Cost of locomotive

[ndbprr]

Due to tax law and general bookkeeping requirements most railroads do not buy their engines. They lease them from companies that own them. I have an MBA and the logic is way beyond my understanding but there is a financial advantage to operating in this manner. So a railroad may have 100 million dollars in lease payments per year rather than a capital expenditure of 100 million dollars. As the engines get bigger the expenditure stays the same so figure they are willing to spend so many dollars per horsepower rented. The leases typically last fifteen years at which time both companies have to start anew lease since the engine is fully depreciated. It will be interesting to see how many of these monsters wind up in the scrap yards at the end of their leases since shortline and class 2's have very little usage for them. To get to your original question probably more than a million dollars per engine out the door in the paint of your choice subject to gadgets and doodads specific to your railroad.

[Anonymous]

How much does a new SD-70mac or one like it go for these days and if anyone knows how much did a GE U30-C go for in the early years? I was just a little curious as to what the railroads are and were spending. [?]