If you like Montana Rail Link, check out our downloadable roster and photo gallery here:
http://trn.trains.com/en/Railroad%20Reference/Locomotive%20Profiles/2013/04/Montana%20Rail%20Link%20photo%20roster.aspx
The railroad has quite a nice variety of locomotives out there today. A GP9 on the roster goes all the way back to 1951!
Thanks!
Tom
IIRC, EMD didn't introduce the 1,750hp 567C powered GP9 until 1954. If it was built in 1951 it would have originally been a 1,500hp 567B GP7. Though some wreck-damaged GP7s were rebuilt by EMD into GP9s while it was still in production in the mid-to-late 1950s.
Good catch! What I should have mentioned was that MRL GP9 No. 115 was built in September 1951 as Chicago Great Western GP7 No. 120. It later became C&NW No. 4337.
It's likely not an error. While built as a GP7, it has probably been upgraded to similar specifications as their GP9's. Hence the classification by Montana Rail Link. Not at all uncommon, it's the same reason a SD40 rebuilt to Dash 2 specifications is going to be called a SD40-2 by most any railroad even though it was built as a SD40.
You see several instances of this on the MRL roster. SeveraL SD45's rebuilt with Dash 2 electronics and reclassified as SD45-2's, SD40's rebuilt to Dash 2 specifications and other upgrades as SD40-2XR's, etc.
What puzzles me is the SDP40-2XR. It was a SDP40 that was rebuilt to Dash 2 specifications and several other upgrades that MRL utilizes XR to denote. Yet a SDP45 on their roster that was rebuilt with Dash 2 electronics is just classified as a SD45-2.
I wonder why they recognized the passenger heritage with a distinct model designation with one of them rather than classifying it as a SD40-2XR in line with its sisters but in the other instance didn't and just classified it similarly to straight SD45's on that roster that have been rebuilt with Dash 2 electronics.
Does one have some slight mechanical difference that they felt needed to be denoted with a special desgination where as the other is mechanically identical to its rebuilt sisters?
True, it wasn't really an error. I just should have mentioned that it was originally built as a GP7. It looks like it was rebuilt by the C&NW in 1974.
I wonder if the SDP45 was designated that way since the rebuild to the SD45-2 carbody took place before the MRL acquired it? Sometimes railroad's designations are funny. Really the SDP40-2XR should be designated as a SD40-2XR as you mentioned, but for some reason, the railroad kept the "P" in the designation for quite some time. However, I did notice a fairly recent change. Up until the 290 was repainted in the newest scheme, it had the designation SDP40-2XR—even on the sideframe of the locomotive, but since it was repainted, it now carries the designation SD40-2XR. Go figure. So I don't think it has much (if any) mechanical differences from a "regular" SD40-2XR.
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