On March 6, a buddy and I headed to Tulsa for the Great Train Expo (yes, I scored some Frisco goodies, but that's for another thread). After a few hours we headed over to Cherokee Yard (ex-Frisco) to see what was happening. At the north end of the yard, there's a wide space where one can park & watch trains while off of RR property. We shot a few pics of incoming trains and a light engine move, but we also got shots of the yard trimmer power, including this gem: This was originally delivered to Frisco in November 1976 as the 460. It became BN 2315 at merger, was wrecked & rebuilt as BN 2601 in 1981, and later got thie number under BNSF. It still has a 16-645 prime mover putting out 2000 HP, and sure sounds sweet in full throttle.
No train crew at OC ever enjoyed this unit in the consist. In fact, one time we caught a West train with this unit headed by an ancient GP-20. It may be be cool to see this stuff from trackside, but not so wonderful to work on. There was one drone that made us laugh. It was some GP with a typical looking cab, but with all the windows blanked out with sheet metal. Someone had drawn with chalk a window and an engineer.