Funny-Nose Circus Clown

Continuing our blogging theme from the past several weeks, today’s picture is of a GP-9.

It belongs to the Western Maryland Railway. That company was not enamoured by the high hood on the front of the locomotive so they put this one through their home shops and did a “nose job” it. They lowered the nose on many of their GP-9s. The paint scheme was well-liked by some, earning the nickname of “Circus Colors”. This view of the engine was taken in 1976. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Maryland_Railway The Western Maryland Railway (reporting mark WM) nicknamed the Wild Mary was a small American Class I railroad that operated from 1852 to 1983 in 3 Mid-Atlantic States, Maryland (Western Region), West Virginia (Eastern Region), and Pennsylvania (Southern Region) across the Allegheny Regions of the Appalachian Mountains with its headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland. The Wild Mary was primarily a coal hauling and heavy freight railroad, with a small passenger train operation up until 1958 when the WM discontinued all of its passenger service. The WM later became property of the Chessie System holding company along with the B&O and C&O in 1973. Although despite being a holding company the Chessie System allowed the WM to continue independent operations up until May 1975 after which many of its lines were largely abandoned in favor of parallel Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) lines. In 1983, the WM was fully merged into the B&O, which later was also merged with the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) into the Chessie System in 1987. The Chessie System then merged with the Seaboard System to form CSX Transportation later that year.

The post card was published by Railcards.com