O+W and L+N Trains

Reproduced 35mm Slide

This is one of my earliest 35mm train slides. I shot this scene sometime in August 1981, about a month before my 12th birthday.

In the scene, O&W SD40-2s 9952 (to BCOL 745, to DME 6201), 9950 (to BCOL 743, to ASDX 743), 9954 (to BCOL 747) and 9951 (to BCOL 744, to DME 6200) sit with the northbound "Green Train", awaiting a new crew in the Etowah, Tennessee L&N yard as a northbound L&N slow freight pulls into the yard with three GE u-boats for power.

The O&W power, cars and caboose were all owned by Shamrock Coal Company and used to haul coal to power plants in South Carolina and south Georgia. The SD40-2s were built to L&N specs, and crewed by L&N or Clinchfield crews (later SBD crews). The power would eventually be sold to British Columbia Railroad.