| Chicago Burlington & Quincy Railroad GP30 977 eastbound at Naperville, Illinois on November 29, 1963, photograph by Chuck Zeiler. This was the last GP30 delivered to the CB&Q, built September 1963 (c/n 28299). It became Burlington Northern 2254. By the date of this photo, it was 2 months old. Sorry for the lousy photo. I shot this when I was 15, with my mom's cast off Pentax Rangefinder camera, and I could only afford black and white film. And the date of November 29, 1963 is conjecture, I dated the entire roll of film as November 30, but on the same roll of film is a shot of EMD's official demo train consisting of GP35 5652, a DD35, EMD's former B-unit Test Car, another DD35, and another GP35, passing this very point, but running in the other direction. I'm pretty sure this DD35 was part of that demonstrator train. I've put out a couple of inquires to try to figure this photo out. It would appear (speculation) that the Q tested a DD35, but most likely concluded it would not suit their needs. In theory, a single locomotive of 5000 hp was cheaper to maintain than two 2500 hp locomotives. In practice, railroads tended to look at it as taking two GP35's out of service when only one of them was broken. Anyway, the CB&Q never rostered a DD35. |