2005Vdub wrote:well are they selling all the 4 axle power? I do like the gp18's, but can understand why they'de have to move them since it was a pain to get the 1802? back up and running with a new generator.I'd understood the GP18s to have been upgraded with 645 power assemblies some years ago (probably done by Rome Locomotive when they were in business). Have heard some good rumors about where they may go, not repeating them here. I don't remember if they had ever been modified electrically.
The GP20s were well-worn when the TP&W got them from Santa Fe and from what I remember reading in Trains in an article on the TP&W, the NYS&W wasn't doing much more than painting them and some basic maintenance when they brought them to Utica to "overhaul" - they weren't much better when they came back, the crews said. Santa Fe I believe deturboed them and rebuilt them in the 1980s, so they shouldn't have been much different internally than the GP18s, but I'd have to research that to be sure of being correct.
This is a railroad which runs it's units into the ground, it seems like they believe in the Milwaukee Road priniciple of motive power maintenance, at least lately - run it until it breaks then lease something else. But unless they've found a source to lease or buy GP38s that is very cheap, I don't see them ending up with much better power for very long in that kind of swap. I mean, they already have a broken GP38 awaiting repairs.
Also, wasn't one of those 1800s rebuilt from a wreck that bent the frame by one of the technical schools in Utica or Rome somewhere (if memory serves, the same one that offered CSX conductor training a few years ago)? Seems like I remember reading that it was done at very little cost to the railroad, as an educational tool for the students.
