Early morning Caddy. On my way for morning Cardio yesterday, I spied this SD9 sitting behind vernon street in Roseville. Not sure why it was here. She's part of the Portola Museum's collection. In fact, I have a picture of her from a few weeks back up in Portola connected to a MILW U25. I'll have to see if I can get that picture uploaded. It was funny, I came back later and one of the UP Yard guys was over taking his own pictures.
Some Internet research tells me that WPRRM was trying to sell her back in 2012, because they had started removing a bunch of non-western pacific from their collection. At the time, they said she'd be scrapped if not sold, yet she was there a few weeks ago and clearly has not been scrapped. I wonder if an owner has been found?
Those old SD9s had character. Even in that state it's ruggedly beautiful. First generation diesels looked like what they were built for.
Hopefully that SD9 is en route to a new owner, not a scrapper. What is the mechanical condition? The MILW GE is supposedly going to Washington state, to CRF.
In 2012, she had been laid up for a few months with some sort of leak, but had run in the months previous. I assume they have not put in any money to fixing her, but had previously. So not horrible shape I would think. Western Rail Inc(WRIX) is a Rent-a-Wreck leasing outfit out of Wa. So, that makes it clear as mud. Presumably if they bought her to scrap her, they would have done so in place as moving her would just add to the cost yes?
Here is an ancient pic I took somewhere between Richmond and Roanoke, VA back in 1993. The reason I am posting it is because this great locomotive is being restored to operating condition today, and the progress has been good. Work on the Norfolk and Western Class J 611 is being done at Spencer, NC, the site of the recent Streamliner diesel gathering. 611 was present at that event, having been moved from the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke. She last ran in 1994, so I was fortunate to catch her here at a stop in Appomattox, VA. Stayed tuned for her future operation.
I have lived 70 years of my life in El Paso, Texas and Albuquerque, New Mexico and had never been to the infamous Abo canyon. Yesterday, I took the very circuitous route from Albq. to ELP and went across Highway 60 and through Abo canyon and Mountainair and Willard New Mexico. Brother, I had no idea what I had missed all these years. Betwenn I-25 and Willard we saw five trains. Here are a couple of shots for those who have never seen the Abo canyon area. Beautiful, I must say. First one we saw was a west bounder, just west of Mountainair, all Ferromex. Two units on head end, 75-80 hopper cars (all Ferromex), and two Ferromex units on tail end. Obviously a unit train and my guess is it was a grain train. The second we saw was a unit tank train, west bound. I couldn't see the cars well enough to read the product, darn driving, or aiming, the car sure gets in the way. Our view of the tank train was blocked by this east bound double stacker. This is at Mountainair, N. M. I have some more of theis container train, I'll post in another thread. Enjoy and thanks for looking. Carl
Here are some more images, I took yesterday. I don't know the area that well but I would guess that Mountainair looks to be the summit of the Abo canyon route. How close am I Mike Fifer? Anyway this shot is of the train East of Mountainair and I was clocking him at 70mph at this point. MY photographer needs to learn how to fold the mirror in and out of the way. Bless her little heart, she likes trains too, up to a point. I went ahead of him to catch a shot of him crossing the Highway to Corona. He had slowed but by the time he got to the crossing he was doing a good 65-70mph again. Run 8? ? ? I never cared much for the pumpkins, but I may just have to add a couple to my SP units. I certainly will have to take this route between El Paso and Albuquerque again, even tho it added two hours to the trip. Two hours of trains and fun! ! ! Thanks for looking. Carl
Followup on the SD9. Western Rail did a bunch of Air brake work and installed Alignment control couplers according to the museum rep on Trainorders. No way they did that if it was going to scrap.
Here's a pic from a recent cab ride I rode on. We were switching the yard and Four Rivers Coal that day.
