Railworks America

So i'm been trucking as a career for 5 years mainly OTR. now I found myself a nice local job working Intermodal, so i find myself going to BNSF's LA/San Bernardino/Commerce rail yards on a daily basis. For a rail fan i was nerding out way to much for the first week lol.... Here's my question, Is BNSF moving to replace all of there switching loco's with Gensets? I don't see any others at the rail yard and only once have I see some GP40s in San Bernardino.

A lot of railroads are getting rid of their gensets as quickly as they can, because they didn't live up to what they were advertised as. Wearing out quick, and horsepower way under the advertised amount.

PNWR1854 wrote:A lot of railroads are getting rid of their gensets as quickly as they can, because they didn't live up to what they were advertised as. Wearing out quick, and horsepower way under the advertised amount.

Hahaha UP is getting rid of their gensets because they had electrical issues. My railroad bought 14 of them earlier this year. We put them through their paces and one day my engineer instructor figured it out. A design flaw led to the traction motor blowers sending hot air into the electrical/ computer cabinet causing it to overheat and shut down the engines. Once new fans were installed in the cabinets we haven't had them shut down for that any more. And ours are holding true to the rated 2000hp.

CArailroader wrote:

PNWR1854 wrote:A lot of railroads are getting rid of their gensets as quickly as they can, because they didn't live up to what they were advertised as. Wearing out quick, and horsepower way under the advertised amount.

Hahaha UP is getting rid of their gensets because they had electrical issues. My railroad bought 14 of them earlier this year. We put them through their paces and one day my engineer instructor figured it out. A design flaw led to the traction motor blowers sending hot air into the electrical/ computer cabinet causing it to overheat and shut down the engines. Once new fans were installed in the cabinets we haven't had them shut down for that any more. And ours are holding true to the rated 2000hp.

I had no idea that the gensets had issues like that..... BNSF seems to use them a lot in the intermodal yards but I have seen some GP40s as of lately. Last night I saw a sd45 (I think) in santa Fe colors over at LA rail as well... Lol the next time I have some free time hooking up to a trailer over there I should really start taking photos...