FL9

While I was sorting slides today, I came across a set of pictures highly appropriate for this holiday.  In February of 1991 the UP’s Little Rock Shops took SD40-2 #3593 and repainted it in a special camouflage scheme called “Desert Victory” to honor UP employees and other Americans serving in the Gulf War.  I stumbled across the engine on July 19th of that year at Ney Yard in Fort Worth on the point of a northbound military train designated as a SHOFR (Houston, TX to Fort Riley, KS).

The train was accompanied by several military guards who readily granted my request to photograph the locomotive, of which they were quite proud.  After shooting it at Ney Yard, I drove north to the Terminal Road overpass for this view of the train with the Fort Worth skyline.

My next stop was at the Saginaw sign on the north side of town next to the grain elevators.  Two ex-MP B30-7’s trailed the SD40-2.

Job requirements now called me back to work, so I settled for one more shot in the form of a broadside of the fireman’s side of the unit just north of Saginaw on the Duncan Sub.

The train headed on for Kansas, and this turned out to be my only encounter with the 3593 in the “Desert Victory” scheme before it was repainted back into standard UP colors in November of 1991.