Let’s go back a few decades to a time when what is today the CSX New Castle Subdivision was operated by the Chessie System.
In the top image, an eastbound led by Baltimore & Ohio GP40-2 No. 4156 leads a steel coil train through Sterling in November 1981.
The middle image was made in Akron in December 1979. B&O SD40-2 No. 7613 leads a westbound beneath Interstate 76 near South Street.
The bottom image was made at Easton in March 1988 and shows an eastbound led by B&O GP40 No. 6088
It’s July 2004 and CSX is more than a decade into the YN2 livery era. The gold, blue and gray livery adorned thousands of CSX locomotives and some called it “bright future” while others used the term “hockey stick.”
In the top image GP38-2 No. 2910 leads an eastbound through Clinton (Warwick) on July 21.
In the bottom image, SD40-2 No. 8088 leads a westbound through Warwick on July 23.
It was also an era before wide cab locomotives became the standard.
Some of the locomotives that Norfolk Southern is seeking to sell are rare birds.
Those include 29 Electro-Motive Division SD80MACs that were unique to Conrail that NS inherited when it and CSX divided Conrail in 1999.
Carrying NS roster numbers 7200-7228, the ex-Conrail units were built between 1995 and 1996 and were among a small fleet of alternating current units.
Conrail also purchased 15 SD70MACs that NS continues to operate in revenue service.
CSX received 13 of the SD80MACs from the Conrail motive power roster. NS later bought 12 of those with one of them having been scrapped.
At NS, the SD80MACs were mainstays in coal train service in central Pennsylvania although they also held down assignments elsewhere in the NS system.
NS idled its SD80MAC about the time it began implementing its TOP21 operating plan last year, the NS version of precision scheduled railroading.
A review by Trains magazine of the list of other locomotives being offered for sale by NS found that other vintage units are on the block, including some that date back to Penn Central ownership.
Several units were originally acquired by NS predecessors Norfolk & Western and Southern Railway or their subsidiaries.
These include RPU6 Slug 879 (a former EMD SD40) and RP-E4 Slugs 912 and 913 (former Norfolk & Western GP9s); MP15E’s 2368 (ex-Southern/Central of Georgia), 2374, and 2381 (both ex-Southern); GP38-2s 5202 (ex-Southern) and 5276 (ex-Penn Central); and GP40-2 3030 (ex-Conrail).
Also being sold are 58 EMD SD40-2s which came from Alabama Great Southern (Southern subsidiary; 1 unit); Burlington Northern (16 units), Canadian Pacific (two units), Central of Georgia (Southern subsidiary, five units), Cincinnati New Orleans & Texas Pacific (Southern subsidiary, two units), Colorado & Southern (BN subsidiary, one unit), Conrail (11 units), Georgia Southern & Florida (Southern subsidiary, one unit), Kennecott Copper Co. (one unit), Missouri Pacific (one unit), Norfolk & Western (nine units), and Union Pacific (two units).
Trains reported that some of the SD40-2 units are 45 years old and some were acquired from locomotive lease firms CEFX, CITX, or FURX.
Some SD40-2s were rebuilt Admiral cabs at the Juniata Locomotive Shop in Altoona, Pennsylvania.
Here are two grab shots of Wheeling & Lake Erie SD40-2 No. 7009 pushing its train east on CSX in Akron on Nov. 26. The 7009 had already passed under the Wilbeth Road walk bridge as I got there.
As you can see, that is a small part of industrial Akron in the background of image one as seen through the fence webbing.
The bottom image is actually a zoomed in shot from the same location.
No. 7009 was used in the making of the 2010 movie Unstoppable and for the filming received a specially painted fictional Allegheny & West Virginia Railroad livery of gray, yellow and black.
It has been given a positive train control apparatus.
There are days when the forces are working against you. The light isn’t great. The train traffic is minimal or, worse, non existent.
Bob Farkas found himself having one of those days during a recent outing.
He didn’t have great light, with only enough side lighting from the back to provide illumination.
But this was the only train that he could photograph on this particular morning.
So here is Wheeling & Lake Erie SD40-2 still wearing a FURX livery leading a westbound train.
Early in the life of CSX the carrier painted its locomotives gray with blue lettering.
That look is illustrated by CSX SD40-2 No. 8240 leading an eastbound on the New Castle Subdivision at Easton, Ohio, in February 1989.
As former CSX locomotive engineer Paul Woodring pointed out in a recent comment on this site, the gray appearance made the locomotives difficult to see at grade crossings in conditions of rain and fog.
So CSX elected to add more blue and gold to it livery, which created the “bright future” look that many still associate with the railroad.
The “gray ghost” look may have been less expensive, but it had other costs.
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