On a recent trip I took a picture of NS#6733 on the lead of a Triplecrown train. When I looked up the train in a roster it was listed as a Ex-Conrail SD60I. I was wondering what the “I” designated on it, And what the diferance between it and a SD60 or SD60M are. The SD60I was a widenose unit. I’m so used to seing C44-9W’s out here that it didn’t totally register that it was even an EMD until I looked down and saw the radiator fans on the long hood(I was on an overpass). Any help would be appreciated.
What Dave says is true, factually. What he doesn’t say, and maybe is not true for NS’ SD60I’s is that if you don’t maintain the rubber mounts, and CSX doesn’t on their ex-CR ones, then you have an INCREDIBLY rough-riding unit, with extremely severe lateral and vertical motion, sometimes so bad you can hardly keep your seat! Instead of fixing the problem by replacing the rubber mounts, they have, apparently experimentally, started welding stabilizing shocks on some of the truck frames of these units aquired from CR (numbered in the 8700’s). They also don’t maintain the Microphor chemical toilets, to the point that they leak the blue stuff all over the floor of the toilet compartment in some of them, and stink to high-heaven in most.
A Conrail SD-60-I (SD = Special duty, the 60 = 3800 HP and the I = isolated cab) is just like any other SD-60-M except for one thing. The cab on the SD-60-I is mounted on rubber mounts and therefore reduces the noise and vibration in the cab for the crews. On other units that do not have a so called isolated cab there is lots of noise that is produced by the Diesel engine that is mounted to the fame of the locomotive that gets transferred to the cab which is also mounted to the frame. …Dave