RS-27s #316-317 load the Chessie System's City of
Midland 41
on a sunny Sunday afternoon in
Kewaunee.
The two Alco RS-27 locomotives are the newest power on the GBW,
having been purchased second-hand from the Chicago &
North Western a few years earlier.
On the other hand, a few of the other things in the photo are
historical items on their way out. Boxcars like the Milwaukee Road
horizontal rib boxcar behind the two engines were common in the Midwest,
but by the 1970s the railroad wasn't building any more of them, ad the
railroad itself was a few years away from bankruptcy; likewise the
Pennsylvania boxcar, a common sight for decades, was on the way out as
the PRR merged with the New York Central eight years earlier as part of
the ill-fated Penn Central Railroad...
... and by the time this photo was taken the Chesapeake
& Ohio had already petitioned the Interstate Commerce
Commission to discontinue all Lake Michigan car ferry service, including
the City of
Midland 41
and service to Kewaunee. An ICC ruling known as the �Kewaunee Package�
terminated car ferry service to other Wisconsin ports, but kept the
GBW's connection in Kewaunee -- at least for a few more years.
|