Reports CN is buying 35 ES44ACs and 30 SD70ACes for delivery 2013 - 2014. CN also rebuilding 96 older and used high HP DC units.
It’s about time CN gets AC-traction since they’re the last class 1 holdout.
http://www.cn.ca/en/media-news-acquire-locomotives-20120322.htm
It also looks like CN’s buying more second hand Dash 8s too, which the article says are C40-8s. I assume the C40-8s are those with the standard cab. I guess UP has more C40-8s going off lease? And CN’s acquiring 43 SD60s too. I wonder where CN’s getting SD60s from? I wonder if it’s former Oakway lease SD60s that were used by BN and later BNSF.
If I had to guess I’d say that the SD60’s are from Oakway. I think NS recently got a whole slue of them from Oakway.
Will they be converting these older DC units into AC’s?
Why is Uncle Pete getting rid of his Dash-8’s??? [(-D]
announcement indicates that all rebuilds will stay DC. Rebuilds will go on higher speed manifests where AC advantage not as great.
The big question is how soon will GE and EMD remove DC locos from their catalogues ??. Third world loco orders may extend DC ??
IIRC GE last year began Pricing DC locomotives Higher than AC ones since most orders are for AC’s now and the DC’s are the Oddballs now. EMD was weighing a similar plan also. See 6 of the 7 Class ones and all the Regionals that order new power were going AC so the DC unit was the more expensive unit to make as they had to bring in just for CN the DC traction motors and swirtching gear.
Called CN did not want to pay a few hundred Grand more per Unit to stick with DC traction the Builders Forced them to go AC and once CN tries it they will love it watch and see. I can not remember the last IM train that came thru on the Transcon with standard C44-9W on it anymore and the BNSF has over 1500+ of them.
I heard through the grape vine that UP is also reactivating a bunch of the spartan cab dash 8s. That may be in order to move them to CN, but I believe it is separate from the CN units. The SD60s have been confirmed to be the former Oakway EMDX units (they haven’t been Oakway for some time).
Coincidentally, UP is also supposed to be reactivating a number of SD60/60Ms in the near future.
UP’s reactivated SD’s might be candiates to be rebuilt with the EMD Prime mover Swap. The GE’s they could be candiates to be Trials for the GEVO program that GE offers. Think about it all those GE’s bought in the 80’s-90’s are going to be unable to run soon per the EPA and CARB someone is going to have to bite teh Bullet and redo them to try them out sooner or later.
Glad to see CN getting more power…it’ll be interesting to see where and how they end up.
UP has not additional SD59MX rebuilds on order aside from the 15 currently being delivered. The units which were used in the program were removed from dead storage and not reactived prior to shipment.
UP isn’t shipping any GE’s off for GE’'s proposed EVO upgrade program. No roads have chosen this option and to date it only remains a concept.
UP has upgraded several C40-8W’s with EFI and split cooling radiator systems recently. This allows the units to be certified Tier 0+ which is as high as these units need to be certified by the EPA. The same upgrade is being applied to numerous C40-8/C40-8W/C40-8M types on CSX, CN and NS currently.
Back to CN…
The group of SD60’s being picked up are coming via GMTX and were most recently leased to NS. These are former “Oakway” SD60’s. Included should be GMTX #9041 which was built as EMD 3, one of the SD60 demo units and the unit later equiped with HTCR radial trucks.
11 of the GE’s are the former LMS C40-8W’s which are currently on the CN roster and assigned to the IC. The lease is about to expire and obviously they are being purchased. The balance of the GE’s will be CREX C40-8’s, which were originally built for the C&NW. When the lease expired UP returned these units and CN previously picked up some of these units and is now getting the rest of the group.
Bryan Jones
[quote user=“Bryan Jones”]
edbenton:
UP’s reactivated SD’s might be candiates to be rebuilt with the EMD Prime mover Swap. The GE’s they could be candiates to be Trials for the GEVO program that GE offers. Think about it all those GE’s bought in the 80’s-90’s are going to be unable to run soon per the EPA and CARB someone is going to have to bite teh Bullet and redo them to try them out sooner or later.
UP has not additional SD59MX rebuilds on order aside from the 15 currently being delivered. The units which were used in the program were removed from dead storage and not reactived prior to shipment.
UP isn’t shipping any GE’s off for GE’'s proposed EVO upgrade program. No roads have chosen this option and to date it only remains a concept.
UP has upgraded several C40-8W’s with EFI and split cooling radiator systems recently. This allows the units to be certified Tier 0+ which is as high as these units need to be certified by the EPA. The same upgrade is being applied to numerous C40-8/C40-8W/C40-8M types on CSX, CN and NS currently.
Back to CN…
The group of SD60’s being picked up are coming via GMTX and were most recently leased to NS. These are former “Oakway” SD60’s. Included should be GMTX #9041 which was built as EMD 3, one of the SD60 demo units and the unit later equiped with HTCR radial trucks.
11 of the GE’s are the former LMS C40-8W’s which are currently on the CN roster and assigned to the IC. The lease is about to expire and obviously they are being purchased. The balance of the GE’s will be CREX C40-8’s, which were originally built for the C&NW. When the lease expired UP returned these units and CN previously picked up some of these units and is now getting the rest of the group.
Bryan Jones
The CSX AC6000CW repowering program involved far less than GE’s proposed EVO rebuild program, the two can’t really be called similar other than involving GE. The CSX AC6000CW’s had the 7HDL replaced by new GEVO16 prime movers but no other major mechanical changes. The GEVO prime mover is just a refinied version of the HDL, correcting design flaws of the HDL. With just over 200 HDL powered units in existance GE wanted to eliminate support for the earlier HDL prime mover and specific parts which were not compatible with the newer GEVO. This is why the CSX, UP and BHP Billiton AC6000CW’s were all repowered, with CSX and BHP opting to keep the units at 6000hp with new GEVO 16’s and UP choosing the older and less powerful 7FDL prime mover. As a side CSX #600-602 were repowered with FDL’s as well due to differences with the cooling systems between the pre-production and full production model AC6000CW’s.
GE does have a contract to repower the Port of Houston MP1500D’s but very few details have ever been released none of the units have gone through the program yet. Expect the rebuilt units to be far different beasts than they are in the current configuration.
Bryan Jones
It’s just as likely those 1500Ds will get 645F blocks since GE owns the designs for that engine as well.
IIRC, the repowering program is aiming for Tier 3 compliance. Can they achieve that with a 645 derivative?