GM&O Appearance

[BaltACD]

Over the years I have seen many, many pictures of GM&O Locomotives and trains.

Never...Repeat Never, have I seen a picture that has indicated the equipment to have been in pristine, just painted and maintained condition.

I know the GM&O struggled financially....but PLEASE they had to have painted the equipment sometime. The marron and red had to be difficult to keep clean but I have never seen even one picture where the equipment seemed to have be washed and cleaned, nor I have I ever seen in person where the GM&O equipment looked clean.

[Anonymous]

If you look at the original "Heat of the Night" movie, at the end you will see a GM&O passenger train as it is leaving the station. It looked pretty good in the movie.

Larry

[Anonymous]

Never saw any of the maroon and red locos in new paint. Did have the opportunity to see the red and white, and the black and white GP 30's, GP 38's, and SD-40's.. Saw many of the older alcos here a long time ago.

[M636C]

I guess, since I have only seen one GM&O unit in maroon and red, a fairly sad F3 on an ICG commuter train in Chicago in 1977, five years after the merger (and the loco didn't look like it was newly painted even that long ago), I can't say much from my own experience.

Arthur Dubin's "More Classic Trains" considers GM&N and GM&O trains from page 191. The photos of the Red and Silver trains of GM&N and GM&O before the Alton purchase in 1947 show fairly clean trains. Photos of the "Abraham Lincoln" said to be in the 1960s look pretty clean.

Peter

[fuzzybroken]

True, the GM&O always looked dirty, but that may be a testament to the longevity of their paint... I believe a majority of GM&O locomotives survived ICG (into post-ICG IC or to secondhand buyers) with minimal repainting...

-Mark
http://www.geocities.com/fuzzybroken

[Anonymous]

You notice that with Rock Island RR photos too, although from the 1960s on it was a pretty shoddy road.

[Anonymous]

I worked for the GM&O in 1947 shortly after they bought the Alton (nee C&A). The equipment looked pretty good then, but time takes its toll. My family seemed to always call it the Alton, altho sometimes the C&A, as it 's just easier.
I slept overnight on a bench in the waiting room at the Roodhouse station one night so I could catch the local going north up the branch to Ashland. All the 'seat dividers' were in place so I had to wiggle myself into a prone postion. Fortunately no one sounded a fire alarm or I would have decapitated myself by sitting bolt upright!!
Art

[UPTRAIN]

I too have never seen a clean GM&O piese of equipment.

[Anonymous]

Any of the full color books now out about the GM&O didn't seem to have any problem finding pictures of clean equipment to publish - most of those pictures being new or freshly shopped equipment. The thing that amazed me is for a railroad that was merged in the early 70's, the factory paint on the SD40s and GP38s lasted well into the 80s as ICG was too screwed up to spend money repainting them.

Now that I think of it, I can't remember the last time I saw a clean UP engine, even with a flag...

[kenneo]

UP and SP's engines used to sparkle. Into the early 1970's, each unit got a bath after each run at Eugene. First thing that was done - wa***he power!

[espeefoamer]

UP seems to have adopted SPs policy on wasing units."A dirty engine runs as well as a clean one." I LOVE seeing dirty UP diesels.[}:)]