In 1976, the United States of America held its 200th birthday celebration!
The Bicentennial was a big event all around the nation, and to help celebrate, many of the railroads painted a locomotive with special Bicentennial livery.
There’s not near the celebrations happening this year, for the 250th, though I know of at least one locomotive with 1776-2026 livery.
The good news is that many manufacturers have created Bicentennial locomotives in the past year.
I got a couple for Christmas, and want to present the first one, along with some photos of its prototype.
The EMD SW9 is a 1,200 horsepower diesel switcher locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between October 1949 and January 1951.
The Broadway Limited n-scale model of #1207 is shown below, on my model railroad layout.
This locomotive was in active use until at least the 1990s, if not into the 2000s.
Below that is a composite image showing #1207 at various times. The original images are located at the RR Picture Archive site.
The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis painted their SW7, #1207, in Bicentennial colors in March of 1976.
