To respond to a previous question concerning the Central of Georgia E8s (the original question might have been on SMRF, but I'll answer here to keep it on the CofG archives)- prior to the arrival of the E8s in 1950, I would assume that The Seminole was primarily in the care of the "Big Apple" 4-8-4 and Mountain type 4-8-2 locomotives. In fact, Richard Prince's book shows over half a dozen views of this train under steam power from 1948 until 1952 (two years after the arrival of the E8s). What ran beyond Birmingham, I don't know. I would bet that CofG and IC swapped power at that point, considering the fact that steam engines required more servicing en route than diesels. Bob Hanson is probably correct about the date of the repainting into IC brown/orange - all of the photos in my collection dated 1958 are still in blue and gray, but the 1959 shots are all shiny brown & orange. I do have one shot of The Seminole in Birmingham (@1955) with E7 #803 and a torpedo GP7. I would doubt that Central used the E7s on The Seminole in the late 1940's due to the large amount of Georgia traffic that was assigned to them. In all of my photo collecting, I have NEVER seen one of the E8s on the Nancy Hanks or the Man O' War. I'm sure they were ferried occasionally for servicing, but in hundreds of pictures of those trains, they are absent. I do, however, have several shots of a Central E8 paired with an IC E-unit on the Chicago run. I hope this answers a few questions... more likely to raise some more!

-Tom Alderman (Marietta, Ga.)

-- Tom Alderman (Topa12283@aol.com), October 17, 1999

Answers

The Central's E-8's were repainted into IC's chocolate-and-orange scheme in late 1958 or early 1959. The 811 is shown in before and after photos by Parker Lamb in the April, 1959, issue of Trains Magazine. I'm not certain just what the lead time on magazine publication was at the time (90 days, I think), but this would indicate to me either 1958 or very, very early in 1959 for a repaint date. Personally, I'd bet on late '58.

Bob Hanson

-- Robert H. Hanson (RHanson669@aol.com), October 17, 1999.