FL9

While passing the BNSF yard office on the way out of Saginaw towards home last Sunday afternoon I pulled over on the shoulder for one more photograph.  SD45-2’s are getting rare these days, and the 6480 was sitting there between assignments in good broadside light.

After I got home and post-processed the raw image I got to thinking about the history of this unit, and found out on the web from various rosters the BNSF 6480 had started out as the ATSF 5646.  This sent me to the slide boxes, and sure enough within a few minutes I came up with this Kodachrome from September in 1975 of the 5646 southbound at Noble, Oklahoma with a sister unit pulling the 395 train from Kansas City to Houston.

I have gotten older and not necessarily better over the past 32 years since I took this picture; and in comparison like me the 5646 now 6480 has also fallen from powering mainline hotshots to yard and transfer duties……