Nomad of Mid-America
Class of the Field
A back-to-back, basic black pair of Illinois Central 70s--austere, spartan, plain--rushing down the table-flat, ruler-straight, north-south oriented big iron nearing Humboldt, IL, speedometer pegged at a 40 per with local traffic bound for the many yards and branches stemming off the Mainline of Mid-America between Chicago and Centralia. It's a typical sight out here, as appropriate as the barren croplands and bucolic homesteads of which this region is known, a continuation of the traditions present since the Illinois Central Railroad was chartered in the 1850s and legally represented by an emerging Illinoisan by the name of Abraham Lincoln. But things aren't as rosy as they may seem. Remove the grimy, road-worn locomotives and one will uncover a picture more despondent--this is a CN train, on CN rails, run by employees earning a CN paycheck, collecting revenue for CN's bottom line. In the 21 years post merger, when the freshly privatized Canadian National just freed from the restrictions of the crown pounced on the assets and operations of the Illinois granger, the Mainline of Mid-America has become mostly devoid of its heritage during its assimilation into North America's Railroad. Train A408 and its northbound counterpart A407 preserve the flavor of the IC on the rails and through the towns which owe their existence to it, holding captive a significant percentage of locomotives from the final large equipment procurement the railroad before absorption: the 40 SD70s delivered in 1995 numbered from the millennium mark. The class unit and a subsequent example have the honors this occurrence, presenting a nearly perfect pure look at how things were prior to the Canadian invasion with their sights on the next work event at Effingham, daylight fading but the pride of the IC holding strong in their presence as they race across its namesake.
Class of the Field
A back-to-back, basic black pair of Illinois Central 70s--austere, spartan, plain--rushing down the table-flat, ruler-straight, north-south oriented big iron nearing Humboldt, IL, speedometer pegged at a 40 per with local traffic bound for the many yards and branches stemming off the Mainline of Mid-America between Chicago and Centralia. It's a typical sight out here, as appropriate as the barren croplands and bucolic homesteads of which this region is known, a continuation of the traditions present since the Illinois Central Railroad was chartered in the 1850s and legally represented by an emerging Illinoisan by the name of Abraham Lincoln. But things aren't as rosy as they may seem. Remove the grimy, road-worn locomotives and one will uncover a picture more despondent--this is a CN train, on CN rails, run by employees earning a CN paycheck, collecting revenue for CN's bottom line. In the 21 years post merger, when the freshly privatized Canadian National just freed from the restrictions of the crown pounced on the assets and operations of the Illinois granger, the Mainline of Mid-America has become mostly devoid of its heritage during its assimilation into North America's Railroad. Train A408 and its northbound counterpart A407 preserve the flavor of the IC on the rails and through the towns which owe their existence to it, holding captive a significant percentage of locomotives from the final large equipment procurement the railroad before absorption: the 40 SD70s delivered in 1995 numbered from the millennium mark. The class unit and a subsequent example have the honors this occurrence, presenting a nearly perfect pure look at how things were prior to the Canadian invasion with their sights on the next work event at Effingham, daylight fading but the pride of the IC holding strong in their presence as they race across its namesake.