KCS is slated to get 25 SD50s from National Railway Equipment. the SD50s are ex-CSX (most likely ex-Seaboard System), and will come from a total of 42 diesels retired by CSX- NRE will be going through the old workhorses to get the 25 needed for the order. No idea what the new numbers will be, but stay tuned.....
FOund this from the KCSNotes group in Yahoo. Also, the number of SD50s being worked over is 35- my fault on the number error. Read & enjoy. Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2004 17:42:49 -0000 From: "xxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: KCS to purchase 25 SD50`s Why SD50's? If this report is true, and I'm not sure that it is yet, I'd say the answer is because THE PRICE IS RIGHT! As an aside, the KCS seems to have had better luck with its SD50's than some other railroads. For the past three or four years there have been 90 SD50's just sitting around waiting for something like this to happen, although some of these have recently been on short-term lease to the BNSF. These were all turned in by the CSX, NS and UP when their initial leases expired. 25 units ex-CR 6780-6804 built 4-5/85 35 units ex-CNW 7000-7034 11-12/85 30 units ex-CR 6805-6834 1-2/86 The UP has retired all of their ex-MP SD50's and most of these have been scrapped, and the NS is scrapping its SD50's; so the laws of supply and demand mean you can probably get a used SD50's very cheaply. The same thing applies to used SD40-2's, but they're even older than the SD50's. New Dash-9's are going for about $1.75 million and new AC4400's are about $2.25 million. If the KCS rally is getting SD50's, they're probably paying scrap value for them, or maybe a little more. Even if they have to spend half a million dollars fixing them up, they're still coming out cheaper than if they bought new units. And lets face it, a lot of trains just don't need 4,400 horsepower locomotives. All of the original KCS SD40-2's are between 24 and 32 years old, so these SD50's are newer than those KCS units. We don't know if these new units are to accomodate traffic growth or to replace some older units, or some combination of the two. Since the backbone of the KCS fleet was SD40s and SD40-2s for many years, until SD50s and SD60s came along (And some of the earlire SD40s were retired and rebuilt SD45s and SD45T-2s came along), it'll be interesting to see where these new arrivals will fit on the roster, numberwise. As mentioned above, it's cheaper to buy locomotives with DC traction motors than AC traction motors, since the AC locomotives shine best on heavy-haul trains such as coal.
