Rio Grande 1954 Calendar

This calendar hasn’t aged well, but the colors in the photo are still vibrant. A close-up view of the photo reveals that the lead locomotive is numbered 5541, which would make it an F3 according to this Diesel roster. Rio Grande purchased sixteen of these — eight A units and eight B units — in 1950.

Click image to download a 2.0-MB PDF of this calendar.

The locomotive is still in its as-delivered paint scheme with four pinstripes instead of the simplified scheme that was applied in the early 1960s. This scenic view is certainly inviting and it would have been fun to ride the California Zephyr on these same tracks in the 1950s.


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