Export ES44ACi locomotives for Rio Tinto

Got a message on Messenger with the news that 2 Rio Tinto ES44ACi locomotives are sitting outside the GE plant, to which I jokingly messaged back, "Well, you know what to do!"

Didn't give it a second thought until my contact messaged me again late last night and showed a night shot of 9131 and 9130 and the note that 9129 was on the track behind it. Again really didn't think more of it, I'm up here in Edmond, OK, they're down in Justin, TX, and it was supposed to be cloudy today anyway.

So I get a message late that now said that all 3 were together....well, that could only mean one thing:

Testing this morning.

I almost didn't come down, looking at the low clouds moving up from the south, but at the last minute, decided to take the plunge south and hightail it to Texas. Got down just in time to catch the set of all 3 just getting underway from Justin Cemetery Rd, and went down to the road crossing south of the end of the 2 tracks, and caught them underway.

And just as I thought they were going to be put away for the afternoon, I heard on the radio "They're all yours", which translated means the test engineer on the south locomotive gave the lead control to the test engineer on the north locomotive, and the chase was on.

Met up with another shootist up at Justin Cemetery road, and we both waited for the longest, while unbeknownst to us, they were swapping the 9129 for the 9131 as the south unit. So got two for the price of one.

As a side note, there is a paint difference between the 9129 and 9131; can you see it? It's a "glaring" difference....

https://www.locophotos.com/PhotoDetails ... oID=164934" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.locophotos.com/PhotoDetails ... oID=164936" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.trainphotos.com/PhotoDetail ... toID=13816" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

© 2018 Barry R. Byington 
*do not alter*

Reply

BarrySr wrote: As a side note, there is a paint difference between the 9129 and 9131; can you see it? It's a "glaring" difference....

Actually, most of us cant see it!
because we have to "log in to view" the full-size photo.
Im not going to bother to sign up for the site, non-members only see a very small, heavily compressed thumbnail, with no detail.

Scot

A glaring difference indeed! Did someone forget to apply the anti-glare dark paint on the top of the short hood on one?

Allen Hazen wrote:A glaring difference indeed! Did someone forget to apply the anti-glare dark paint on the top of the short hood on one?

Yep, sure did.

Actually, they test sooooo many things out of the plant that it's entirely probable that they knew they still had to apply the anti-glare, but the testing dept. needed something analyzed RIGHT NOW and so sent it out.

Barry