Amplified with 174 additional chair car seats (provided by a pair of 52-seat cars and one-of-a-kind 70 seater SILVER LEAF, the latter built for the General Pershing Zephyr), No. 1 (the Denver Zephyr) gets out of Chicago behind E5s SILVER SPEED and SILVER POWER on August 21, 1949. Passengers aboard the amplified portion of the Colorado-bound Zephyr will drink and dine aboard 36-seat diner SILVER SPOON riding first-out behind the E5B. Meanwhile, Gulf Mobile & Ohio Alco S2 No. 11 gathers head-end cars for spotting at the mail terminal (they'll go south tonight on the Advance Midnight Special to Saint Louis) as a GM&O E7 (visible immediately above SILVER SPOON's rooftop kitchen vents) awaits its next call to duty in GM&O's tiny Harrison St. yard. Photographer Jim Scribbins recorded the action from the Polk St. overpass.

Another interesting thing in this photo is the turntable in the background. I don't know the history, but apparently either the Frisco or the BNSF decided that a surface (rather than a pit) was the better plan.

This locomotive was built as CB&Q 9914A and was involved in a collision with a crawler (IHC Model TD-18 TracTracTor weighing 23,945 pounds) that had just slipped off a flat car of a freight train passing in the opposite direction. The collision happened at Downers Grove, Illinois on April 3, 1947. The 9914A was the single locomotive powering Train No. 24 consisting of seven cars and was moving at approximately 70 mph at the point of collision. Upon impact the tractor was destroyed, the rear locomotive coupler was pulled out, the locomotive separated from its train and continued upright for 470 feet before hitting the Downers Grove passenger platform where it turned over on its right side, fatally injuring the Engineer. Meanwhile the passenger cars continued to roll and crashed into the station. Although the locomotive was extensively damaged, it was repaired and returned to service.