The various flavors of CNWs SD45s

[Unoriginal]

Found these today. The CNW had been the only railroad to order their SD45s without dynamic brakes, which looks kinda strange. The other units had been purchased during a motive power shortage in the 70s, alongside other units. The second-hand units had been acquired from Burlington Northern, Southern, and Conrail.

[Unoriginal]

Here are a few others, one being a unit still in Penn Central paint from Conrail, while the other is another former BN unit with a different headlight position.

The one at the bottom is actually kind of special. It was a unit that had been rebuilt with a caterpillar engine and reclassed to an "SDCAT". As far as I know it was used to see if a SD45 rebuilding program was justifiable which it wasn't.

[cnwfan]

I believe the 2nd hand SD45's were originally purchased for the fledgling Powder River basin coal service until newer power arrived in the form of SD60's and C40-8's. As for the non-DB SD45's, yea... that was an idea unique to the Cheap and Never Wasted. I never understood why you would go through the effort to purchase a high horsepower units to pull freight, but not use that same horsepower to stop freight. It's like spec'ing front drum brakes on a Shelby Mustang... NO!