It appears that the Roberval & Saguenay (way up in northern Quebec) has acquired three ex-CSX SD70ACe’s:
The R&S hauls aluminum ore from the port a short distance to the smelter. With an aluminum smelter, I’m sure there is ample hydro electric power. I wonder if they ever thought of rail electrification.
Does this spell the end of their Super-7s … are there any other of those still running in North America?
Last I checked Ferromex’s Super 7’s were still in operation. Considering these early ACe’s had reliabilty and nosie issues let’s see how those Quebecois crews like these units…
ACe’s are old enough to be written off and sold?
Unless the tax laws and accounting principles have changed, a locomotive is considered to be fully depreciated at 15 years of age.
CSX bought their 20 SD70ACe’s right at the start of production. This batch turned out to be lemons, and CSX never bought another EMD unit again, save for their recent token SD70ACe-T4 order.
As such, they were a small minority make in a much larger fleet, which made them a target when the CSX locomotive fleet was culled several years ago.
If (and this is a big if) Progress Rail rebuilt these units to current SD70ACe specs they should be reliable, albeit still with the thundercabs that are detested by crews.
What does “thundercarbs” mean?
It’s humor based on the GM introduction of ‘Whispercabs’, the rubber-isolated quiet-cab design as on SD75i locomotives.
I can’t do nearly as good a job, or likely use as colorful language, as someone like Bob Smith can in describing the “difference”, so I leave it to those that have to know them (or be ‘known’ by them, in a sense) to describe in detail…
They’re loud. And vibratey. And headache-inducing. An absolute miserable place to spend a shift.
Zug is spot on.
In the interest of my own self-preservation, I’ll keep the colourful language off-forum.
The EMD-designed WhisperCab ™ sits on a thick rubber gasket and bushings that separate it from the frame. The difference is absolutely astounding. A regular cab (welded to the frame) is louder at idle than a WhisperCab is in full throttle.
The railroads should be required by law to purchase locomotives with properly soundproofed cabs of some sort, hearing loss is a occupational disease among train crews.
The worst “ThunderCab” design by far is the EMD phase II cab used on SD70ACe’s and M-2’s. I’ve actually had earplugs vibrate right out of my ears on some of CN’s units (NS-spec 8000-8024 and CN-spec 8800-8849). BNSF actually banned these units from leading trains around 10 years ago due to the cab noise levels, I wish CN would do the same.
GE uses a isolated powertrain instead of isolating the cab.
The first photo is a EMD unit with a WhisperCab, the second one has a ThunderCab. The seam along the nose and under the cab of 8935 is the rubber gasket. 8023 does not have it:
https://www.railpictures.net/photo/683337/
https://www.railpictures.net/photo/666428/
I can only imagine the French expressions that will be used to describe them up on the Saguenay…
Sacre coup de tonnerre! Taberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnac!
It’s not like it’s just engine noise like on older engine, either. It’s like a vibrating resonance that is just horrible. You feel it as much as you hear it. Used to cause the rear cab door to randomly come open on the road, too. That was always nice. I think the NS SD70M-2s are all stored now.
Alhtough, IMO they slightly lose out to the SD60Es. I’ve heard it was the air conditioning ducts under the floor that allows the engine room noise to come right into the cab on those.
Someone better start up a new photo hosting site for railroad pictures, one that doesn’t insist on being whitelisted from my Adblocker.
Yeah, their AdBlock message is a pain. But I don’t find their ads to be particularly intrusive or annoying, unlike the popups on this site.
Railpictures.ca (Canadian photos only, and with a search function that is even worse than Kalmbach’s) and rrpicturearchives.net are other choices.
Don’t get me started on Facebook…
Yeah, it’s like being right in front of the speakers in New York’s hottest club, when the DJ has the bass cranked up to 11.
I’ve always wondered how the NS rebuild cabs turned out. What a shame.
Were those ducts engineered to keep the engineer awake?[:)]