There have been a few articles in older issues of Trains and Classic Trains about EMD representatives riding along with the locomotives for delivery.
What a great job that would have been!
From what I understand about deliveries from the GE plant in Erie, in most cases the locomotives would be towed dead [PC, Conrail or CSX] to Buffalo, fueled, then run in regular pool service to the delivery point at one of the major terminals. I remember seeing dozens of new GE's for UP or BNSF working west through Cleveland.
Interesting...
Ed
I can remember when Illinois started their sales tax. Sometime in the early 60s, I was a boy and I remember my dad telling me that if I spent a dollar now, it would cost me an additional 5 cents for tax.
So on my 1955 IC layout it wouldn't be unprototypical to run a couple new looking diesels painted for a road in the south dead in a freight train? The IC rulebook I have has a couple rules on handling dead locomotives in a freight train, might make an intereting operating problem once in a while.
Also, many times railroads would have their EMD diesels delivered by a competing railroad at a town outside of Illinois to avoid Illinois sales tax. The C&NW and MILW would deliver each other's locomotives in Milwaukee, WI.
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
So everything left the plant on the IHB and connected with other railroads serving the area to get to the buyer?
Indiana Harbor Belt switched EMD so 100% ran on the IHB
EMD was building and shipping a lot of diesel locomotives in the late 40s through the end of steam. They would have been routed to the railroads that purchased them on other roads.
Who carried most of this traffic?
Jeff White
Alma IL