MONTICELLO, Ill. — Canadian National Railway has donated a former Illinois Central E9 to the Monticello Railway Museum in central Illinois. The locomotive arrived at the museum via Norfolk Southern earlier this month.
The unit wears a variation of CN’s classic 1950s green-and-black paint scheme — most notably with the CN “noodle” logo in place of the original maple-leaf emblem — applied at the railroad’s Woodcrest Shop in Homewood, Ill., in 2014. It is the fourth paint scheme No. 102 has worn since the 1990s.
The locomotive was built in January 1950 for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy as its No. 9940-A, and became Burlington Northern No. 9940 in 1970. It was part of the purchase of the BN E-unit fleet by Chicago’s West Suburban Mass Transit District in 1972, and along with the other locomotives was sent to Morrison-Knudson for rebuilding for commuter service. The resulting units were designated as E9s.
Tom Biscan, son of a former Illinois Central official, worked through Ed Harris, outgoing CN chief operating officer, to get the locomotive donated. Museum President John Sciutto told Trains News Wire, “We graciously accepted the donation of CN No. 102 and it’s a wonderful addition to our historic locomotive fleet. This is a windfall donation to our museum; it’s basically our own version of a heritage unit.”
There are no plans to repaint No. 102, Sciutto said: “We have other projects in the queue. We are putting in a new water tank and a pumphouse for Southern Railway 2-8-0 No. 401, along with a turntable and roundhouse as major projects for the museum.”
This is the second E unit to arrive at the Monticello museum. Former Pennsylvania Railroad E8 No. 5764, last used by the Tennessee Central Railroad Museum in Nashville, is privately owned by John Downing of White Heath, Ill. That unit will be painted in Illinois Central’s chocolate brown and orange, and numbered IC No. 4044 — one spot above the last IC E unit.
