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Showing posts from July, 2010

The Haunts of Shadows, Great Rivers, and Hiawatha

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     Ye who love the haunts of Nature, Love the sunshine of the meadow, Love the shadow of the forest, Love the wind among the branches, And the rain-shower and the snow-storm, And the rushing of great rivers Through their palisades of pine-trees, And the thunder in the mountains, Whose innumerable echoes Flap like eagles in their eyries;- Listen to these wild traditions, To this Song of Hiawatha! From:   "Hiawatha," Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 'Fleet of foot was Hiawatha.'  America's Resourceful Railroad had a stable of Hiawathas that ran through the Midwest; in the shadows of the forest, out across the rushing rivers.  In late June of 1947, the Milwaukee added a transcontinental Hiawatha to its passenger streamliners:  The Olympian Hi'.  Initially pulled by iconic FM diesels, later by Little Joe electrics on the mountain passes of Montana, and then sets of streamlined boxcabs and rebuilt Bi-Polars.   Armour yellow E units marked its final days of transcon