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BN 1524

It is not too hard to tell the heritage of the BN 1524 with the GN's Empire Builder paint scheme starting to show though the green paint when I photographed it at Interbay, WA on 6-18-80.

It was built as the GN 624 in April of 1951 as part of a group of 30 GP7's numbered 623-652. All were delivered in the Classic Empire Builder paint scheme. The GN Color Pictorial Vol 2 by Joseph Shine states that in October of 1969 there were 9 GP7's assigned to Lines West - Cascade Division, those being the 604, 607, 608, 609, 610, 623, 624, 625 and 626.

I first saw the GN 624 at Interbay on 8-20-69, still wearing the Empire Builder scheme which it kept up to the BN merger.

After the March 1970 merger I did not see the 624 again until more than 2 years later on 9-23-72. The GN 624 was now the BN 1524 and painted green. BN 1524/1523 were leading a train at Auburn, WA when I first saw the BN 1524. (the 1523, ex-GN 623 was still in sky blue)

Like the 624, BN 1524 was assigned to the Interbay shops. I had photographed the GP7 a few times previous to those shots in 1980. This one taken on 6-9-77 shows the paint in a lot better condition.

Note the white pilot on the rear end of the locomotive. It certainly wasn't white 2 years later! The numberboards also read 1524 unlike the 152 shown in the 1980 photo. Interesting how much things can change over just a few years.

And one last photo of BN 1524 from 5-21-79 of the 1524 doing something besides just sitting around.

That's quite a bit of smoke coming from the 1524! Also nice to see it kept the original style of GN horns it had before the merger.

While many of the former GN GP7's were rebuilt to BN GP10's, (GP7u) the 1524 was not. It was retired in July of 1982 and traded in to GE at that same time and I would imagine scrapped.