SD60s from parent railroad Union Pacific, which have retained their prior numbers, show off the new paint scheme of operator Alton & Southern on Feb. 4, 2023. Photographer Nick Goedecke reports the railroad will be repainting at least six units, including some SD40Ns, and that plans are to modify this paint scheme to include bolder “Alton & Southern” lettering. A&S had already been operating these units, but they had been in UP paint, rather than in the A&S image.
The railroad, headquartered in East St. Louis, Ill., was founded by the Aluminum Co. of East St. Louis in 1910. The paint scheme reflects the switching railroad’s former owners — blue for Missouri Pacific and yellow for Chicago & North Western, which purchased the railroad in 1968. With both those roads later merged into Union Pacific, the A&S is now wholly owned by UP.
— Updated at 9:30 a.m. on Feb. 9 to clarify that locomotives received new paint but had already been operated but A&S and retain UP ownership.
What do you know? A Trains Newswire that didn’t have anything negative about Uncle Pete. Can they make it two episodes in a row? Time will tell, lol
Anyone watching YT will see these in action. A&S has been moving a large number of BNSF power back to the carrier in the past 2 weeks using these engines. In turn people have been catching BNSF move a number of these engines north and west.
Seems 2 of the large power shops in St Louis has been getting them ready for service. One of the YT authors says BNSF is getting stored power back into service to meet federal service mandates. Hope they have enough operators to actually run them.
are these an addition to the alton and southern locomotive roster ?
Union Pacific is selling off SD40N’s?
Since the Alton & Southern is a 100% wholy owned subsidiary of the Union Pacific these are more just transfer of ownership rather than sales.