Its true, the Infamous United Way SD40-2 has been retired and put up for sale by the Union Pacific. Its currently stored at Metro East Industries in Alorton, IL. Union Pacific will be putting her up for auction to the highest bidder sometime within the week. She will go the the highest bidder, even if it is a scrapper.
3300 was rumoured to be heading to Salt Lake City to partake in the photo shoot with the 1982, 1983, 1988, 1989, 1995, 1996 and 4141.
Lets hope the this historic unit will not be sold to a scapper, but instead to a musuem!
3300 is getting old and worn out. As of late its been having problems with alot of stuff. Whoever has the money to fix it up will buy it. Hopefully it will get a good home like UP 3593 did after its Desert Storm Days.
It wasn’t infamous here in the Chicago area, as this is the area it was assigned. Proviso often used 3300 as the middle engine of trios of specially painted engines, often with one or both of the Olympic engines (UP 2002/UP 3300/UP 2001, UP 2001/UP 3300/UP 1995, UP 2001/UP 3300/CNW 8701). It was famous for helping make these trios Proviso has made possible. It really helped make some colorful consists around here, whether in these trios or just with other UP SD40-2s. Itr I remember once when I was heading to Galesburg down I-88, I saw a train with 3 UP SD40-2s, one of which was 3300. Wow, did 3300 made the consist jump out. I think it is one of the most artistic engines on any class one railroad. I will miss seeing it and it’s colorful contributions over the last year to the Geneva Subdivision, and so will many others.
Infamous: 1. having an extremely bad reputation: an infamous city; 2. deserving of or causing an evil reputation; shamefully malign; detestable: an infamous deed.
UP’s endeavors with high HP locos over the decades would probably fall under that category, especially Big Blow turbines and GE’s fire-plauged U50 double-diesel.
On UP, if a engine has “retired” status that does not neccessary mean it is getting sold or scrapped. I have found out from UP workers that when a engine is retired, sometimes that just means they don’t want to list reasons for a overhaul. The auctioning off part was another rumor started on another site and is not true. It was retired on May 19th at Jenks shop and brought back into service yesterday at 5PM at Valley Junction. In any case, lets all be glad UP 3300 is still running around and it will be heading back to its home terminal at Proviso Yard soon. 3300 is not scheduled to go to Salt Lake City with the heritage engines. I read that rumor also and found it to be false just like the auctioning 3300 rumor.
It won’t be doing either. It is currently lined up for MPRCB tommorow so whatever was wrong must have been fixed. It was supposed to have a major overhaul at Jenks shop. I am not sure if Jenks or MEI gave it a overhaul or not. It does have a very neat paint scheme. If there were ever a contest for most artistic paint scheme 3300 would probably rank right up near the top. Basically, it is a big rolling American flag. Thankfully, Proviso usually washes it on a regular basis so it usually doesn’t get too dirty as long as it near Proviso.
Ok group, 3300 was supposed to have departed Proviso at 9:30 AM on MPRCB. People in Iowa, look out, as it is heading in your direction! I am still hearing it is 3rd engine behind 2 UP SD40-2s.
