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I feel that my brother is taking his 24 years of experience as an engineer to draw his conclusions. While he does a lot of "hog and tow" on his runs, this is due more to an overloaded corridor along with inefficient dispatching than the locomotives he is using for the train that he is called for. Pre dash 8 locomotives, especially when used as lead units, had very slow throttle response, and along with the wheelslip systems they used, were bad about surging and have been the cause of broken knuckles for a lot of their engineers. This was a point of improvement for GE and was achieved through microprocessor controls for the wheelslip and throttle control systems. In reference to quality of EMD's, ask any railroad that owned the 50 series of locomotives and they will tell you with a quickness that they were ( and are ) a piece of junk. Many railroads have either retired or placed into long term storage locomotives in this group for this reason. Due to the design differences, a two cycle engine such as used in EMD's will rev faster than the GE's four cycle; however, over the long term, you will see four cycle EMD's ( if they do survive ) because of the EPA's timetable for the manufacturers to make emission compliant locomotives. This is the reason that some of the SD-70M's ( all built after January of this year ) have the flared radiators to achieve this. EMD has also had problems with the SD-9043AC's reliability. I concede that they do have higher tractive effort that the AC4400CW's, but that is useless if it is spending its time in the shop. My last point is a question: if the EMD's are superior locomotives, why do the models keep changing while at the same time GE continues to make the same ones? I can tell you from owning a BMW that they are tough, and as you drive the highways of this country, you see many different models of automobiles broken down on the side of the road, but Bimmers are seldom among them, if at all. Maybe the railroads have figured out the same type of logic in the EMD-GE battle, and why my brother who works in the trenches daily and operates both types, can speak to this in the manner I referred to earlier.
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