bnsf favors ge over gm on majority of its pigs and stacks.up favors gm. why? thx

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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ge vs gm speed over power?

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Oh, boy! Another EMD vs GE thread!

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Just proves the point that BNSF is a better managed RR than the UP.

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Because BNSF bought Dash 9’s for intermodal, UP bought SD70’s for intermodal.

Bert

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They generally did the opposite on coal trains, with BNSF using SD70MACs and UP using GE AC44s, although both used AC for coal, DC for stacks. Lately on the racetrack, BNSF seems to be pairing a GE AC with a MAC, rather than running 2 MACs.

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And as an added bonus, it also qualifies as a BNSF ~vs~ UP thread! Oh joy! Oh rapture!

Now if we can only get Canon ~vs~ Nikon and Chevy ~vs~ Ford into the mix…

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The funny thing is I rarely see an SD70M on intermodal. I see more SD70M’s on Manifests and Auto Trains. I tend to see older Dash-8’s, Dash-9’s, older EMD’s, that stuff.

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So I vote everyone should make Calvin pissin on EMD or GE stickers and put them on the respective locomotives. That should ***ing settle it once and for all.

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Well, it just so happens that I carry my Nikon around in my Ford searching for UP trains with EMD power.

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Fiend.

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Back to the original question, several possibilities:

  1. Deal they got at the time of purchase
  2. How their maintenance people are trained and equipped
  3. How quickly they could take delivery (remember rail suppliers are backlogged, too)

And those are just the obvious ones without even mentioning EMD vs. GE

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BNSF didn’t buy any EMDs for a long time because they were made by GM and GM cut BNSF out of a huge chunk of their auto business. Now that EMD is no longer a GM company, BNSF is buying EMDs again. It will take them a while to catch up. I think there might be a few delivery time factors involved in their recent purchases as well.

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