I was looking around at railpictures.net, and I typed in the Saint Paul, and to my amaziment there was alot of Soo Locomotives still around. I couldn’t beleive it. I looked at the dates and it said 2006 [:O] . So I was wondering, why does CP still have alot of Soo locos and even Milwaukee road locos sitting around? Do they not have the time/money to paint it? But for some reason I don’t see WC locomotives like you still see Soo locomotives, is this because WC had older locomotives and CN is scrapping them? But I see that CN has SD-35s and SD-40s running around, but no SD-45s(whell none around here). So whats up with all this? I’m confusied.[%-)] Or am I just missing some thing.
I’m no expert, but maybe they are only repainting the locos that will still be around for a while longer. There’s no point repainting older locomotives that will be sold or scrapped soon.
Maybe, I never would of thought of that. But wouldn’t of they scrapped the old MILW GP-40 and 38s, they look like there getting old. here’s the link for my search:
Some of the SOO Locomotives have been repainted between 15-20 years ago and the paint is in such great shape that they will not bother to repaint them.
Canadian Pacific Railway is investing in new locomotives.
Some of the Soo Units are leased and will be repainted when the lease expires.
The Milwaukee Road Locos that have not been repainted yet might be rebuilt someday.
Andrew
Perhaps the Canadians are a litle more frugal and believe that if its not broke don’t fix it, or maybe the “Conrail Quality” oxymoron did not need to be carried forward by CN. I am sure that as locomotives cycle through regular maintenance and rebuilds they will be repainted and/or scrapped as warranted.
Will
I get the cycle part with locomotives. But what I don’t get is: I’ve seen CN SD-35s and SD-40s and SD-40-2s. But no WC SD-45. Why would CN want to scrap the more power-full locomotives? Maybe because of the mantiance issue? I also get now the Soo thing, that the paint holds up and it doesn’t pay to re-paint it.
It could be something to do with the way the ‘takeover’ happened, I think the Soo remained technically a separate railroad even after NAFTA allowed CP to take full control of their operations…so there maybe wasn’t the rush to repaint units that there otherwise would have been.
BTW going from home (Cottage Grove MN) to work in DT St.Paul the CP(Soo/Milwaukee) mainline to Chicago is between the highway and the Mississippi. I do see a lot of Soo engines - even some orange and black Milwaukee units (‘bandit’ units, but most all of the black painted on by the Soo is gone now) AND of course one white and one brown SOO cabooses, which are still used on runs from Pig’s Eye yard to the big oil refinery just off of 70th in St.Paul Park.
SOO LINE in general was American CP, if my facts are correct. They still letter their grain cars SOO.
Plus they had repainted recently, and the SD60’s were still on lease.
You could start another thread in Railroads or General Discussion asking why the Canadian National is more determined to have a unified system appearance than Canadian Pacific.
The big plan since 1992 by the management at CN in Toronto was to have all the railroads in the system identified at CN with the actual railroad name and reporting marks in smaller form where needed on Locomotives, Cars, and even buildings.
The Canadian Pacific management attempted to keep up with the CN on making a unified appearance for a few years in the 1990’s but they moved onto other matters.
Andrew
The simple fact is that the SOO was not absorbed by the Canadian Pacific that long ago. Usually when there is a railroad merger, especially one that is not among railroads known for their maintaniance (say the railroads that made up Conrail or when the RI went broke and railroads bought equipment at auction) the repaint is usually part of a larger rebuild or tune up program. The Soo Line has long been a part of Canadian Pacific, so their mantainace was probably standardized. In fact I remember reading somewhere that some SOO engines went to Calgary for repars.
As such the SOO engines might not have needed the overhaul that say Penn Central engines did when Conrail was formed. The Canadians have amazing shop forces, they kept ALCOs going in main line service until the late 1990s, and look at how many GP9s they still run. However, they do follow the “if it’s not broke, don’t paint it” line of thinking.
To the best of my knowledge there are no plans to repaint certain classes of engines. There are no CP painted SD60s, even though I’m sure they’ve been in the shop since the SOO was absorbed. Conversely, many of the SOO SD40-2s, GP38-2s and GP9Ms have been repainted in the Golden Beaver paint scheme.
Cheers!
