While GEs dominate the BNSF fleet, the road’s 121 AC4400CWs are in the minority, outnumbered at better than 10 to 1 by their D.C. traction DASH 9-44CW contemporaries. But BNSF 5701 wasn’t the only remarkable locomotive in the consist of Z FRSCHI7 09. Trailing a rag-tag trio of BNSF GEs on the Fresno-Chicago intermodal was Norfolk Southern 9213, a wandering DASH 9-40CW.
Under normal circumstances, we might have considered following the mixed bag of GEs over the mountain, but we had more pressing matters to attend to on that spring morning. Specifically, we were making our way to Bakersfield in search of a rare BL20-2 on a San Joaquin Valley local. So we continued west, and I didn't give BNSF 5701 another thought.
Until the other day.
Unlike so many other places, foreign power is remarkable on Canadian Pacific’s Galt Sub, the southwestern Ontario main line that passes by my home. So word that an eastbound crude oil train had a stray BNSF AC4400CW trailing behind a pair of CP GEs spread quickly. As the appointed hour approached, I set up at the CP bridge across the Grand River in Galt.
Before long, train 608, with 100 crude oil loads from Manitou, N.D., to Albany, N.Y., came rumbling across the bridge. And tucked in behind CP ES44AC No. 8790 and AC4400CW 9835 was none other than BNSF 5701. Suddenly, that unremarked encounter on the hill out of Caliente, Calif., took on a new dimension, and BNSF 5701 became more than just another GE.
How many times has this sort of thing happened to you? Let us know in the comments below, and visit www.TrainsMag.com/locomotives to purchase Locomotive 2013 to check out “All In!” and other features.
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