While driving home from work tonight I drove by a long string of tank cars setting on a siding in East Moline, IL. Nothing unusual about that, of course. But I did a double-take when I got the head end of the consist. Instead of the usual GP or SD locomotive, there was something that looked very much like an E-8. It was painted in the EsPee “black widow” scheme. But sporting the reporting marks of the a road named the Arizona Eastern. And of course I didn’t have a camera or even my cell with me.
So is this a new regional aquisition of the DM&E? Or something fresh out of the Silvis paint shops of National Railway Equipment? Anybody familiar with this road?