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Hailed as a great advance in environment-safe locomotives ten or fifteen years ago...eight Union Pacific Gen-Set locomotives, now no longer subsidized by the government, are up for sale...maybe scrap.  They are now sitting in sidings at Lewis Brothers Scrap Metals in the small Southern Illinois town of Fairfield, IL, who want to sell them...but if not sold will reportedly be scrapped on site.  When I visited there recently a mechanic for Mid-America Locomotives (a locomotive re-builder and second-hand locomotive dealer) from Evansville, IN., was inspecting them.  When new they reportedly cost near 1.7 million each.  Scrap prices now reportedly could be as low as $130,000 each.  Rebuilt or sold for parts...maybe considerably more.  Lewis Brothers, now their owner,  I'm sure, hopes that re-builders will buy them,  fix them up and sell them to short lines, or industrial roads.  Fairfield may be a good place to sell locomotives, at least 3 locomotive rebuilders/sellers are within 100 miles of that location.

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For those who keep track of such things, their numbers are 2693, 2699, 2673, 2687, 2681, 2618, 2638 and 2693.

The current issue of OGR (Run308), on page 63, has an extensive article on the Gen-Set concept and on Lionel's handsome models of them

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Last edited by Rich Melvin
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Well? Just looking in here.

You've got the frame already built, bogie and traction motors in place, couldn't someone replace the main drive components (engine and generator) and sell them at a profit? Too much work and costs vs. profit?

…" When I visited there recently a mechanic for Mid-America Locomotives (a locomotive re-builder and second-hand locomotive dealer) from Evansville, IN., was inspecting them. "

 UP said dump them? I didn't know this happened. Wow seems like a shame.

Have other mainline RRs scrap theirs as well?

 

gnnpnut posted:
Number 90 posted:

Scrap 'em.

Ya sure Tom, all of you Texans paid for them. 

http://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/upy-03.php

Here is a quote from the build sheet on that site:

"Initial assignment will be Houston, Texas, with funding from a public grant from the Texas Emissions Reduction Program (TERP)."

Regards,

Jerry

 

Texan here myself.  No problem for me, no reason the throw good money after bad.  Cut your losses and move on.

 

TexasSP posted:
gnnpnut posted:
Number 90 posted:

Scrap 'em.

Ya sure Tom, all of you Texans paid for them. 

http://utahrails.net/up-diesel-roster/upy-03.php

Here is a quote from the build sheet on that site:

"Initial assignment will be Houston, Texas, with funding from a public grant from the Texas Emissions Reduction Program (TERP)."

Regards,

Jerry

 

Texan here myself.  No problem for me, no reason the throw good money after bad.  Cut your losses and move on.

 

The comment was made to Tom in jest. 

Engineer-Joe posted:

Well? Just looking in here.

You've got the frame already built, bogie and traction motors in place, couldn't someone replace the main drive components (engine and generator) and sell them at a profit? Too much work and costs vs. profit?

…" When I visited there recently a mechanic for Mid-America Locomotives (a locomotive re-builder and second-hand locomotive dealer) from Evansville, IN., was inspecting them. "

 UP said dump them? I didn't know this happened. Wow seems like a shame.

Have other mainline RRs scrap theirs as well?

 

I did a little reading; apparently these first gensets, at least some of them, were built on the frames of Dash 7s that UP retired. http://www.trainweb.org/genset...lpower/upy/2693.html The cores would have been approaching the end of their 20-year mainline service lives anyway, so I don't think anyone is going to try and rebuild close to 30-year-old GE parts. 

Regarding other railroads, I can't speak for CSX (which I think has 3 gensets), but according to Chris Toth's NSDash9.com website, NS's 7 gensets (the 300 and 301 3GS21B, two RP20BDs, two RP14BDs (cabless), and one RP20CD) are stored, and have been since at least 2017, when I started using his site. I also came across a PowerPoint from NS online a few years back explaining that rebuilding older 4-axle power made more sense operationally. 

One could argue the EMD E units were genset locomotives.  But both diesels worked at the same level at all times

These gensets had motor-generator sets which would start and stop on a computer controlled sequence.  And I would guess the prime mover of each genset was not an EMD 645 or 710.  Plus computers are not what they are today.  An ACME product for Wilie E.

Last edited by Dominic Mazoch

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