Hi all! After I took the photo, I learned a bit more about this unit. TEBC translates to Tractive Effort Booster Cab, a close relative to the TEBU's or Slugs. Excuse me if you know this already. What was curious to me was the Cab. Since this unit has no primer mover, or even a subprime mover, it requires MU'ing to a "regular" unit, which also is likely to have a cab. Apparently the crews prefer working in the much quieter cab of this unit than in a GP40 or something similar. Finally and perhaps obviously a TEBC and/or TEBU takes power from the "mother" unit to operate it's traction motors.
When I first glanced at the picture, I thought it was an MP15, until I saw the SD trucks and looked at the unit more carefully. Interesting unit!
These TEBU's are really cool looking units and the swoosh doesn't look to bad on it. I too would love to have a model of one but doubt I'm up to it.
These units are used in hump yard switching mued to SD38P (Parent) 3 at Pasco 2 at Galesburg and 1 at Alliance from last I heard...there are six of these.
Here's an SD38 in the new paint scheme. This and RCL unit and may be the first to be painted in the new paint job. http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=136543 By the way, what is the favored name for BNSF's new scheme here?
I KNOW I should know this cause I've read it somewhere, but why the change in Cab and where are the units donated from? It looks like fist gen geeps by the cab lines which makes sense. Did they decide on the models with cabs to reuse the cab similarly, I can't remember. In either case, interesting. I hope they make it to Longbeach/LA. On a side note, I saw the Truck engine switcher at longbbeach two weeks ago. It looks sharp. unfortunatly, the ex SP GP-38 it was mated to dominated with it's 645 engine, so I couldn't hear what it sounded like.
