Photo courtesy of Jeff Childs
(Anchorage Yard, May 15, 1999)

       In the summer, the Alaska Railroad had so much work to do that it needed to lease some extra power. These Helm Leasing (HLCX) units are 3000hp GP40-3's. There are 3 blue and maroon (4400, 4401, 4402) and 6 silver and black (4404, 4405, 4408, 4411, 4413, 4414). All the Helm units are former GP40's rebuilt to GP40-3 specs. In other words, they have all new electronics and computerized fuel monitoring systems. A couple of the silver and blue/black units were in such bad shape that they spent a great deal of time having items fitted to them to make them EPA friendly and just to fix things liked cracked airlines and deficient brakes. I have no idea on where Helm purchased the 40's, but a good guess would be Conrail. They don't have any of the items that would identify them as ex-SP or ex-C&NW units, and Conrail had a number of "plain-jane" GP40's (ARR got four of them - 3016 thru 3020). Photograph taken at the Anchorage Yard.

More information from Timothy Braun: The Helm 4400 units are not ex-Conrail, but ex-CSX, coming from several different predecessors. The silver and black units had been leased to Amtrak as trailing units during a power shortage in the early '90s. The paint is an Amtrak phase III paint job with the red white and blue stripes removed. I don't know their exact histories, but someone else on the LocoNotes yahoo group might. They tend to be a good place to ask for any information about North American diesel locomotives. Check out their webpage at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LocoNotes/