Slowly Being Retired and Replaced

The locomotive pictured on the front of this post card is one of 40 that were

built by Baldwin Locomotive Works for the Great Northern Railway. They were built between 1918 and 1919 and all retired from service between 1956 and 1958. The photo of this locomotive was taken on April 21, 1956 while it sat in storage. These locomotives were being replaced by GP-7 diesel locomotives made by Electro-Motive (a division of General Motors) on the railroad. Just as the steam locomotive was used for switching service, their replacements were, too. This website gives a nice, short history of the Great Northern Railway and James J. Hill's involvement in its making. https://www.mnopedia.org/thing/great-northern-railway The Great Northern Railway was a transcontinental railroad system that extended from St. Paul to Seattle. Among the transcontinental railroads, it was the only one that used no public funding and only a few land grants. As the northernmost of these lines, the railroad spurred immigration and the development of lands along the route, especially in Minnesota. On September 18, 1889, Minnesota entrepreneur James J. Hill created the Great Northern Railway from the bankrupt St. Paul and Pacific and the Minneapolis and St. Cloud. On February 1, 1890, the Great Northern assumed control of his other railroad companies, among them the Montana Central Railway and the St. Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba. From these beginnings the Great Northern Railway became a transcontinental railroad across the northern part of the United States. I have written about the Great Northern in past blogs, so I won’t take up your time here. Next week, I will share two post cards of locomotives that worked for the Great Northern Railway.

The photo was taken by Robert Anderson of Ironwood, Michigan and the post card was published by Bob Fremming in August of 1957.