The Illinois Central Railroad had an extensive locomotive rebuilding program at one time. The work was performed in groups at their Paducah Shops in Kentucky. The second of these groups of rebuilt locomotives were labeled as GP10 types.

In 1972 the Illinois Central merged with the Gulf, Mobile and Ohio to create the Illinois Central Gulf Railroad. The #8397 featured today was originally an I.C. model GP9 built by EMD in January of 1957 as the #9203. She was rebuilt as a GP10 in 1976 during the I.C.G. era as #8397.

Mike Palmieri photographed the locomotive on February 22, 1980 as it was working in Mandeville, Louisiana near the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain. I’ll quote Mike’s words as to the description of the scene: “Notice that the engineer is looking towards the rear of the train. He has set out a covered hopper under the Prestressed Concrete Products Co. cement tower in the background and is putting his train back together. This company was formed in 1957 to make components for the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway and remained in operation into the 1980’s. It trucked cement from this tower to its plant near the north end of the bridge.”