~METRO
I saw a Milwaukee Road hopper go thru town just today, frankly I enjoy still seeing them and hope they DON’T get painted [:-^]
I’m sure the corporate machinations get pretty convoluted regarding SOO/CP. Remember before NAFTA any railroad in the US had to be 51% US owned - even lines like the CN mainline in northern Minnesota had to be incorporated as a separate US railroad (Minnesota and Manitoba RR I believe). Soo was 49% owned by Canadian Pacific until NAFTA in the nineties allowed CP to take it over…but it really became more of a wholly-owned subsidiary, rather than being just absorbed into CP. Seems to me I saw some legal notices or something similar within the last year that were still in the name of the “Soo Line Railroad Corporation”. So it could be from a legal standpoint CP had no rush in re-decorating the Soo units. (For example, when the BN merger happened, it was common to see GN or NP engines with a small “BN 4321” stencil on them, indicating their new owner and no.; I don’t remember ever seeing that on a SOO engine.)
Or it could just be CP figures these engines mainly just work in Pig’s Eye Yard, so not that many people can see them, so who cares what they look like?? [;)]
I do believe that the SOO is still a subsidiary of CP and was/is allowed by cP to keep it’s identity.
CP did transfer and shop a whole bunch of SOO SD40-2s when they had some major power shortages. They were painted in a variety of CP schemes, including the “Beaver Tail” scheme.
On the other hand, the CP/D&H units have been repainted into both the St. Lawrence & Hudsen and CP schemes as they’ve been reshopped. There are I believe only 2 D&H ligtning stripes left.
I did read some where that SOO was basicly a subsidariy of CP, Or a railroad in a railroad. Good Idea Andrew. I’ll post that on Trains mag in railroads. It makes perfect sense of what CP is doing that the railroad had to be 51% owned on the US. Wow it’s a whole lot clearer. Thanks for you info. Come to think of it, if SOO is a railroad in a railroad, then was the Lake States Division a Railroad in a Railroad in a Railroad[:P]
I just thought of this, Did SOO change to the Candy Apple Red Because of CP? I know CP is red, but did SOO change because of that? Or was it that new image thing.
Other way around. When cp went to the dual flag scheme…it found it had a surplus of paint from its SOO acqusition.
David
I noticed that most of the SOO locos left are SD-60s. Probably because there newer and they had so many. SOO Probably just as many SD-60s as WC had SD-45s
The paint change by SOO was a cost cutting measure. It is always easier to spray one basic color without all the masking.
The lack of WC units could be due to some of the models being not as desirable, from a maintaince standpoint. Some of the first WC engines to go on the CN were the SDL 39s, the FP 9s, the F 45s and FP 45s. All are rare on today’s railroads.
For example, when the SOO acquired the SDL 39s from the Milwaukee deal, they went into storage. The reasoning was the non-standard design. The trucks could be an issue to a railroad accustomed to standard units. After the WC purchased them from the SOO, WC used them quite a bit. After the CN takeover they again were sold. Perhaps the CN had the same reasoning as the SOO concerning these units?
Per the SD 45s, the SOO and its parent CP never wanted anything to do with the 20 cylinder engines. Some roads began experiencing early failures when this model first was built, an issue not unnoticed by other roads. I believe the SOO purchased some of the last SD 40 -2s built. After production ended the CP liked the SD 40-2s so much they asked GM to startup production again and GM complied.
The WC
CP has higher priorities than re-painting engines. Just recently, there were 2 ex-MILW bandits in Portage with a local. I haven’t seen two paired together in years!
I also saw a photo of a train, with a SOO and a CP unit. They were both the same number!
I recently saw a photo of (?) Thief River Falls, and there was a SOO MP15AC, with two Soo Plows in the background. I had to look at the date twice to see it saw 2007. I surely thought the picture was from the 80’s!
Also, there are plenty of MILW boxcars and gondolas around. When I was in Portage, I saw a MILW gondola marked ‘MW’, and with a crane boom inside of it.
I get amazed sometimes that so much still exists of the railroad I never got to saw.
Also, the Whitewater Valley Railroad Museum has a Soo/MILW bandit SD10. It was donated by the CP to them under the conditions that it be restored to full Milwaukee Road paint! Can’t wait to see that one when it’s finished!
Phil
I know exactly where you’re talking about. Down by Tunucci’s (sp?) in CG. I have a bunch of friends from there and know a teacher there as well.
Anyways, there are always tons of old SOO locos down there. Down here at college along the CP line you usually see a CP at the point and then the rest of the locos are SOO or there are just trains with SOO locos. Even the worst looking SOO locos look like they are still in relatively good shape.