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In seeking the oddest of oddball locomotives, today we will follow our compass to California’s Ludlow & Southern, one of many, many railroads past and present with the name of a city or a state and the addition of a compass direction. Think Kansas City Southern, Colorado & Southern, Arizona Central, Missouri Pacific, and Texas […]
In need of reliable medium-horsepower six-axle road switchers, Union Pacific’s Mike Iden turned to Progress Rail’s EMD subsidiary to rebuild a batch of out-of-service EMD 3,800-hp SD60s into more modern 3,150-hp units with new prime movers for secondary road freights. Twenty-eight — Nos. 9900 to 9927 — were built in the late 2000s. Progress later […]
EMD’s GP20 Electro-Motive Division’s GP20 was the company’s first four-axle model to be fitted with a turbocharger, but its roots trace back to one of EMD’s customers, Union Pacific. Union Pacific began experimenting with several turbocharger models in the mid-1950s on a number of its GP9 and GP9Bs, creating the first GP20s in-house. As UP’s […]
The Fairbanks-Morse H20-44 was another mid-century diesel that didn’t. FM’s first foray into the diesel road-switcher market was unconventional, to say the least. In 1947, instead of following the already traditional convention of a cab surrounded by a long and short hood, the Beloit, Wis., builder introduced the H20-44, and it looked like […]
The New York Central 4-8-2 Mohawks were the ultimate dual-service steam locomotives. For some railroads in the steam era, it wasn’t enough to have success with a single example of a standard wheel arrangement. Instead, new competitive challenges and evolving technology often caused railroads to rethink a given locomotive class and turn it almost entirely […]
Locomotive schemes After publishing a list of paint schemes last month called “Five of the worst locomotive paint schemes,” I was asked what schemes from the 1980s to today I find attractive. This is my list, and it’s in no particular order. Some I was fortunate to experience in-person during their prime, while others I […]
In the early 1990s, as the bulk of Amtrak’s EMD F40PH diesel fleet began nearing potential retirement age, the passenger carrier quietly began nosing around for potential replacements. After testing Electro Motive’s F69 AC traction prototypes, the company opted to explore a less-expensive option. To save money, Amtrak sought to modify an existing freight locomotive model […]
Top preserved diesel locomotives are units that were not only saved from the scrap heap, but special. These locomotives are important to see and understand not only because they were saved but because visionary railroad management saw them as examples of the past that should be saved to be enjoyed by the present and future […]
The GMDH1 diesel-hydraulic locomotives led a short life with one staying near their birthplace of London, Ontario. Diesel-hydraulic railroad locomotives are just what they say they are: diesel engines connected to a hydraulic transmission via the same principle as you would in your automobile. They can be found in various parts of the […]
Erie Railroad locomotives included both oddball steam and diesels right out of a builder’s catalog. The Erie was a big user of the 2-8-0 Consolidation and 2-8-2 Mikado steam locomotive types. Going a step larger, the Erie experimented with articulated locomotives beginning with three Camelback 0-8-8-0s for pusher service in 1907. This evolved […]
How to store diesel locomotives: The changing traffic levels of a railroad can affect the number of locomotives it operates. Outside of the effects of Precision Scheduled Railroading, which significantly reduces how many locomotives are needed, other factors such as losing a major contract to haul goods or the end of a cyclical demand, like […]
EMD F40C diesel locomotives were six-axle, 3,200-hp units built for Chicago-area commuter service in 1974. They were found on two Milwaukee Road-operated routes out of Union Station, one west to Elgin and one north to Fox Lake. The units had a cowl body like the Amtrak SDP40F of 1973, but used an alternator to […]
