Where in the US can someone still go rail fan SD35s-SD50s, GP35s-GP40s, F40s-F45s, where do these age units still see mainline service, I know Utah Railway and Montana Rail Link have older units, anyone know where would the the best places to railfan these units?
Nowhere.
Wheeling & Lake Erie has some of what you are looking for.
Florida East Coast railroad has a mainline GP40 I believe. We have a local GP38 and 40 here in Brook Park, OH but it’s only twice a day.
Saw an SD cowl unit (in CN paint) day before yesterday southbound on ex-IC. Was common a few months ago to see GE cowls here, including in BCR paint (!)
Many examples of ex-Conrail units like SD-60Ms and dash-8s with Flexicoil-style trucks, and exotics like conventional-cab dash-9s, on ex-Southern. And BN 1837, whatever it is, is still in BN green and white all these years later doing switch and transfer on ex-Frisco.
It’s possible there are still units in SP colors across the river in West Memphis, although it has been a while since I checked. Quite a bit of ‘older’ UP road power makes it here.
Susquehanna has some older equipment.
Not exactly mainline, but Portland & Western has some older power:
https://www.thedieselshop.us/Portlnd&Wsn.HTML
So does Cimarron Valley:
http://www.trainweb.org/rosters/CVR.html
The turbocharged 567 engines have not aged well, and there may now be more of them in museums than in revenue service.
That is surprising, all our EMD cowls have been retired, the SD50F’s a decade ago and the SD60F’s just last year. The latter are still for sale, and while some have been scrapped others have been sold to shortlines. Perhaps you saw one on the way to its new owner.
The C40-8M’s are all still on the roster (except perhaps for a few lost in wrecks), and are a common sight powering mainline trains across Canada. Occasionally we even see something like this:
Come down to around Peoria Illinois they have a complete set of F’s hauling freight on a daily basis on the Keokuk shortline. Yes I mean first generation F’s a complete A-B-A lashup.
Never heard of the Reading & Northern in eastern Pennsylvania?
The ‘Canton Cannonball’:
http://www.railpictures.net/photo/610115/
Ontario Southland has quite the eclectic collection of first-generation power too, including 3 FP9’s:
https://www.thedieselshop.us/OSR.HTML
That roster is a bit outdated, and does not show the F’s as they were acquired more recently.
Completely forgot the Delaware Lackwanna in Scranton - you might even catch the “triplets” (three RS-3’s) in action. And they’re running a lot of Centuries. DL is, of course, all ALCO… Bonus - Steamtown.
Present satelite images on Google Earth shows the 2 “A” units in the yard just east of Mapleton, IL. (No Street View close enough to see them.)
Genesee & Wyoming’s Buffalo & Pittsburgh runs Geeps through my area, and the WNYP runs all Alco power.
Neither is anywhere close to “mainline” though.
Great Lakes Central (ex Ann Arbor north of its namesake) still runs ex-AA GP-35’s on Alco trucks.
CSX has (or had when I was working) a number of GP30’s configured at road slugs - they didn’t blow smoke but they sucked down electrons from their Mother’s generator. Normally they were operating with GP38’s as the Mother.
I’ve seen them at Deshler in the very recent past.
Doesn’t the Grafton & Belington in West Va. run SD50’s ?
UP has rebuilt a larger number of its SD40-2’s as "SD40N"s, they probably can be found working local freights and other secondary trains.
Paducah & Louisville (PAL) still has a variety of Geeps that make up most of their roster.