Growing up, my home in Rainier, Oregon, overlooked the Columbia River and the mouth of the Cowlitz, and we had a view of the railroad drawbridge across the Cowlitz River that connects the Longview Switching Company yard to the BNSF mainline at Longview Junction. One day in June of 2000, my dad happened to see a steam locomotive cross that bridge. He said it was Southern Pacific #4449 painted black. This didn't sound right to me, as #4449 was painted in its famous Daylight colors of red and orange. We rushed over to the Longview Switching yard, and sure enough, #4449 was there, its Daylight colors painted over with glossy black!
It wasn't long before #4449 was back out of the yard back towards the main line. Longview Junction forms a wye, allowing #4449 to turn around for a return trip to Portland.
We headed south to Kalama, where a pedestrian overpass provided a good vantage point for pictures. #4449 had picked up some freight cars for its trip back to Portland.
This was apparently some sort of test run, to make sure the locomotive was working properly. Longview Junction is a convenient destination for such test runs, because of its wye junction and because, at about 50 miles from Portland, it is far enough away for the locomotive to get a good run at mainline speed, but is still nearby if something did go wrong.
We still had no idea why #4449 had been painted black. At this time it had no lettering except its road number and data. It made this trip with its tool car, the Yes, Dear, which was still in Daylight colors.
It turned out that #4449 was going to be used by Burlington Northern Santa Fe for some employee appreciation excursions, but BNSF didn't want to use a locomotive that was painted for a predecessor of its main competitor. Thus, #4449 was painted black. It would receive BNSF heralds before it actually began making the excursion runs beginning on July 8, 2000.
No comments:
Post a Comment