#sdp40f

On the Chicago & Alton

I believe this is a northbound Amtrak Inter-American; the line is the Chicago & Alton/GM&O/ICG. It’s always nice to see color-position lights, this particular design endemic to the B&O and Alton.

The location is just south of Bloomington, Illinois, photographed from the I-55/I-74 overpass with Fox Creek Road in the distance.

SDP40F in Phase II Paint

I assume this unit is from the initial batch of SDP40Fs from La Grange—beyond its fairly low number, it has the more complicated sheet metal work on the nose. (Later ones had a simplified design, with a flat section where the access door is located.)

The reason this locomotive is looking so marvelous—in Phase II paint—is that it has just come out of the Illinois Central Paducah shops after being refurbished. Too bad that the entire fleet of this model would be taken out of service later this very year or early the next due to a mysterious problem that caused it to derail with enough regularity that it was untenable.

The problem *may* have been due to large water tanks which were needed for the steam generator. (This locomotive was designed to haul legacy equipment that still used steam heat.) There's also a question about a newly designed truck. In any event there's never been a definitive reason for the issue. The engines would be returned to EMD which recycled some components in the manufacture of the F40PH for Amtrak; some of the units were reworked into freight locos that ran for the ATSF.

Legacy Equipment

Three Alco RS3s work the Amtrak facility in Chicago. Number 117 is ex-PC 5441, nee PRR 8441 (built November of 1953), number 125 is ex-PC 5502, nee NYC 8253 (built June of 1951), and number 122 is ex NH 523 (built August of 1950). The two SDP40Fs have recently had Phase II paint applied.

Florida Bound

This is a southbound Amtrak Floridian rolling down the former Monon at a spot called Ketchams, between Bloomington and Bedford, in southern Indiana. The line was owned by the Louisville & Nashville at the time.

The train is powered by two SDP40Fs, running elephant style as the train would be split in two once in Florida—the two terminals being Miami and St. Petersburg. I’m pretty sure this train always had at least one dome car in the consist.

Someone on FB tells me the Southern Pacific box baggage cars (at the rear of the train here), were leased by Amtrak for a Chicago to Jacksonville mail contract.

Harrodsburg Siding

Not a great sequence, as I'm too far away from the action, but there it is. A southbound Amtrak Floridian rolls by the south end of Harrodsburg Siding and its semaphores. We're on the former Monon, Louisville & Nashville at the time of shooting.

As per usual, the train ran with two SDP40Fs up front—elephant style so it could be split to two different destinations in Florida—along with legacy streamlined cars; the train was assigned one dome.

Meet at Thornton

I believe we have a northbound Amtrak Floridian on the main here, Louisville & Nashville, former Monon.

Don't know how long the siding is, but I imagine the southbound freight may have had to saw through the siding. The Passenger train will soon by rolling through the tiny burg of Peerless. I now realize that I must have climbed up the semaphore at the north end of the siding for this angle.

Greencastle

This is a southbound Amtrak Floridian powering through Greencastle, Indiana. The line here is the Louisville & Nashville, former Monon.

I’ve pored over older maps looking to see what the foundations are just north of the bridge on which I’m standing (which carries S. County Road 200W) but cannot find anything as of yet.