CPKC will receive some much-needed motive power help starting next year in the form of a 170-unit order of new locomotives from Wabtec.
The railroad has been heavily spending on capacity work across its combined system to support new traffic and motive power has been in short supply to move tonnage across its network. The order consists of 170 ET44ACs with delivery expected to be spread across a number of years considering the large amount of rebuild orders Wabtec already has committed to. Road numbers and reporting marks for the new power hasn’t been disclosed yet.
The ET44ACs will join an existing fleet of 33 ET44ACs, eight of which have recently joined the roster. These eight were a canceled Baffinland Iron Mines order in Canada that were selected from General Electric’s field test units. The other 25 ET44ACs were purchased new before the merger by Kansas City Southern in 2019. The 25 former Kansas City Southern units are the most reliable power on CPKC’s roster and are performing very well.
Prior to the merger in 2023, Canadian Pacific had been the lone holdout across Class I railroads in adding Tier 4-compliant locomotives, not purchasing new units for over a decade before the CPKC merger. It instead opted to rebuild existing GE and EMD AC traction locomotives, the latter of which were long stored on the railroad. Canadian Pacific’s SD9043MAC fleet was rebuilt to SD70ACUs in 2019 and 2020, adding 60 additional units to Canadian Pacific’s active roster. Canadian Pacific’s last new power purchase was in 2012 when it bought 30 ES44ACs from General Electric.
Wabtec had reported during a July earnings call that it had a $600 million order for new locomotives from a North American railroad, but has declined to identify the customer [see “Wabtec earning surge …,” Trains News Wire, July 24, 2024].
