Happy Independence day weekend. Word came trickling in last Sunday from the assorted corners of the web that the EMD SD70ACe-T4 demonstrators had made their way to test on Donner and the big hole; Sparks to Roseville. I couldn't take a day from work to chase, so of course I would faithfully check out Roseville yard morning and evening hoping to catch one at the racks or in the shop. Finally, this evening I lucked out. I was hoping to hear her running, but she was shut down. the GE Tier 4 units are significantly quieter than the ES44s and the AC4400s. Wanted to hear what a v12-1010 sounds like. This week was pretty brutal testing. 7 straight days of temps over 100. Up to 107 the other day. And a nice forest fire burning near Auburn to fowl up the computer controls and give the new systems a test. Also, note in the first picture, that is the nose of one of SP's GP38-2 Snow Fighters with the icebreakers. you can clearly see the huge PTC antenna array that's been added including what looks like a plexi shield. And also a brand new huge cold weather window. These units did not have these when they were sent to the mountains last fall. So they were just added in the past few months as they are cycled through. all of the Snow fighters had the PTC. most had the windows. Last I note that most of the Snow fighters are now classified as GP38N. i=I believe this means they now have computer controls, but i'm not positive. I'll need to research. Also not sure when that happened.
EMD cleaned up the lines quite nicely on these big ACes. Here's another EMD/GMD product, from nearly 60 years ago, a nice shiny SW1200RS basking in the sun at Exporail last June 24th: IMGP12536A by Mike VE2TRV posted Jul 1, 2016 at 4:50 AM This is a recent donation to the museum, restored to its original 1950s CN livery. It runs like a charm, too.
Caught an ethanol (1987 - 3 on placard) train outside of Mt. Airy MD on Friday. Had open 3-4 bay hoppers as buffer cars. I was first in line at the crossing, thanks to 3 people in front of me go thru the flashing red lights. 20160701_100446 by Adam Henry, on Flickr
Barely a month old, I caught NS 3609, a GE ET44AC in Columbia, SC last Saturday. The radiator dimension makes these look particularly enormous.
Some more shots from the Mid America Car company in Kansas City. I wish I had brought my tripod along instead of trying to hold my telephoto shots by hand. We were standing on a levee across the road from the plant peering in to see what they were working on.
Looks like an interesting visit, thanks for sharing. Do you have any information about the maroon covered wagon in the right background of the second photo?
I believe that is one of the Rock Island E units, which if I recall correctly belong to or will be headed to the museum in Manly, Iowa.
I at first thought it was an F unit but it is an E with a freight pilot. I was told it is ex Rock Island E8 #652 that belonged to the Midland Railway in Baldwin City, Kansas for a while. They said it was traded in to Mid America for work done on some other locomotives. In the deal, Mid America also got this E6 #630.
Speaking of the Midland Railway, we had dinner aboard the Kansas Belle Dinner Train that runs on the Midland. They were pulling it with ex MKT #142. It was built by ALCO in 1951. It started out as #1701, an RS-3, but was rebuilt by EMD and renumbered #142 in 1959.
According to this site, they are both owned by the Museum in Manly: http://www.thedieselshop.us/SurvivorsEmdE-units.HTML This would be a natural, as Dan Sabin is a former RI dispatcher, and beyond his current RR ownership career, he is the driving force behind their museum.
