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Santa Fe freight about to leave for the West Coast from the Corwith Yard at Chicago. View full size. 4x5 Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano. This is the freight Jack accompanied from Chicago to California in March 1943, taking many pictures along the way for the Office of War Information.
Many thanks for these fabulous photographs. Just stumbled across them ... Delano was an artist of the finest caliber, and you honor him by posting these for future generations to enjoy. Excellent work.
Jack from Chicago
The train still has a blue flag hanging on it. That means that there is still someone working on it. Each worker puts a blue flag on the front end of the train (or on the track ahead of the train) and ONLY that man can remove it. Once all blue flags are removed, the train can then proceed.
He wrote a book entitled the "Iron Horse at War" which chronicled this trip and also contained many railroad photos from other parts of the country. The book is out of print but might be found on E Bay. Unfortunately, the book is in Black & White.
Is this Delano still alive?
Laurent Wiame from Switzerland...
[Jack Delano died 10 years ago at the age of 83 - Dave]
I hope you have all of the pictures from Frank's trip from Chicago to LA, I certainly would love to see them. So Frank worked for the war dept? He sure was lucky to be able to travel across the country for his job and getting paid for it.
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