Photos from when the earth was young
Some scans from when I was in college in the late 1970s; GG1s were still common then, and the South Shore Line still operated their 800s. The CMStP&P still ran F-M switchers in Madison, and the ICG still operated their branchline from Freeport, IL up to Madison. Northwestern Steel and Wire still operated their small fleet of ex-GTW switchers, and the Pearl District™ in Portland was still the BN engine facilities, yard, and industrial trackage.
![[An ex-GTW switcher at Northwestern Steel and Wire, ca. 1979]](/~orc/photos/SteamSwitcherSterling.jpg)
![[GG1 4935 in Harrisburg, PA ca. 1978]](/~orc/photos/GG1Harrisburg.jpg)
![[GG1 4935 and an Amtrak E8 in Harrisburg, PA ca. 1978]](/~orc/photos/AmtrakElectric+Diesel.jpg)
![[An IC GP10 and a Milwaukee Road H12-44 in Madison, WI ca. 1979.]](/~orc/photos/IC+MILW.jpg)
![[Looking south across the Burlington Northern engine facilities in Portland, Oregon ca. 1978.]](/~orc/photos/BNPortland.jpg)
![[CSS&SB 802 and a couple of Ex-C&O geeps in Michigan City, IN ca. 1980]](/~orc/photos/SouthShoreGP+800.jpg)
The Northwestern Steel & Wire switcher still exists; it is owned by the Illinois Railroad Museum, and is currently rotting away on a siding in Galt, Illinois (it avoided the fate of 5 of its brothers, which the IRM sold for scrap in 1998, but judging from the pictures of it today, it's not really in much better shape than they are). The GG1 still exists, in the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania, and I think that the F-M switcher survives at the IRM but the F-M switcher went to the Central Wisconsin Railroad, and was cut up when that railroad went bankrupt.
The CSS&SB 800 -- 801? -- was cut up after the South Shore deelectrified their freight operations; I believe the Amtrak E-8 suffered the same fate; the geeps, on the other hand, are probably all still kicking around on branchlines because geeps live pretty nearly forever.