Railway Interchange's outdoor display is filled with goodness

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Trains gang, Steve Sweeney, correspondent Steve Glischinski, and I spent Sunday at the outdoor exhibits for North America's largest railroad trade show. It was a better than expected showing of locomotives, freight cars, and on track equipment.

In the span of a few hours we toured Electro-Motive Diesel's new Tier 4 SD70, Greenbrier's new DOT 117 tank car, and a surprising track inspection vehicle. We were at BNSF Railway's Northtown Yard. It was filled with dozens of displays, from imported backhoes that did amazing things to rebuilt EMD and GE units and entire rail grinding trains.

The center of attention was EMD's SD70ACe-T4 demonstrator No. 1501, sparkling in its blue, silver, and green wrapping. Inside is the new 1010 engine, and a whole lot of emissions control gear that is what Tier 4 is all about. Beneath is a new truck, and a whole slew of innovations elsewhere, including an escape hatch behind the conductor (something like a backporch window). Look for a full report about Tier 4 units in the December issue. We also taped a video tour of the unit and will share that soon.

Greenbrier made its new tank car accessible with a ladder to the roof that allowed us to inspect the housings for the valves. It gave us a new perspective on these cars, which are supposed to be the next generation of safe tank cars for oil traffic.

At the end of the show we found a hi-rail ATV at Sperry's display. It was a drastic change from the old Sperry's cars made from doodlebugs. But as we have seen with locomotives and freight cars, times change.

We will have more from the show on Newswire and on our live streaming Webcam from 1 to 4:30 p.m. Today at www.TrainsMag.com/interchange.