Notice for a few days cn 5949 with sub letters GTW (Grand Trunk Western) and in front of GTW was “owned by Alstrom” and what seemed to be “PBM by Alstrom” This was on CN tracks Toronto-NorthBay Were GTW locos painted grey & what’s with the Manufacturer’s name on it?
That is from a whole series of CN Locomotives. They are sublettered for both GTW and WC.
I thought this would be posted in the Locomotives section .
Andrew Falconer
To A. Falconer
I’ve always been posting in the General Discussion forum. Just looked up the Locomotives Section and will be using it in future as it should answer most of my questions.
I live in a condo and only a three or four CN freights a day along with the Ontario Northern psgr train. Get most of my info from my binoculars from my balcony. Presently compiling a list of locos and trying to identify the different models, which I look up in my reference books as I’m quite ignorant right now of the different types. Thanks for your response
The grey units that are owned by Alsthom are leased to CN. The WC ones are in storage and their fate is unknown. I do not know when the GTW ones expire.
Those ALSTROM CN SD40-2 units sub-lettered for GTW and WC are common in Michigan some weeks.
The GTW started painting their Locomotives in the Blue, Red & White scheme in 1971.
The Morning Sun Books “The Grand Trunk Western IN COLOR, VOLUME 2” notes and shows the transition from the 1960’s CN Colors to the GTW colors.
In 1992 the CN management had GTW repaint GTW SD40s, GP38-2s, and GP9Rs in the new 1992 CN paint Scheme to unify the CN System.
This Gray Scheme is apparently just a lease unit scheme. ALSTROM has painted more attractive schemes for their demonstrator units. The Gray is just a utilitarian scheme.
Andrew
There are no longer any “Gray” SD40-3s with “WC” sublettering. What happened to those? How many and what year did they get them? Was it 2005? Also, what year did CN get the nineteen ex KCS “Gray” SD40-3s? GTW 5938 to 5956. Was it in 2002? Does anyone have a link for more info when they first got them? Also, many were “Retired” and later brought back! How many “Gray GTW” units exist in 2022? I have not seen one since 2016! Those WC ones sure didn’t last long!!! [:O]
Robert Jackson
No, it’s KCS grey. (on the GTW units)
These units are original Canadian National SD40s which were sold to Alstom and rebuilt to SD40-2 specs and leased to (and painted for) KCS. Later the lease transferred to CN/GTW and they were renumbered into the GTW 5900 series but not repainted.
The WC units mentioned were also original CN SD40s, again sold to and rebuilt by Alstom, and painted in a dark grey w/ orange stripe Alstom lease scheme w/ GCFX reporting marks. These were also common on CN for years before CN either bought them back or adjusted the lease and renumbered them all into the WC 6900 series, and added CN logos over the Alstom lease logos.
At least some of the WC ex-GCFX units were picked up by the Genesse & Wyoming group of shortlines and a bunch of them numbered for QGRY.
I know it is KCS gray! OK, was it the year 2002 that CN got these 19 gray units for GTW? GTW 5938 to GTW 5956? How many of these are left on CN still gray?
Robert Jackson
Seeing as they were bought 20 years ago, I doubt if many haven’t been repainted.
In case anyone cares about the spelling of ALSTOM…
The name originated from the combination of two French companies:
Societe Alsaceinne de Contruction Mechanique
and
Thomson Houston (basically French GE)
And became “Alsthom”
In French and in English the “th” in Thomson was pronounced “t”
But Alsthom changed to Alstom simply so the name could be pronounced correctly…
Peter