Spotted a brand new UP SD70ACe pulling TOFC on the C&NW yesterday, but runnig with it was a UP unit that had SD90 Under Warranty lettered on the side of the cab. Was this one of the de-powered SD90’s or are these up to rated power these days? Why the Under Warranty lettering and what’s a normal warranty for a new loco?
New warranty varies greatly depending on what the manufacturer is willing to do. There is no standard. Don’t know about this particular case, but in the past there were locomotives that were not to be touched by the railroad but only by the maker. Perhaps this is the case again.
UP didn’t “de-power” any of the SD90s it received as 6000-horsepower units (if it’s in the 8500 series, it has 6000 horsepower–I understand some are being renumbered to make room for new SD70ACEs).
UP also received hundreds of “SD9043MACs” that came from EMD with 4300 horsepower engines. These are in the lower 8000 series.
Can’t answer the “Under Warranty” question–I’ve noticed that recent locomotive deliveries don’t have this lettering, though.
I have seen the same thing, but not on SD90s I see it most on GE units, mainly Dash 9s and AC4400s and I was gonna post that question this morning. [:)]
I just love seeing the “under warranty” under the window on locomotives. For the price of a locomotive I would hope that it would have some sort of warranty.
Now that it’s been mentioned, I recall seeing “under warranty” on a couple units going through Rochelle when I was out there on 07-31. And both units were labeled SD-90 before the warranty lettering.
I was at EMD when most of the SD90MAC’s (4300 and 6000 HP) were delivered and I recall they had a five year warranty. That was seven or eight years ago so I highly doubt they are under warranty today. I bet they just have not gotten around to removing the lettering. The H-engine units could be different, I am not sure. That could be due to their stellar performance 
That’s a much longer story.
I worked in the service dept. for a while and spent a lot of time determining if engine component failures where warranty or RR responsibility (maint related). Warranties are a big deal to the RR’s, as are performance guarantees. We had financial penalties and we have all seen GE “performance payback” units on the RR’s…