Last year one of the former SD60MAC demonstrators, EMDX 9501, was seen heading from it’s home at the TTCI test center at Pueblo, CO to Washington state. Supposedly EMD wanted to do tmodifications to the SD60MAC for test purposes. Well, the rumors turned out to be true. A recent picture of blue-painted EMDX 9501 at CEECO shows what looks like SD70Ace radiators and rear body section grafted onto an SD60 frame.
The big giveaway this was an SD60MAC is the early 3-window SD60M cab. My guess is EMD wants to use the “SD60ACe” as a testbed to evaluate the feasability of upgrading older SD60/70s to comply with stricter Tier-2+ emissions standards.
The reason the hood goes to the end of the frame is that 9501 now has dynamic brakes at the back and the dynamic brake grilles at the front (behind the cab) are blanked off. There is no sign of the old inverter grilles, so 9501 might have an SD70ACE inverter box on the left hand side.
These changes to items not involved in meeting tier 2 suggests that this is not a protoype rebuild to change emission regulations but a complete rebuild to full SD70ACe specifications.
All 4 of the SD60MAC’s were built with HTCR radial trucks as standard equipment, the first brand new locomotives to have them, so they are not a new addition to the #9501.
EMD SD60 demo/test unit EMD 3 was retrofitted with them for testing prior to the SD60MAC’s being released.
You are completely correct! (and I am completely wrong!) I should have known better. I was involved in the test of the SD60MACs on Conrail and the test of the radial trucks on the SD70M demo units.