Did the Utah Belt [Eric Brooman] retire its SD9s too early?

[dknelson]

The October issue of MR has a typically nice article by Eric Brooman about the retirement of the last SD9s from his Utah Belt layout. If you have followed over the years, this layout, one of the nicest in the USA, is kept current at all times in terms of equipment and operations, and now was the sad time to retire its last three classic, SP-influenced "Cadillac" SD9s. A neat article.

But last week Wednesday in Rochelle IL I was railfanning the UP and BNSF at the railroad park, and from the west on the BNSF we heard a horn blow, and an unusual chugging sound. Around the bend came a BNSF intermodal train -- no surprise there, if you have ever been to the RR park in Rochelle, as tons of BNSF trains are intermodals -- but the second unit was a wheezing and sputtering .... BN green SD9! High hood, too, by the way. As with the Utah Belt, the SD9 was one of the locomotives that finally killed steam on the old CB&Q and while I could not swear that this particular SD9 was CBQ, it might well be, and here one was, maybe a full 50 years after it was built, not on some local switch job but on a mainline freight of prime traffic! I cannot believe it was on the train all the way from the west coast but it was presumably added at the twin cities to give it some oomph getting out of the Mississippi River valley.
So in this case, the Utah Belt is even more ruthless about old power than is the up to date BNSF!
Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

send em to my railroad, i will put them to good use!

[AntonioFP45]

I've read several articles regarding Mr. Brooman's layout. Most impressive. If I'm not mistaken, he tore down the original Utah Belt and built or is building a new version.

Dave, it's not just the SD9s,I raised an eyebrow when in one article back in the 90s it was commented that the Dash 2 locomotives were already being relegated to secondary and hump yard service. But yet the prototype Class 1 railroads, even today, are still running SD40-2s and GE Dash 7s though their ranks are thinning!

I must admit that for a split second, I became a little "huffy" but then realized that "hey, it's his repesentation of an economically aggressive transportation company that wants to maximize efficiency". This is almost true of prototype railroads, whereas though they try to maximize equipment utilization.......in some cases, like the SCL did, they'll run locomotives that have been paid off years earlier until the engine block cracks or the last bolt falls off!

It is Eric's railroad(s) though and a remarkable achievment and it still deserves adimiration. (I do wish he had Amtrak service running through!)

[Anonymous]

In my opinion, i was more dissapointed that Eric Brooman replaced the SD9's with AC4400CWs. His layout is great and what made it better was the fact that it had all EMD locomotives. SD70MACs would have been so much better