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GN Color Guide To Freight And Passenger Equipment by Hickcox Morning Sun Book
GN Color Guide To Freight And Passenger Equipment
By David H. Hickcox
Hardbound with dust jacket
Copyright 1995 Morning Sun Books
128 pages
Contents
Empire Builder5
Head End Equipment12
Passenger Equipment17
Boxcars 34
Stock Cars61
Flat Cars62
TOFC66
Covered Hoppers 71
Open Top Hoppers78
Ore Cars81
Gondola Cars84
Tank Cars88
Western Fruit Express90
Autorack94
St. Cloud Shops96
Woodchip Cars98
Miscellaneous99
Snowplows 102
Cranes & Derricks 107
M-of-Way 111
Cabooses 119
This book provides a review of the Great Northern's revenue and non-revenue rolling stock during the age of color photography. Covering the post World War II years to 1970, and focusing on the rolling stock of the late 1950's and early 1960's, a representative view of the Great Northern's fleet of passenger, freight, revenue, and non-revenue equipment is provided. Two themes prevail: (1) to provide an "everyday" view of rolling stock that an observer would see along the Great Northern's tracks as the railroad routinely went about its business and (2) to illustrate the evolution of the GN's rolling stock in terms of form, function and, yes, color.
The Great Northern had many different faces. In northern Minnesota it was almost synonymous with the Mesabi Range, hauling huge amounts of iron ore. In North Dakota, eastern Montana and portions of Washington and Minnesota, the Great Northern was closely associated with wheat. Indeed, the GN was the driving force in the settlement and development of much of that territory. In the Northern Rocky Mountains the GN fostered the development of Glacier National Park and adopted the Park's mountain goat as its corporate symbol. Trees cut from the extensive forests of the Pacific Northwest were a major source of revenue for the Great Northern. Apples and other products were grown in irrigated districts along western rivers. Thus along its line from the Midwest to the Pacific Northwest, most of which was wilderness when James J. Hill laid rails westward, diverse natural resources and subsequent agricultural and manufactured products provided a lucrative source of traffic and revenues. No wonder Jim Hill was called the "Empire Builder."
Following World War II the railroad was optimistic about its role in a peacetime economy. Pentup demand for automobiles would strengthen iron ore and petroleum shipments, and a boom in housing and related construction would stimulate shipments of lumber. Diversification and increased efficiency in agricultural production, and especially export to world markets, would stimulate wheat production and expand irrigation. A growing population and increased industrialization in the Pacific Northwest, much of it based on low-cost hydroelectric power from federally built dams, would lead to increased traffic.
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