Just reviewed the Second Quarter 2005 BNSF “Alliance Mechanical” Employee News letter:
“EMD has not built a locomotive for BNSF for seven years, but a deal has been inked that calls for BNSF to purchase 30 AC locomotives to be delivered in 2006. The SD70ACe provides unit reduction, fuel savings and additional revenue tonnage capability over SD40-2’s. Three SD70ACe’s can replace 5 SD40-2’s in high tractive effort operations. Operation of fewer units results in significant maintenance and operating savings.”
The next year or two is going to be critical for EMD. Many in the industry still consider the EMDs the better locomotive,although GE has made some serious efforts to become and remain the #1 locomotive builder. EMD seems to be staking it all on the AC locomotive, hailing it as the new Geep. Time will tell, but it will be interesting.
BNSF had a bad relationship with EMD for those 7 years and after GM sold the EMD locomotive division to a private company they could once again order EMDs without buying from the original EMD builders.
Its about time BNSF got some EMD’s. Every day lately there has been nothing but C44-9W and ES44DC going buy the house. It would be nice to see something different. (However a NREX SD45-2 came by a little bit ago. That was cool.[:D] )
Now maybe we will find out if the new owners of EMD keep up the same quality EMDs have always been famous for.Will SD70ACEs be pulling secondary trains 30 years from now?
what was the reason for the alleged ‘bad blood’ between BNSF and EMD anyway? BN bought however many hundreds of sd70macs and the bulk of santa fe power was EMD. name change comes with an attitude change i guess.
Ditto… Lately, seems like you see the first train of the day, you’ve seen them all. Never been big on GE. I hope the split from GM ends up being a positive thing for EMD. It was known for years that GM never really took that division seriously.
The GE’s, they can be called roaches. They are everywhere and you just can’t get rid of them.
BNSF 5525 had a turbo charger over run last night. It took 45 minutes to burn out all the crankcase oil. What a show. Sparks out the stack for 25’ in all directions, flames for 30’-50’ straight out the stack. Best 4th of July fountain display I have ever seen. I am glad there was snow on the ground and not extreme fire danger in the forest.
bitterness between gm n bnsf, cause gm took away auto carrier buisness from
bnsf n gave to up to haul auto traffic,i heard?
also a new ge is roughly 500000 dollars less than a new gm, i heard?
MERRY CHRISTMAS and a safe New Year!!! watch the ice!!