Pere Marquette is the newest heritage unit to join the growing CSX fleet of locomotives honoring its predecessor railroads.
“Here is our latest CSX Heritage Locomotive celebrating the Pere Marquette line,” CEO Joe Hinrichs wrote on LinkedIn Monday night. “Locomotive #1899 represents the three Michigan-based railroads that merged to form the Pere Marquette to serve the Great Lakes region in the early 1900s. Another great job by our ONE CSX team in Waycross, GA. Enjoy everyone! Going to be an exciting next few months for our heritage locomotive program as we continue to celebrate and recognize the railroads that helped make CSX who we are today.”
The locomotive, which wears the PM passenger scheme, rolled out of the paint shop in Waycross and posed for photos.
The Pere Marquette became a fallen flag when it was merged into Chesapeake & Ohio in 1947.
The CSX heritage fleet now numbers a baker’s dozen units representing predecessor lines. Among them: Family Lines; Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac; Baltimore & Ohio; Chessie System; Seaboard System; Conrail; Chesapeake & Ohio; Louisville & Nashville; Atlantic Coast Line; New York Central; Monon; and Western Maryland.
I wonder if the Heritage schemes might foreshadow a more esthetic rather than utilitarian CSX paint scheme. This is a very nice rendition so thank you CSX!
Good job CSX and thank you. It is nice to remember and pay tribute to these predecessor railroads. Also more variety in the color schemes is very nice.
Totally agree with you Ron Hull. Many young adults today have no guidance or roll models in addition to questionable parenting. Love the Pere Marquette livery and what CSX is doing.
These are all wonderful tributes to long gone railroads, but when oh when will CSX do a Seaboard AIR Line light green tribute unit. Yes I know CSX has an SBD Seaboard System unit, but not the same as Seaboard AIR Line and if there is an ACL then there should be an SAL unit. Thanks CSX
Agreed, sir. Preferably in the Citrus scheme, not the mint green/red stripe.
Just to add to the chorus – this is my favorite to date.
Another great adaptation of the original scheme. Well done!
Very nice!!
I wonder how many Michiganders now living have heard of the long-gone Pere Marquette Railroad. A few hundred? Oh, they’ve heard of Father Marquette, as in the Milwaukee’s Jesuit university. But they haven’t heard of the railroad. Even successor C&O is a faded memory, having been merged into CSX over forty years ago.
In a weird way, I make a tie between this heritage loco and recent articles about possible passenger train startups. Decades after the last passenger trains to the Quad Cities, decades after VIA inexplicably walked away from the obvious Edmonton to Calgary service, the respective authorities are studying those corridors. These routes have gone without service for so long that many/ most local residents may not be aware that the trains ever existed.
Oh, actually it was a decade before then, that C+O disappeared. Chessie System as a corporate image dates to 1972.
As fr PM, I hav to agree with Chris Thompson (above). PM was my favorite Michigan railroad, although I was a year old in Masachusetts when it was merged out of existence.
As a native and former resident of the Great Lakes State I am well aware of the existence of the Pere Marquette and I would bet that many foamers, young and old, in the state also share an affinity to the railroad. True, the average Michigander probably knows little of the PM, just as the average Cheesehead knows little of the Milwaukee Road. But an average Michigan foamer is likely well aware of the PM, at very least due to the 1225. The railroad has a special place in the state, even more than the MC I would argue since the MC was basically a warmed over version of the NYC for much of the 20th Century. In my opinion, only the Grand Trunk is as near and dear to the Michigan foamer when it comes to the larger Class 1’s (We loved our D&M’s, L&SI’s, and DSSA’s more, but that is another category in my mind.)
There may be a few of us Boy Scouts left in the Chicago metro area who remember the Pere Marquette because we rode it to Camp Owasippe every summer for two weeks of educational fun in the greater outdoors of Michigan’s forests.
Wish more of the city kids today were in the Boy Scouts. Might be less crime and young men with wholesome values instead of thugs with no morals whatsoever.
RON HULL — Ten thumbs up on your comments about the Boy Scouts.
We had it triple in our family — me, my brother, and our father who was assistant scoutmaster of our troop.
Our summer camp (Old Colony Council) was in Plymouth, Masachusetts. Plymouth is the largest (by area) of the Bay State’s 351 cities and towns, meaning our sizeable camp was in the pine woods far away from anything.