Music, you sometimes chance encounters on the railroad are simply the best. Music. Applause. Music. Music. On July 17th, 2018, we were traveling to Indianapolis, Indiana for another railroad-related project and decided to make a pit stop at Chick-fil-A in Fort Wayne before continuing south on Interstate 69. After stopping for lemonade, we noticed what appeared to be the headlight of a locomotive as we traveled over the West Coliseum Boulevard grade crossing. Sure enough, Norfolk Southern's LF 14 local was working the industries along the former Grand Rapids and Indiana railroad mainline. To our surprise, Norfolk Southern High hood GP 38 - - number 51 96 was in charge of today's train. Less than a week earlier, on July 11th, we captured the very same locomotive on the Amtrak Michigan line leading Train BE 33 between Kalamazoo and Jackson. We even had the opportunity to capture the locomotive operating long hood forward, a Southern Railway tradition that has become harder and harder to see in 2018. Music. Music. The 51 96 was built in October of 1976 for the Southern Railway by the Electro-Motive Division of General Motors. The 2004 power locomotives served the South on the Southern for six years prior to the Norfolk Southern merger in 1982. Equipped with a high short hood and set up to run at long hood forward, the 51 96 is one of 256 such examples of high hood GP-30 8-2 locomotives ordered by the Southern Railway. In August of 2017, many of these locomotives were sold off in a Roanoke, Virginia auction, leaving 126 locomotives on the current roster today. Thirty-two of the remaining 126 have been rebuilt with the Admiral-styled cams, making it even harder to see a high hood version on the Norfolk Southern. Most of the remaining high hoods...
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