THE C&O LIVES ON!!! In Maryland!

[Anonymous]

While walking to work (at the museum) today (Im too close to need to drive, & it was a nice day), I walked parallel to the tracks, and to my surprise, a single loco went by...........and I thought I was seeing a ghost! It was a dark blue-almost black geep.....I thought it was a newly repainted CSX, then I noticed it wasn't new paint...........It said on the side:

C    &     O

I almost fainted! Of course the cab was in light blue & gray slop (looked like they just dumped buckets of paint on & let it dry as is), and it said CSXT on the cab, and both ends, but it said C&O! kind of nice seeing it beside the MARC F9 for a few seconds too!

[CShaveRR]

There's only one engine left like that; CSXT 4617, a former C&O SD40. It now has a yellow nose; the original unit was blue all over. For the record, its original C&O number was 7534.

[AntonioFP45]

That's amazing!

Not a dash-2 but a regular SD40? No extended porches?

It's good to know that these EMDs were really built to last! Being a regular SD40 means that it was built before 1972 when the "2nd Generations" EMDs came out with alternators and other refinements to cut down on locomotive maintenance costs.

Any more history on this former C&O unit? Be worth checking it out on CSX Photo Archives.

As much as I like GE U-Boats, I must admit that, IMHO, EMD did build better locomotives.

Thanks guys! [swg][tup][:D][8D][8)]

[CShaveRR]

SD40s also had extended porches (the porches on the Dash-2 series were a bit longer).

You have pretty much the entire history of the unit: Built in 3/71 as C&O 7534; renumbered to CSXT 8393 after the merger, and later to 4617 (most CSX SD40s were upgraded to SD40-2 specs; those that weren't, such as this one, were renumbered to the 4600 series).

You'll find a number of posts about the 4617 on Trainorders.com 's Eastern forum...they seem to keep fairly good track of it.