For a while know, Norfolk Southern’s helper fleet on the Pittsburgh Line has been dominated by SD40-2’s. Now newly rebuilt SD40E’s (formally SD50’s) at the Juniata Shops; are becoming the dominate helpers. So where are all the SD40-2’s going. A few of my friends have come up with our own theories. We think they are sending the SD40-2’s down to West Virgina and Virgina for hauling coal loads believing since they are former Conrail units they are better built for mountain terrain. My one buddy who works for NS is saying they are having all kinds of electrical problems with the SD40E’s, the SD40-2s work a whole lot better than the new SD40E’s, wishing they would just upgrade the 40-2s and send them back into helper service.
I don’t know the answers myself - other than I understand that NS has many other helper grades, mainly further down south, including Alabama, etc. - but If you haven’t already, check out these 3 websites:
http://www.jreb.org/ns/index.php
especially the Motive Power page there at -
http://www.jreb.org/ns/index.php?board=3.0
Chris Toth is an administrator and posts on the latter as NSDash9 - he also runs the website above by the same name. While I don’t know him personally, judging from the detail and quality of his posts and responses, I would not be surprised to learn that works for NS in some Mechanical or Motive Power capacity. If you submit a post or an e-mail to him that is maybe a little less confrontational regarding the alleged electrical problems - who knows, maybe that’s a sore spot with him, too - from previous posts I’m inclined to believe that you’ll likely get an informed and intelligent response. Can’t hurt to ask nicely !
Hope this is helpful.
- Paul North.