Star at Arcola
When I began taking pictures of trains in the mid-1970s, Illinois Central meant locomotives painted in the "new image" orange and white scheme, along with a smattering of the older black units with green diamond logo. Mixed in with this were occasional units of the GM&O (both red/white and black/white schemes) as that road had merged with the IC in 1972 to form the Illinois Central Gulf.
In any case, I moved away from the Midwest for decades as railroads went through many changesāthe merger era. After the Staggers Act, railroads were able to shed their underused lines; by 1988 the ICG had slimmed down and became, once again, the Illinois Central.
With this rebirth of the IC, the road decided to paint their locomotives a simple black scheme once again; their logo took on a slightly different lookāwith horizontal linesāwhich fans likened to the Death Star.
As I didn't live in the area, I don't have many images of this scheme at all, only saw a few times during trips back to visit a pal who lived in Illinois. This local train, on the main line, is southbound in Arcola.
The Canadian National would soon purchase the Illinois Central and that would bring on yet another new look, though some black IC "Death Star" units can still be seen here and there to this day.
One image by Richard Koenig; taken in 1991 or 1992.
PS: I have another post of the little depot at Arcola, with orange and white units powering a main line train, here.
