Our local BNSF yards (Sioux Falls, S.D.), has two orange SW switchers it uses in daily use. From time to time, one of them is replaced for a while with a green switcher. (Kind of sounds like an episode of Thomas the tank engine, doesn’t it?[(-D]) Anyway, what would be a reason for swapping out switchers from time to time?
One could be off for its 92-day FRA inspection. You can do a 92-day just about anywhere so long as there’s a pit to get underneath it. But it’s not much fun doing it anywhere outside of a shop. I don’t think there’s any place in Sioux Falls now to do a 92-day, or the personnel there to do it.
S. Hadid
That being the case, they probably have to run it up the line a ways, to bigger rail center, like Wilmar, Minnesota. The number 92, I presume, is to make 4 inspections per year. Would it be an inpection for safety issues, or for maintennance and wear&tear issues as well?
CSX routinely rotates the GP38’s used for locals out of Watertown, NY. Service is done at Dewitt.
[(-D]
[:O] I thought I had clicked onto the freezing coal thread, and CSX was running GP38’s through the rotary dumper![:I]
whatever csx has available is what they use for our local.but the pair of gp38-2s has been there for awhile now.
stay safe
joe
The 92-day inspection is for safety – which is the FRA’s purview. It’s up to the railroad if it wants to do preventative maintenance or program maintenance at the same time. Most do some at the same time during at least some of the 92-day inspections, such as take an oil sample or change filters. The manufacturers are working very hard and with success to extend maintenance intervals well beyond 92 days, with 300 days being a holy grail.
S. Hadid