In the summer, the Alaska Railroad has so much work to do that it needs 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/

 

Photo courtesy of Matt McCullor