I have heard from several local railfans that the Appalachian & Ohio is going to begin leasing the old B&O West End from Grafton to Cumberland starting Labor Day weekend in September and westward from Grafton to New Martinsville down to Parkersburg in December. I haven't heard or seen any thing official but it has been said it was a done deal when the A&O started the Cowen Sub operation. Have no idea if this affects the construction of Cars shops and Locomotive facility in Buckhannon if this is true. Also, if all this come to past, the A&O may be bumped to a class 2 Railroad by both mileage and income. There would also be a serious deficit of motive power, possibly requiring WATCO to purchase brand new from EMD or GE.
The other option to purchasing is leasing, especially from the "rent-a-wreck" firms such as NRE, Helm, Larry's Truck & Electric, First Union, et al. There are still quite a few six-axle diesels out there to be had.
Watco is very good at finding "wrecks." Having seen some of the leaking, belching beasts they operate. Best for mosquito control.... Boxcab E50
The best stuff WATCO ever got were the SD50's here and half of them seemingly get overhauled everyweek It would be nice to see some Tunnel Motors go by for once
Meanwhile, down on the Timber Rock.....you can see BNSF SD45-2s in unit rock train service (albeit still owned by BNSF). I've seen lots of FURX leasers (all ex-BN and/or Santa Fe, ironically!!!) on trains thru Sherman. Only diff. on them was that the BN or ATSF marks are painted over and FURX is added. Still in original paint (very, very few FURX diesels in the lessor's paint scheme around here). The ex-BNs, all SD40-2s, still look decent.
Pat, I didn't know this until I did a little reading up on them, but the CR SD50's that NS inherited had been thru a capital rebuild, so I guess that explains why NS is keeping a bunch of them while retiring their own SD50's. Harold
The CR units here are former NS 5451 and 5459. They are now WAMX 5107 and 5117 respectively. I don't know if they came thru a rebuild or not. Judging by the fact that every week or two one or both of them end up on a service track being load tested or worked on, they probably arent.
Indeed! This could put a serious dent in any profit they hope to earn. If true, they need to acquire more reliable power. Boxcab E50
The problem is, the railroads don't sell the locomotives that are reliable, therefore everything used available on the market runs well for a little while then causes major problems.
Pat- RRs do turn back units. When a lease is expired. Or when they've been depreciated as much as the laws allow. So some can have good service left in them. Usually a lease has conditions spelled out for maintaining the units. They'll certainly be well used. But can't be obviously abused, non-operational or wrecked. Otherwise it costs the RR even more money. Then there are also trade-ins for new power. Which is often where leasers get engines. Boxcab E50
