CHICAGO — Norfolk Southern train 27K arrives in Chicago on Nov. 8 with rebuilt SD70ACC No. 1800 leading. It was released for service last week from the company’s Altoona, Pa., shops.
The locomotive was rebuilt from NS SD70 No. 2537, which was built in 1994 with a standard cab and direct current traction motors. Progress Rail rebuilt the locomotive with enhancements including a new comfort cab and alternating current traction, while Norfolk Southern painted and performed final testing before release.
This is the first of 50 such units Progress will rebuild for Norfolk Southern. The railroad used yellow paint to represent Progress Rail’s parent company, Caterpillar, on the first two SD70ACCs rebuilt.
its a beautiful locomotive the yellow is nice but as previously mentioned its not the true caterpillar yellow its to bright like a Frenches mustard yellow , Cat yellow is darker yellow ,so get it right boys or don’t call it cat yellow but Frenches yellow mustard
Couple of notes. The EMD brand has officially been killed by Progress/Cat. And that color of yellow is not Caterpillar yellow.
Love the paint scheme. NS needs more of those. Indeed, repaint the entire fleet, in different colors!
Keep them coming Norfolk Southern.Glad to be a stockholder of both Norfolk Southern & Caterpillar
Robert,
Give that unit a few unwashed years of grime and it should look like Cat yellow.
James, Altoona is busy so Progress Rail is handling the 2018 order for 27 SD70ACC’s. Altoona is a big place with a large workforce, but still has limited resources compared to the old days.
They can handle several dozen major rebuilds a year amid routine work and wreck rebuilds, but to up capacity significantly means there would be ebbs and flows with a skilled workforce. Best to keep it at a level where in less busy times, there’s not a ton of excess capacity and subsequent lay-offs (or worse, temptation with the bigwigs to shutter the entire place when only a fraction of the capacity is being utilized).
So it’s easier to keep Altoona at a level where its resources can pretty much be consistently maximized, and outsource the overflow during the busiest times. Especially with new locomotive production down and Altoona and EMD courting rebuilds at attractive prices to take up the slack.
And it will be more than the 50 SD70ACC’s stated in this article. Not only does NS own ~80 SD70’s, but the 70 or so SD70M’s and 6 or 7 ex BNSF SD75M’s are also planned to be rebuilt as SD70ACC’s after the standard cabs are cycled through, just as NS is beginning to do with C44-9W’s with the AC44C6M program now that the C40-9’s are all retired and rebuilt (or underway).
Unsure what the plan is for the 130 SD70M-2’s, but presumably they will get a similar DC-to-AC rebuild after the older SD70’s are finished, although perhaps with differences and a unique designation. One obvious possible change is retaining the cab of the younger SD70M-2’s when they’re cycled through in 3 or 4 years.
These would be popular on the Peoria branch. They might even pass Mossville on the Iowa Interstate. There are still a lot of Caterpillar employees and retirees in the area.
Nice to see the teardrop window cab units being rebuilt
I thought the shops in Altoona had the capability to rebuild locomotives.
I saw this engine parked behind the fence at the Philips refinery in Linden NJ on 11/8. It had delivered a tank train of oil for the refinery. They park the engines while the cars are being unloaded and then reassemble the train when they are empty. 1800 would have been leading on arrival but trailing when it left.
Good to see the railroads rebuilding their older loco’s! Being only a few miles from CP’s main line, I look forward to catching a glimpse of the new SD70ACU’s that CP are rebuilding from their SD90MAC’s. Already seeing rebuilt AC4400’s with the fresh paint and new beaver logo. Nice to see!
“Especially with new locomotive production down and Altoona and EMD courting rebuilds at attractive prices to take up the slack.”
That should of course read as “GE and EMD”.
🙂