Seaboard Coast Line SD45 #2024 - Debute and Photo Session

Acquired for preservation by the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum in Oak Ridge, TN. several months back is a fully functional EMD SD45 locomotive still with a 20 cylinder 645 turbo charged diesel engine. This locomotive left the EMD factory in 1971 to begin its career on the Seaboard Coast Line railroad as number 2024. This slick black and yellow paint scheme was common place after the Seaboard Air Line and Atlantic Coast line railroad merged to become the Seaboard Coast Line. In the mid 1970s this locomotive received the classic "Pulling for You!" on both sides of the cab under the metallic colored road number and wore this on into the SCL and L&N merger. The numbers 8924 replaced its first SCL number when the locomotive became part the Seaboard Systems and on into early CSX. After leaving the east coast irony would have it making a journey to the west coast joining the massive fleet of EMD locomotives on the Montana Rail Link. It served many other small railroads in post MRL service before finally ending its long freight career in 2012.

The 8924 was acquired for historic preservation a few years back and began to make a lengthy journey back towards its homely east coast. On the way, a stop was made in Kansas City where the SD45 received some mechanical work and coat of black and yellow paint to bring back its old look. SARM took delivery of the locomotive back in October of 2015 where the preparations were made to be put back in service.

Even with paint, lettering was still an issue. Members of the SCL/ACL Railroad Historical Society provide us with drawings for lettering and painting SCL diesels. Some of the lettering was designed purely from trial and error with scaling actual photos of locomotive lettering. After all this was taken care of, the lettering was printed, and it was time to finish up 8924.

On February 5th and 6th of 2016, Norfolk Southern's Company Photographer, fellow museum members and volunteers, and I began and completed the transformation from 8924 to 2024 with new number boards and lettering. Many hours were spent, but were worth it to get it right. On the 6th, a photo and video session was held on the Heritage Railroad in celebration of the completed SD45. A photo scene staged at Blair, TN. with the Conrail Heritage unit made it all the better. Some freight cars were gathered from Blair for a small photo freight. The day was concluded with a night photo session.

A big thank you is in order to the SARM members and volunteers who took their time to help with this project, the ACL/SCL Historical Society for providing the needed diagrams and drawings from their archive, and the NS Company Photographer for his efforts with number boards and applying vinyl decals.

Enjoy!

Видео Seaboard Coast Line SD45 #2024 - Debute and Photo Session канала Aaron Beaubien