Kansas City Southern hasn’t purchased new locomotives since 2014 as the company has had ample power for its traffic levels with coal deliveries down across its core north-south mainline south of Kansas City. The railroad continues to upgrade its existing power, converting six (confirm) GP38-2s and GP40-2s to GP32ECOs using kits supplied from EMD. KCS also contracted with EMD to upgrade the electrical system on a portion of their SD70MAC fleet, replacing the Siemens inverters with new equipment built by Mitsubishi.
Norfolk Southern continues to rebuild older road locomotives in-house along with purchasing new locomotives from GE. The company has acquired both ES44AC credit units along with ET44AC locomotives with Tier 4 emissions. Major rebuilding programs at the railroad’s Juniata shop in Altoona, Pennsylvania, include the SD60E, SD33ECO, SD70ACU and AC44C6M. Additional SD70ACU’s are being rebuilt offsite by Progress Rail in Muncie, Indiana and AC44C6Ms in NS’s Roanoke shops along with GE’s Ft. Worth shop.
CSX, like Norfolk Southern, has also purchased General Electric ES44AC credit and ET44AC Tier 4 locomotives in the last several years. Rebuild programs include GP38-2S and GP40-2 upgrades to GP40-3s at the railroad’s Huntington, West Virginia shop. CSX is also using General Electric to rebuild a number of C40-8Ws to C40-8WMs at GE’s Erie, Pennsylvania, shop.
Canadian National has also acquired ES44AC credit units along with ET44ACs from General Electric. With AC locomotives totaling almost 20 percent of the railroad’s road fleet, CN continues to utilize these units primarily in distributed power heavy haul freight and intermodal service across its system.
Along with newer AC power and older road locomotives, CN relies on its fleet of recently purchased second hand C40-8, C40-8W, and SD60 locomotives. The railroad has been the largest user of six-axle cowl locomotives in North America, but their ranks are diminishing. Earlier this year, CN retired its fleet of 62 SD60F locomotives, leaving only 81 C40-8M cowls built by General Electric in the early 1990s, which serve as the remaining example of six-axle cowls operating on a Class One railroad.
Canadian Pacific, who hasn’t purchased a new road locomotive in five years, continues to rely on its fleet of AC4400CWs and ES44ACs, the two models filling up almost half of the CP’s fleet, on everything from manifest to coal trains. The railroad recently made a sizable purchase of four and six-axle rebuilt locomotives from GP20C-ECOs from Progress Rail, making it the largest user of EMD ECO rebuilds in North America. The GP20C-ECO and SD30C-ECO locomotives have been assigned to various locations around the system for yard and local service.
CP has begun an overhaul program for 15 of its former Soo Line SD60s, which are receiving upgraded electrical systems and new road numbers when completed. The SD60s are one of the few non-GE road locomotives represented on CPs active roster.
