In 1984, Andy Muller, owner of the fledgling Blue Mountain and Reading, purchased a wholesale lot (certainly upwards of 20) CF7’s from the Santa Fe, with at least one GP7u thrown in for good measure. After cleaning up and painting two for the BM&R, Muller’s forces overhauled the rest and resold them to short lines up and down the east coast. In the interim, they were stored in sidings all along the BM&R main between Temple and Hamburg. Here five of the refugees await their rebuilding on a siding near the old PRR station in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. Somehow, I don’t think that the Santa Fe’s rebuild designers’ names will ever be uttered in the same breath as Loewy, Kuhler, or Dreyfus.
