Railroad Trains for the Soul: Modern DC Traction Rebuilds
Let's talk about some notable 21st century locomotive rebuilds and begin with conventional direct current (DC) traction modernization. Although newly manufactured locomotives naturally tend to be more reliable than their predecessors, some railroads prefer to modify an existing fleet of a particular type to extend its service life. The main purposes of a rebuild program are affordability and arguably greater reliability than new units. For this blog post, let's focus on the modernization of the 1980's-era diesels such as the Electro-Motive SD60's and the General Electric DASH 8's.
In the last quarter of 2010, Norfolk Southern began a rebuild program to convert its original narrow-nose SD60 fleet with the latest technology. These units became known as the SD60E, where E indicates "enhanced". The biggest spotting feature on the SD60E is Norfolk Southern's custom-designed wide nose called the Crescent Cab, named after the railroad's Crescent Corridor. The most famous units in the program are painted in special schemes; these include No. 6920 ("Honoring Our Veterans") painted in 2012, No. 6963 (10th anniversary of GoRail) in 2014, and No. 911 ("Honoring First Responders") in 2015. While the SD60E rebuilds have been successful, not all SD60's were added for conversion. As of 2019, NS eliminated the remaining narrow-nose SD60's as well as the former Conrail and BNSF SD60M and SD60I wide-cabs from its roster. The latter two models could have been rebuilt with the Crescent Cab since they are mechanically identical to the former. The Union Pacific has some of its SD60M's modernized with a more advanced version of the 12-cylinder 710 engine as part of the EMD 710ECO Repower program. Classified as SD59MX (or SD59M-2), the 9900-series locomotives were designed to increase fuel efficiency and reduce emissions.
When it comes to General Electric locomotive rebuilds, there are two railroads involved in the DASH 8 modernization. In 2015, Norfolk Southern began converting its narrow-nose DASH 8-40C units into what became the DASH 8.5-40CW (D8.5-40CW). Numbered in the 8500-class, nearly all examples of this type featured a wide nose that looks much like the Crescent Cab on the SD60E. Unfortunately, very few DASH 8 units were remanufactured and the rest of the standard cabs were retired by 2017. The ex-Conrail DASH 8-40CW comfort cab locomotives were also purged from the NS roster three years later. Ironically, the railroad even got rid of the rebuilt DASH 8.5-40CW's in that same year. Another railroad experimenting with GE's DC traction modernization is CSX, which sent 10 of its DASH 8-40CW's to the builder for this purpose in 2017. These were re-designated as DASH 8-40CWM, although CSX calls them CM40-8 (not to be confused with the C40-8M Canadian cowl model). Other than the repaint, a few major internal components were modified but these locomotives still resemble the 1990's-era CW40-8. Here is one video of the CSX DC traction rebuilds. Otherwise, please refer to the sources below for photos of the other remanufactured diesels.
Sources