Railworks America

Thomas Pearce and I have been talking about some of the latest motive power moves by Class One railroads. There seems to be a lot of questions about the suitability of genset models to handle heavy switching demands efficiently. CSX has been rebuilding SD-40-2 locos with new cabs and electronics. I see a lot of them on local switchers. NS seems to have sold off most of their gensets and are reworking GP's.

Therefore, we were wondering what a current EMD GP-70 might look like. It would have probably a 12-cylinder diesel and the latest fuel saving electronics similar to the EMD F59PHI locomotives. The Southern Railroad used an extensive fleet of B - B diesels and still has a number in operation today.

This has nothing to do with scale modeling but we enjoyed the conversation.

Harry

Just for fun, here's something I put together...

interesting

It'd look like the GP20C-ECOs, and have the same specs. 8 cylinder 710 at 2000 HP. However, now with Tier 4 standards, it'd likely have a CAT C series engine at the same HP rating as the 20C-ECOs.
The reason railroads are all doing capital rebuild projects on existing Geeps is because no one wants to shell out the money for a T4 Geep. The cost of a brand new 4 axle locomotive now would be ridiculous.

Think of it this way though. Gensets literally triple the amount of parts you have to replace and stock, and in application, they're gutless and unreliable. The only reason any railroad bought them was because they were paid for by Grant money.

I'll see what I can do about "splicing together" a GP70.

EDIT: I present to you;

The GP70