Railroads short on Motive Power?

[buzz456]

Seems like most everyone is sharing a lot except for UP. They seem by policy to be less involved in trading locomotives with other railroads than many others.

[ErikGorbiHamilton]

Seems like most everyone is sharing a lot except for UP. They seem by policy to be less involved in trading locomotives with other railroads than many others.

I saw a BNSF Stack train here not to long ago with a UP C45CTE, A ex SP AC44W, and a CP AC44.

[bpetit]

CN A419 led today by BNSF and UP. The UP line is only a mile away and across the Mississippi River. As you guys might know New Orleans is a big interchange really. You have KCS, CN, UP, NS, CSX and the NOPB. It's not unusual to see one or two foreign railroad power every month down here. Lately its just been about every railroad showing up here.

[ErikGorbiHamilton]

I headed to Riverbank, CA BNSF yard and saw a CitiRail-BNSF-CSX locomotive consist (and the golden swoosh pass by ).

I wish the Golden Swoosh could come up here for a change.

[dfcfu342]

You'll know the railroads are short on power when all of the leaser's start appearing on mainline runs. As far as running power through on certain trains it's just owed power hours and arrangements to streamline service, especially on high priority trains.

[spartantrain32]

At my house ns and bnsf share a line to a certain point and cn has its own line. At my fiancés house up and csx are always paired up.

[bpetit]

You'll know the railroads are short on power when all of the leaser's start appearing on mainline runs. As far as running power through on certain trains it's just owed power hours and arrangements to streamline service, especially on high priority trains.

Mm saw a CREX 1330 ES44 yesterday.

[bnsf9580]

Seems like most everyone is sharing a lot except for UP. They seem by policy to be less involved in trading locomotives with other railroads than many others.

I've seen a bit of UP on the BNSF lately. BNSF had been chopping 8's off some of the 8000 units like the SD75's. NS is common around here too on the BNSF. My photo: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=3798250

[NS9030]

BNSF is returning the SD75's to their original 200 series numbering to make room for new units.

[PolyesterMafia]

Out of the last five photos that I have taken, both CSX and NS in Georgia, four of the trains have had foreign power mingled in or straight up running the joint. A very nice surprise on the "Powder River Special" coming off the siding at Sugar Valley, GA.

2014-0409-48a.jpg

And the rear end.

2014-0409-53a.jpg

[bpetit]

Hard to imagine this is still going on. Even CN had to resort to using a GP40 for a Mainline train. I also heard UP has reactivated 30 more SD40-2s to SD40N and UP 3300 is one of them.

Is BNSF still the most power short at the moment?

[ErikGorbiHamilton]

Hard to imagine this is still going on. Even CN had to resort to using a GP40 for a Mainline train. I also heard UP has reactivated 30 more SD40-2s to SD40N and UP 3300 is one of them.

Is BNSF still the most power short at the moment?

Yep. BNSF is Renumbering the SD60M's to the 1400 Series

[Enzo1]

I rather think that all American Class 1's are suffering a major power shortage right now. UP has called back some SD60M's, C40-8's (A couple B40-8's from SP as well), C40-8W's by the masses. I don't think UP is suffering as bad as BNSF, because rather than just simply retire the old units, they rounded up all of it, and parked it in several yards across the country. We were one of those yards containing tons of C40-8's and SD60M's. It was almost as if they anticipated that there would be a shortage on power, and they didn't want to spend the money to lease units out from CIT like BNSF is having to do.
On the contrary, I have seen visitors showing up like crazy... Since it seems that while BNSF and NS are monopolizing on the oil fields in ND, it looks like KCS, UP, CP, and CSX are taking some of that stuff that is being neglected by those two and are exchanging powers around, so thus I have seen several KCS visitors, CSX visitors including a Sponge bob square cab SD40-3, and even a CP visitor leading a local train from Pocatello, ID to Hinkle, OR. Its pretty crazy really. On one side, power that I haven't seen out in full force since the early 2000's is crawling back into the picture, and lots of visitors I don't get to see all that often are appearing everywhere!

[bnsf9580]

Just to bring this back to light, I caught this in Galesburg this summer. BNSF is SO SHORT on power they have brought out the old steamers!

I'm kidding of course, but it sure looks funny! The ES44 was pushing Leviathan 63 north through BNSF's Galeesburg Classification Yard to be put on display for Galesburg Railroad Days 2015. Note the orange mesh fencing around the rear ladder on the GEVO.

[Ericmopar]

Leviathan.
The name alone is funny when it's placed next to a modern Mainline Diesel Electric.