A few nights ago, I watched as two General Electric C40-8W’s eased into Saint Albans with a Portsmouth, Va. bound intermodal container train. The two matched pair of 7800 series wide cabs glistened in the night as they passed a used car lot adjacent to the mainline. Momentarily, I thought back to the VHS train videos that absorbed my attention years before showing C&O piggyback trains barreling through Saint Albans.
Chessie System painted GP40-2’s blurring by the same car lot – once full of early 1980s era Chevrolet station wagons. Now, those station wagons replaced with used cars manufactured in the early 2000s, and most trains sporting CSX’s dark blue and gold. Silently, change is constantly happening around us…
I remember as a pudgy little kid equipped with a point and shoot camera a conversation I had with a hateful old man that the era of railroading I was “trying to document” was mundane and irrelevant to what once roamed the rails of southern West Virginia. Sure, the idea of C&O painted GP40’s, the occasional visit from a Western Maryland GP9, or the adrenaline of watching one of Chesapeake & Ohio’s flagship passenger trains serve the all-but-abandoned train depot I often visit did excite me – but I wasn’t alive to experience that, and I realized that wasn’t going to change. Sure, I could blame my parents for the lack of ambition with their pursuit into parenthood, but it wasn’t going to change anything at the end of day. So, I turned around and snapped photos of each and every piece of equipment that passed – and I enjoyed it.
CSX GE B30-7 No. 5554 sits on the west leg of the Coal River wye in St. Albans, W.Va. in October 2007.
Fast forwarding ten years later, more than 50 percent of what I captured in those earliest efforts is either repainted or retired. I’ve seen the downfall of two once distinct paint schemes in eastern railroading now preserved only through pixels. And that’s a fraction of what some of my peers have witnessed.
In the April 2015 issue, Justin Franz tells us how some organizations are stepping up to preserve the second generation. In July of 2014, Union Pacific donated General Electric B40-8 No. 1848 to the Illinois Railway Museum. Today, CSX still operates several of these locomotives – predominantly in local and yard service. Many would assume the B40-8’s could be the next locomotives on the railroad’s “hit list” for retirement. After all, CSX did retire its fleet of B30-7 and B36-7 locomotives inherited from its Seaboard and C&O predecessors several years ago. The “Dash-7” locomotives had logged only 30 years of service at the time of their demise. The oldest B40-8’s on the active have accumulated almost 27 years of service.
Living close to the railroad’s Huntington Locomotive Shops has afforded the opportunity to keep tabs on the deadline and other rebuild initiatives. The railroad still possesses a hefty SD40-2 roster – with many sidelined for in-house SD40-3 program. The same principal applies for the “Dash-3” four-axle equivalency, the rebuild of former GP38-2's and GP40-2’s into the 2000 series GP38-3's and 6500 series GP40-3's. It’s not the same, but it’s still a favorable alternative to the adjacent deadline.
Five consecutively numbered GP38-3's Nos. 2001-2005 idle at the railroad's Russell Yard waiting for their first revenue run in August 2014.
Quickly, the railroad’s fleet of C40-8’s, C40-8W’s, and C40-9W’s and even the earliest of its AC4400CW locomotives are showing their age. Combined, these locomotives account for a sizable percentage of the railroad’s active roster that is gradually being offset with the purchase of new General Electric ES44AH locomotives. The oldest C40-8’s have accumulated 26 years; C40-8W’s 25 years; and the C40-9W’s and earliest of AC440CW’s almost 22 years.
It seems as if the ripple effects of the 2014 motive power “crunch” has left CSX starved for mainline road power well in 2015. Lease engines with more than 35 years of service still frequent the system into the third quarter as CSX deals with a growing volume in intermodal shipments.
In the long term, how will general maintenance demands, PTC, and other tech-savvy acronyms play a role in key decisions concerning the future of the railroad’s diverse locomotive roster? And to think, we did not elaborate on its fleet of SD50, SD60, and other Conrail inherited wide cab locomotives.
To learn more about motive power used by Class I railroads, be sure to check out Locomotive 2015 coming to newsstands on Sept. 22, 2015!
Left: CSX GE C40-8 No. 7519 and an Ex- Conrail C40-8W lead CSX Q302 east at Moss Run, Va. in Dec. 2011. Right: Brand new CSX ES44AH's Nos. 3239 and 3238 idle with empty coal hoppers in Crown Siding on CSX's Big Coal Subdivision in July 2015.
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