Caption: To many this unit screams out, please paint me. But to me it says come listen to the stories I have to tell. Stories of working gain elevators on SOO's many western branch lines, to working busy cities such as Chicago, Milwaukee,and St. Paul just to mention a few. A couple of western trips in the early 2000's would allow me the opportunity to catch these workhorse units working across the system. The paint on 4410 has seen the extreme temperature changes the prairies can experience from hit summers to bitterly cold harsh winters. It's paint faded and burned from years of heavy use and the fact that the last time it saw a paint both was the day it rolled of La Grange's shop floor in 1978. In 2020 the number of surviving Soo painted units are now in the single digits. It's been a hard life for 4410 and it's sisters but to me it is still a thing of beauty.
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Very good caption and photo Marcus.
Neat. Fading into history.