| Date unknown. The ice on the Mississippi indicates winter. That's the northeast corner (looking west) of the GN Station and the Hennepin Av. bridge over the river. Mike Woodruff saw this posting and sent me the following: EMD 511 and 512 were 1,800 hp boxcabs built in May, 1935, each powered by two 201A Winton engines (basically two NW1 switcher engines) inside carbodies from GE's Erie Works. (B&O 50 which later ran on the Alton Route, and ATSF 1 and 1A which powered the original Super Chief were very similar in appearance and essentially identical mechanically.) The 511 and 512 were never CB&Q engines but were EMD demonstrators. In Otto Perry's book, there are pics of EMD 511 which show it pulling CB&Q train second #1 near McCook, Nebraska in August of 1937, and of EMD 512 shown working on the Super Chief with ATSF 1A near Trinidad, Colorado in May, 1937. Kalmbach's Diesel Spotters Guide says that although CB&Q 9904 Pegasus/9905 Zephyrus were the power units built (in 1936) for the second pair of Twin Zephyrs, "during 1937 and 1938, it was common to see the (Twin Zephyr) consists being led by EMD demonstrator 511, repainted from the original dark scheme to silver for a long period of testing on the Burlington." Since the units are listed as scrapped in 1938, it's probably safe to say that the picture was taken during the winter of 1937-38. Just speculating now, but I'll guess that EMD 511 spent a lot of time on the Burlington and EMD 512 on the Santa Fe while problems with the CB&Q 9904/9905 Zephyr and ATSF 1/1A Super Chief locomotives were being worked out - these units being called "demonstrators" but perhaps serving more as what we would now term "warranty protection" power. |