Two of the Norfolk Southern Heritage Units, the Interstate and Norfolk Southern ones, have been hanging around the Northwest recently, along with other foreign power. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time to be trackside recently.
Yes, times are really busy now. Hopefully that means that businesses are again starting function like they used to in early 2000s. Wouldn’t those NS Heritage units look cool on BNSF freight? Intense colors with intense colors. Making the train look either very bad or very cool. [:D]
Wonder which of the big class 1s is next short of power due to time of the year traffic?
I’ve seen local pictures, and they look quite good!
As for the next power short railroad, CN seems to be perennially power short. They did buy the EMD SD70ACe-P6 demonstrators, but they have computer issues that may not be resolved. IIRC, they are ordering more ES44ACs, but are still short.
CP seemed like it would be short for a while, especially with the lease to BNSF of about 100 GEVOS. They reactivated their SD60 fleet, and some of their long stored SD90MACs. (I think dead since about 2009).
Maybe we need a thread entitled. " what is your RR’s power situation? "
Yeah, just tell me how to change the title [;)]
Hmmm, sounds like a lot of circulation of locomotives might be happening…
Interesting that something like P6 has software programming problems, this sounded to me like an easy upgrade. But with programming, of course anything can happen.
Sorry my poor knowledge on US carriers, what is the IIRC?
So all these moves are due to structural, not caused by certain commodities shipped at the certain time of the year? Maybe outside the “grain season”.
IIRC = If I Recall Correctly
Thanks, Balt. McKey, Sorry about the confusion.
Almost everyone is power short because of the winter, which typically strains power resources (trains must be shorter and will move slower due to frozen switches, etc., which means more locomotives are needed.) This coincides with the grain season, a huge bump in traffic for certain areas. Add in the oil boom, and there aren’t enough units around!
[:D] Well, about time I learned the meaning of the letters!
Not the Indiana Interstate Railway after all…
2 Citirail locomotives are currently at the BNSF fuel racks in Denver (05/06/14) near Denver’s Amtrak Station
At the time of this thread one must remember CN had the 5400’s and the 2000’s still being sent through the shops before release.
Also, CN differs from other railroads in the fact that they operate their trains with the minimum amount of power needed to crawl up the steepest hill.
The reality is, with power tight, all Class 1’s are using this concept on all except their highest priority trains.
CREX 1337 eastbound with 2 CN units on a Crude oil train at Kingston ON Canada on Sat. 20th Sept. 2014. I think I was really lucky to catch this one with only 15 of these scattered around North America.
Some posters might say OK bring on helper districts The current crew shortages would seem to make that impossible ?
There are way more than 15. I’m not sure exactly how many at this moment, since the third order of 35 is still being delivered. The first order was for 15, and the second for 50.
Last week when I was leaving the model railroad club in Livingston, MT located in the basement of the old Northern Pacific depot there was a westbound coal train apparently waiting for helpers. The second locomotive was a Citirail locomotive. I tried to take a photo with my phone, but it was just a sunset and the poor lighting kept me from taking a good photo. Thanks for the posting so now I know what I saw.
I think American Express would be a more suitable livery.