Information Regarding Surplusing Locomotives
MP15s I caught your note on the MP15's: "As you know, the Alaska Railroad no longer has those cute little MP15s running around the Anchorage yard. The railroad was receiving complaints about locomotive exhaust from residents living near the Anchorage Yard so getting rid of high maintenance MP15s derived a dual benefit." I was involved in this "debacle" on the front lines in early 2009. These units were anything but high maintenance, and in fact were very economical. Mechanical had several meetings with Pat Shake, Curt Rudd and others at the yard office conference room. Transportation liked the units and was pushing back on mechanical's desire to get rid of them. The "excuse" made was that if a main generator failed, there was little chance of obtaining a new replacement one. The likelihood of this was very small unless we got into a grounded armature situation as we had a good rotating electrical repair shop in-house. Even then we could have gotten an armature rewind. I was very much against selling these units and placing Geeps in their place, especially the turbocharged 3000's which souped up when idling for extended periods or using a 70 Mac to do the work which was a waste of horsepower and locomotive.
GP49s I did not shed any tears when the GP49's were sold. They just didn't fit in well and the GP38 / 40 fleet was a much better fit for us.
RDCs As far as the RDC's, they were cool to ride on the Hurricane Turn but I got tired of the 3AM phone calls from 3rd trick Roundhouse when the set had issues when it was time to cycle them back from Anchorage to Talkeetna. AKRR didn't want to put the money in them that they needed and they didn't want to spend money on replacements from Canada. So ..... get them off the roster. I think that if we got rebuilt replacements that were offered out of New Brunswick, Canada it would have been a good deal, or rebuilt ours to their specs. All four were different, and they were a Frankenstein mess electrically and mechanically.
The information on this page was created 11/8/22 and last updated 11/8/22 |