The Burlington "blackbird" paint scheme is a real beauty. As an addendum, the SD9's/SD7's were ordered for Western service and for the "Q's" southern IL coal line. One or two SD's replaced one O1a 2-8-2 in mine run service, and 3-4 SD's replaced one M4a 2-10-4 on 8800 ton mainline coal trains. Note that Sunset is doing the O1a's - - would mate up quite nicely with the Burlington SD9's, as they worked side by side into January 1959, both on the coal line and leased to the Colorado & Southern, to replace diesels wrecked in September, 1958.
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