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What Happened to the Locomotive in Home Alone?

It only appears for roughly 12 seconds, rolling inbound to Chicago from Winnetka. It’s quickly forgotten by the next shot, a masterpiece in itself. “I’m a criminal”, says Kevin as he stares glumly down at the toothbrush he had just stolen from a shop.

It appears to be METX #149, a unit from the highly-successful F40PH series that was manufactured by Caterpillar-owned Electro Motive Diesel (EMD). According to Wikipedia, this locomotive was built between 1977 and 1989.

Somewhere between 2008 and 2012, #149 was rebuilt to newer specifications. As you can see, the external differences are minor, if not imperceptible.

Before

Source: Chad Malinovsky

After

Source: Peter Z.

Back in 2019, I used to commute for work to/from the city via the Union Pacific Northwest (UP-NW) line. During my morning commute on February 18 I snapped these photos of #149 heading inbound at 08:10 AM.

The locomotive was still in service since these photos were taken. I was able to find on RR Picture Archives and a video upload on YouTube that it was still operating in 2020.