Half an hour out of Silvis yard, FP7A 406 heads through the riverbottom swamps east of Colona, Illinois, on its way to Chicago. The unit, along with nine sisters, is four feet longer than a standard F7A to accommodate a boiler; all were turned out by EMD in the summer of 1949 for passenger service, and most still find regular work hauling Chicagoland commuters. But increasingly they also earn their keep on the point of freight trains. After Rock Island’s 1980 collapse, this track will go to Iowa Interstate, a regional whose diesels still proudly wear the Rock’s distinctive herald.
