1027 lives on!

Trains’ favorite number is out once again on a new locomotive

Norfolk Southen's new SD70ACe No. 1027 gleams in the sun at Chattanooga, Tenn., in December 2011 when brand new. Scott Coffey photo

The same until, earlier this week, on Jan. 10, in Johnstown, Pa., carries on the tradition of Trains' street address being a favorite number! Tony Kimmel photo

If you’ve been around Trains magazine for long, you know that we have a fascination for the number 1027. It was the street address of the company’s headquarters building on North Seventh Avenue in downtown Milwaukee from 1943 to 1989, and during most of that time famed Editor David P. Morgan was producing some of his best journalism. Starting in October 1952 with a drawing in the magazine of an F7 numbered 1027, the number took on a life of its own. Readers and editors had a common number out there on which to fixate, and in poured pictures of locomotives, cars, and all sorts of other railroad items numbered 1027. Ten-twenty-seven mania abounded. It was on a Louisville & Nashville GP30, a Canadian National GMD1, an Erie Lackawanna RS3, a New Haven 4-6-2, among other locomotives and freight cars.

Even when Kalmbach Publishing Co., Trains’ parent company, moved to the suburbs, the number followed. Our street address is 21027 Crossroads Circle, or as those who follow the 1027 mythology like to point out, that is "Second 1027."

The number 1027 has done well on railroads in the modern era. BNSF Railway has a C44-9W built in 1996. Canadian National's Illinois Central has an SD70 built in 1999. And CIT Group has a leaser AC44CW in CEFX bright blue with the beloved number; it dates from 2004. Both the IC and CEFX units pass near our offices from time to time, on their respective CN and CP main lines.

And 1027 news just keeps coming. Just last month, Norfolk Southern took delivery of the latest 1027, a brand new EMD SD70ACe. The unit has been getting around, too. Photographer Scott Coffey caught her in Chattanooga, Tenn., when she was first out of the shop, and his image came from NSlocos.com; and Tony Kimmel found her in Johnstown, Pa., just earlier this week on Tuesday.

It’s fun to see a new unit take to the rails, and it’s intriguing to imagine where she might roam over the next 20-30 years. Pulling unit coal trains, heading up mixed freights, roaming the west on run-through power, the newest 1027 should have an amazing time during the rail renaissance of the 21st century. At the same time, we can watch her exploits and enjoy a bit of mythology behind this most uncommon of ordinary units out there on a Class I railroad.