OK I'm going to steal a Bill Maher routine here, but...
NEW RULE:
No more stupid inferences that suggest that the relative quality of EMD and GE products designed in the 1960s has ANYTHING TO DO with the relative quality of EMD and GE products of today. One has nothing to do with the other, and is about as meaningful as saying that the relative quality of a 1968 Chevy and a 1968 Toyota has something to do with the relative quality of TODAY's Chevys and Toyotas. Duh!
GM = Generally Mediocre...even IF GM is a leader in R&D, they can't manage to get all that R&D to be reflected in the quality of their products. GM has too many accountants and not enough engineers, and the accountants are the ones holding the power positions for the most part. The SD40-2s people who are EMDphiles love to crow about were designed in the 1960s, back when GM was on top of the marketplace. Coincidence? I submit it is not. The decline of EMD's products is similar to the decline of GM's automobiles, which despite all of GM's resources still manage to be mediocre. UP MADE EMD strip out all the technology from the SD70s when they placed that big order, because EMD's electronic stuff was crap. Notice no "stripper" GE models were received by UP? Why do you suppose that is? Because GE's technology actually functions reliably! Oh, and UP got a good "financing deal" from EMD to induce that big order too...sounds just like GM in the car business - make a mediocre product and dump it on the market with INCENTIVES.
As for the hoghead contingent who talk about their "preferences" as being some indicator of "quality" let's get serious...engineers are resistant to change, and engineers trained to run on mostly EMD products who are used to their handling characteristics are of course going to frown upon learning how to handle locomotives that respond differently. As a new generation of engineers who trains on and runs primarily GE products comes up through the ranks, they'll not have the same biases. More to the point, railroads don't give a rat's hindquarters about anything but the train operating reliably, and that has nothing to do with what the engineer "prefers," it has to do with what locomotive does the job day in and day out. The best locomotive by that standard today is not made by EMD folks, it's made by GE. Case in point: BNSF yanked its SD75Ms from its hot intermodal trains due to reliability problems, while those assignments are held without issue by their massive fleet of C44-9Ws. The only reason Santa Fe (and later BNSF) ever ordered any of the SD75Ms/SD75Is in the first place was because a GM person got onto the Santa Fe's board of directors (and they also loudly announced their displeasure about the trainloads of GM autos being hauled by GE diesels, since the ATSF held most of the GM contracts at that point). Again, product falls short of competition, find ways to dump it on less-than-enthusiastic buyers. It's been the GM way for decades. EMD wasn't sold because it was competing effectively, GM knew they'd been whipped.
GE, not EMD, makes the best locomotives now; has for over 30 years. Get over it.
