| QUITTIN' TIME: It's 5:13pm on Friday, November 12, 2021, and it's quittin' time at Midwest Steel and Alloy Corporation in Youngstown, Ohio. The engineer of MSAX #501 (SW1) drops off two scrap yard laborers who hitched a ride to the parking lot on his way back to the scale track to tie down for the night. MSAX #501 was built in April of 1949 for the Pennsylvania Railroad as PRR #9208. It later became Penn Central #8508, then Conrail #8508 (which you can still make out on the cab), before eventually ending up at Midwest Steel. On the trip from the scrap yard to the scale track, this 72-year-old EMD just passed the cut-up GE cabs of CSX #7675 (C40-8W; built 5/91), UP #9204 (C40-8; built 8/88), CSX #7749 (C40-8W; built 11/91), CSX #7514 (C40-8; built 6/89), and at least six other unidentifiable GE units. In terms of the forever-old EMD vs GE debate, it's a photo like this that makes EMD look superior (because they are). |