I saw that some sd45's are coming to mn. Are they ex WC or something else. I want to go see and hear them.
They are going to the St. Croix Valley RR. Only one has been identified so far and it is ex-SP SD45 8840. But it is an SD40-2 in a SD45 body. The railroad runs from North Branch, MN to Hinckley, MN along I-35 north of St. Paul, MN. The line is the surviving portion of the NP's Skally line from the Twin Cities to the Twin Ports. Fittingly the locomotives are painted in a Northern Pacific scheme, and using the NP's Monad herald. During the day the locomotives are likely to be found at the Frac Sand plant between North Branch and Harris, along County Rd. 30(Forest Blvd).
I doubt that the other one is ex WC. Retirements of those happened at a time when standard SD40-2's with no serious ailments started to be strickened from rosters and even scrapped. Little incentive to use a SD45 hulk as the base for a complete rebuild when SD40-2's with dynamic brakes could be had in running condition for reasonable prices.
Like most of MRL's fleet, most of these went to scrap and are gone today having missed the era where installing a new GE 16 cylinder 645 block and new Dash 2 or Dash 3 electricals was an attractive proposition.
Leo,
I suspect it may be one of the used engines Boise bought for SP. They cut down the V20 block to a V16 block and added '-2' or better electricals. There were quite a few of these running around. I do not think WC Ltd ever got any of them, but it may be possible. MRL did have some...
Jim
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Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
I've never heard a 20 cylinder 645 being cut down into a 16 cylinder 645. Are you sure that's what went on there?
Most conversions using a SD45 as a base utilized brand new 16 cylinder 645 blocks of a GE design (built overseas in Poland as I recall) that were fully compatible with EMD power assemblies and such. I'm fairly sure that was the case with Southern Pacific's fleet of 133 SD40M-2's from MK in 1994/1995, at least those that once had been SD45's.
A few other models like SD39's and SD40's slipped in as I recall and could've utilized the existing engine block.
Edit: No SD39's (Crossed my wires with a post merger order for UP for NRE supplied SD40-2's rebuilt from old cores), but several SDP45's from EL were part of the program and 30 straight SD40's were included.
Also, it appears that MK was responsible for the backwards compatible derivative of the 645 with GE subsequently buying MK's engine division out. I suspect this order and orders like them were a big reason why this new engine block was designed.
http://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/up-diesel-roster-40.php
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