BELLEVUE, Ohio — Three units in the latest order for AC44C6M locomotive rebuilds make a short layover in Bellevue, Ohio, today (Friday, Dec. 6). The diesels are en route from Wabtec’s Fort Worth, Texas, factory to the company’s main facility in Erie, Pa., for final testing. Norfolk Southern ordered 330 of the locomotives, rebuilt from Dash 9-44CW units, in 2022; that order is slated to be complete next year, giving NS more than 950 such rebuilds including those built previously [see “Wabtec to modernize 330 locomotives …,” Trains News Wire March 23, 2022].
News photo: Factory fresh from Wabtec
NS rebuilds head to Erie, Pa., for testing
I think it is interesting that the price of new locomotives is high enough with no great increase in affordable technology that railroads are now looking to rebuild older loco’s rather than buy new. NS is surely a champion of this methodology and I suppose the others will follow. UP and BNSF have several hundred units each sitting in long lines around the west. I would imagine that frames, draft gear and appliances are still in good working order but the engines do not meet some EPA Tier requirement. Perhaps we will see these railroads (and the others) begin to recycle these “cores” back into their fleets at some point. EMD and Wabtec will go from making new locomotives to becoming rebuilders of existing older, but not worn out models. Makes sense, especially at the prevailing “new” prices…
What sets the NS 3900-series apart is cores were AC4400s bought second hand from a leasing company.