Well this was definitly a kodak moment and of course I didn't have my camera. I was just coming home from running out to a couple of train shops and on the way home caught the tail of the usual westbound empty autoracks for Toyota. So I followed and caught up and passed then watched them split the train across a siding so they wouldn't block the road. So I figured I would go all the way to the yard and see what they were waiting for or just see what they were going to do. Well to my surprise out come 2 SD40-2's with the usual westbound loaded autoracks from Toyota and the lead is a fresh paint 5778 "golden beaver". Talk about being stunned and at the right place without a camera. Needless to say it's going to stay in the car from now on.
Thought I read somewhere that they were also going to use a "heritage" scheme in the old Maroon and Grey...?? Andrew
The grills are for a different filter set up (note the blanked out inertial filter). There were a bunch of units modified this way to use at major teminals as gensets should there be a Y2K incident.
That beaver scheme looks good on the SD40-2s. I still have yet to see or work with one, all we have in Vancouver are Expressways/CPsystems/Multimarks. The S40-2 are a dissappearing breed though with CP, more of the new ES44ACs are showing up, saw some 8800#(GEVO) yesterday. I read some where (company info)that more of the SD40s will be retired and the CEFX AC4400 will be returned as the ES44ACs(GEVO) are delivered. I worked with a pair of SD40-2s last night on my roadswitcher, they sure are work horses. Pulled 114 loaded grain cars up the grade out of the yard. Looked like we were going to stall when it slowed to 1MPH, wet rail, notch8, crawled like that for a few minutes but made it out. DC
