A westbound Santa Fe freight climbs Edelstein Hill around Houlihan’s Curve west of Chillicothe, Illinois, at 3:30 p.m. on the afternoon of August 20, 1988. The lead locomotive is an EMD FP45 that was built in December 1967 and originally numbered 100, hauling Santa Fe’s crack passenger trains. She even hauled the first record-breaking-speed Super C piggyback train from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1968. She was renumbered 5940 and lost some work with the coming of Amtrak in 1971, eventually repainted in freight colors and assigned accordingly. After a rebuilding by Santa Fe in 1982 into a model the railroad called a SDFP45, she was renumbered 5990. The big cowl was even painted in the “Kodachrome” colors of the ill-fated SPSF merger in 1986 as seen here. About a year after this photograph, the locomotive will become a star again in the forthcoming Super Fleet warbonnet colors returning to the Santa Fe, and once again numbered 100.
