Conrail in the Seventies

On April 1, 1976, when Conrail was formed, I was working for the Grand Trunk Western Railroad and stationed at Muskegon MI. With the duties of that job, and a first home purchase, my opportunities to visit and observe all the changes taking place on Conrail were infrequent. For me, the nearest facility where Conrail activity could be seen was the former PC/PRR Hughart Yard in Grand Rapids. Hughart was just a branch line terminal at best, and I often wished I could witness first hand the variety of color and exotic power that I knew was showing up in droves on Conrail's main lines across Ohio and Indiana.

In April of 1977, I was transferred to Blue Island IL as GTW trainmaster there. Again, neither the job or the "protocol" permitted much chance for railfanning, but at least Conrail activity was always close by, and I managed to spend a little bit of time on Conrail's various Chicago area lines while many of its predecessor companies' locomotives were still prevalent.

In the early years, Conrail suffered an acute power shortage, and operated just about everything it could get its hands on. Although the Conrail loco fleet slowly got renumbered, many of its engines were not repainted, and it was common to see the individual colors of the former railroads that made up Conrail in loco consists of the day. For a devotee of any of those pre Conrail carriers, it certainly wasn't pretty, but for those of us used to an uninterrupted diet of Penn Central black, it was actually quite a treat. I hope you enjoy the look back.