Just got a new book, Burlington Northern in Color Volumne 3 by Jim Boyd. It has a nice chapter on the Frisco. While some of the photos are reruns, most are photos I have never seen before. It has a photo relating to another thread, about the looks of the 5005-5007 F9A's. It was taken at Quanah TX 10/1962 by Walter Appel, and is one of the best color portraits of an SLSF F unit I have seen. One of the photos raises a question for me. A Jim Boyd photo of the Springfield shop taken 5/13/1980 shows GP38-2 451 and GP38AC 660 horribly mangled. I have no record of any wreck involving either of these two locos, Can anyone supply any info on this?
That makes two questions raised from that book I suppose - - a gentleman over on Trainboard referenced a photo dated Nov 87 of unit 2326 still in Frisco paint. I've seen an SD45 photo on the internet labeled 87 or 89 in Frisco attire but I dismissed it as an error - - were the SLSF colors still flying that late? Sorry I don't know about the wreck of 660 & 451... I can't find anything in my resources on it either.. -Mike
Answered half of my own question, in Marre and Harper's "Frisco Diesel Power" in foot note, "660 was damaged at Denison,TX 4-15-1980". Damaged?, it looks more like Godzilla stepped on it. It was converted to a cabless booster. But nothing about the 451, which looks pretty bad in the photo, though not as bad as the 660. It went on to become BN 2306, so it must have been repairable, with no footnote in "FDP" or in Robert C. DelGrosso's "Burlington Northern Railroad Locomotives 1970-1996". I did not spot the unexpected date on the photo of the 2326 (ex 471). There is a portion of another SLSF loco, 2311 (ex 456), in the photo. I knew the switchers in KC stayed red and white for some time. But was unaware that any road units lasted that long in Frisco colors. According to "FDP" the 471 and the 456 were painted BN green 4/1983. I don't know how Jim Boyd documented his photos, I write things like date and location on my slides. I wonder if, when preparing his book, he (or someone else) misread a date of 11/82 as 11/87. I frequently misread my own 2's as 7's and vice versa. And a date of 11/82 would fit with the repaint date of 4/83.
