CSX Coal Train at Williamsburg, Virginia

As most of you already know, last weekend commemorated 20 years since the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Because many firefighters died during those tragedies, a few railroads (especially two Class I’s) have honored the nation's first responders by painting their locomotives in special schemes that somewhat resemble fire trucks. In 2015, Norfolk Southern unveiled one of its rebuilt SD60E diesels, numbered 911 (initially about to be No. 7003), as well as an EMD GP38-2 No. 5642. Four years later, CSX repainted a GE-built ES44AC No. 911 in its own first responders livery. Interestingly, this locomotive was originally delivered with that number as part of the railroad's 900-series of ES44's in 2008, so there was no need for renumbering it.

In April 2014, I recorded a video of a CSX coal train pulled by two locomotives during my trip in Williamsburg, Virginia. The leading unit is a GE DASH 8-44CW (later CW40-9) No. 9002 while the trailing unit is the ES44AC (ES44AH) No. 911. The latter was in the ordinary "Yellow Nose 3" (YN3) paint prior to 2019. If this diesel were repainted in the first responders scheme earlier than that year, I could have been a lucky trainspotter. Here are a couple of photos I snipped from the video to show the two locomotives. The camera quality may not be very good but I hope you can clearly see the unit numbers. I was given a good impression that I caught a locomotive that later became more famous with its special repaint.