On April 8, 1966, a matched set of GP30s and GP30Bs sweep under the north-south runway at Denver’s Stapleton Airport with the KCLAX, UP’s Kansas City-Los Angeles hotshot. The train has been running via Denver for ten months, an effort to avoid the congested mainline across Nebraska. But the assignment of GP30s rather than the newer GP35s or the big DD35s suggests the road is losing interest in the effort. Soon, aging F-units and first-generation geeps will take over the run. The GP30s’ pompadour look – bulging cab roof and hood – owes more to Troy, Michigan, where GM styles its automobiles, than to La Grange, Illinois, where it designs and build its locomotives.
