Marion's Black Stallions

My wife said she liked the raring horse on the front of the engines. Most woman like horses. Is that why the Norfolk Southern uses it as their emblem? Genius! "Oh, I like the horse on your engine". Makes you want to go to work for the RR.

My old buddy Marion lives in Selma Alabama. He's semi-retired but he is such a talented person, the mill calls him back for one project after another. This is his note from this afternoon.

" One day this week I met up with this obstacle to my progress. Needless to say I decided to wait him out".

His obstacle was a NS train at the mill.
His sending these pictures is good timing. I met up with 2 NS trains up on US 190. Click Here to read that. The fact that those trains were on UP tracks can be attributed to the 2 possibilities mentioned in the Wiki article. They either had trackage rights to be there or their being there was part of a trade sharing agreement with the Union Pacific.

Here are Marion's shots at the International Paper Mill near Selma, Al.







I asked Marion about the Mill and the train. He delivered.

"Riverdale Mill was built as a pulp supply mill in 1965 by Hammermill Paper Co. of Erie, Penn. It was so productive they added more cookers and were soon shipping bleached, dried pulp all over the world. Then they added a paper machine and some more cookers (we call them digesters). In 1987 they were in need of money so they put themselves up for sale. In came International Paper Co. They bought them lock, stock and barrel. In 1993 I.P. added another paper machine and stopped pulp shipping, keeping it all in house and making about 1,800 tons a day of A4 copy paper. The boxcars were on their way to the paper shipping warehouse. I.P.makes a variety of brands of copy paper: International Paper brands, Hammermill Brands and Champion Brands. This does not include a lot of private labeling for some popular names. If you go into a store that sells paper, look on the side of the case and see if printed in black is a long number beginning with the letter "R". If it begins with a "C" it was produced at the Courtland, Ala. mill".

Just Google NS 9374 and you get THIS. Unbelievable.
My engines were 9785 westbound and 9491, eastbound.
9491 is a CBAE (Cajun Built Accordion Engine). No kidding, check my write.
Thanks Marion for the shots.