NS GP40-2 3046

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Bye Bye Kodachrome.......

This past Sunday, CBS's Sunday Morning show headline story was about Kodak retiring it's Kodachrome film line.  The film was known for its bright colors produced.  I started photographing a few years before the digital camera boom.  During my short few years using a 35mm film camera, I never used Kodachrome.  Soon, my 35mm would be retired for a point and shoot digital camera.

In 1984,  the Southern Pacific Railroad and Santa Fe Railway purposed a merger of the two companies.  Both railroads started painting locomotives yellow and red.  These units would would earn the nickname "Kodachrome" due to the colors of the film's packaging colors. There would be no merger due to the lack of approval from the ICC.  These units were short lived and would soon be repainted back into their home road colors.  

Over 10 years ago, the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway held an employee locomotive paint scheme contest.  Somehow, the Kodachrome colors would win.  Two GP35 locomotives would be painted red and yellow.  Recently, the ranks were thinned to one.  The one remaining unit will likely stay in the Kodachrome scheme until it goes to the Brewster shop for an overhaul.



Wheeling and Lake Erie GP35-3 2662 at Falls Junction.  Glenwillow, Ohio 12/5/2010