G&W clearly cares about how their locomotives look… everytime I see one here in town it looks as if it came right off the wash line. Even my daughter who is not a railfan noticed…
Good for them for putting forth the effort.
How do you expect people to respect you as a first-class professional organization if you don’t look like one? Appearances are everything.
100% true. G&W has figured it out. Their locomotives look like Athearns straight of the box. If one weathered them even a little they would look unrealistic.
I’m an O Gauger myself but I get your meaning perfectly! [;)]
While G&W has a lot of locomotives, they are spread out amongst their various properties. I’d opine that most of those properties have just a few locomotives, so keeping them spiffy is less of a challenge.
The five US Class 1’s operate almost 25,000 locomotives, collectively, and with the exception of special purpose units (yards, etc) they travel the entire country.
G&W has just shy of 600 in total, spread out over 100+ railroads. If your corner of the G&W world has just five locos, keeping them looking nice is a little easier - and you know that you’ll be running that same locomotive tomorrow.
Our engines used to get run through the wash rack every time they went to the bigger engine shop up the road for their 92 day MI.
They haven’t done that in years. Probably Something Related to an operating policy change or something.
Precision Schedule Reductions? These days I just find the term PSR as the most contradictory ever crafted… As none of the C1’s actually have precise or scheduled railroading…Why not just call it RSR? Reduced Service Railroading? A client of mine we had a nice laugh over that term some months back when I was advising them.
Seeing some of UP’s Heritage units on the various cameras it looks like they all got some TLC.
I think environmental regulations also have changed, making it more expensive to wash engines. You know, collecting and cleaning the dirty, oily water. I thought I also read once that some of the chemicals used for cleaning are no longer allowed. The ones that are allowed are more expensive than the old ones.
Our engines get washed every time it rains. But the dirty, oily runoff is collected by the ground.
Jeff
I wonder if Montana Rail Link continued to clean their units after the Mullan Tunnel was upgraded?
https://railpictures.net/photo/411650/
https://railpictures.net/photo/411748/
I know this is about trains, but I can’t stop drooling over that truck.
Picture One, yuck!
Picture Two, oh yeah, that pick-up’s a classic!
wrong post.
In good shape and fully depreciated… that would be enough to make an accoutant drool too.
Truck is a '78 - '79 Ford; my father and brother each had one.
The military installation near me built a facility specifically to wash vehicles, particularly those that had been in the field. The tank portion actually has a drive-through pond. The fiacility includes holding ponds and a host of other pollution mitigation facilities.
Putting in such a ficility at every locomotive service facility would be prohibitive, and any facility that was washing dozens of locos per day would certainly garner the attention of regulators.
The ‘major’ engine service facilities on the Class 1 carriers are very limited in comparison to what existed in decades gone by.
On CSX there are three - Cumberland, Huntington, Waycross.
While they may get noticed, do they generate new business? Do they help retain current business?
Just kind of shows the state of the companies. Even the trash trucks near me are all sparkling clean.
If you don’t have pride to wash the oil running down the engine…not to mention the problems of oil accumulating on walkways and grab irons.
And probably factors in a subconscience way for employee retention. Kind of speaks to a larger sense of employee value.
I hear the local managers catch hell from higher-ups if they let their company vehicles get dirty. Ironic?
Seems like a good fund-raiser for a high school sports team 
The SP did just fine not washing anything, oh wait…
They were quietly repainted a few years ago, so they’re looking a bit more fresh than they would otherwise.