06-05-2012, 08:44 PM
faraway Wrote:It was a surprise to me when I saw the a GP60M pair running locals and switching industry over in the west coast forum (great photo at MALABAR with the unique shoving platform). There are some GP60M but standard cab GP60 are todays common switchers. BNSF is pushing down everything to locals and industry serving as they get bigger engines for the top road services. Only few Gensets in SoCal. They have more GenSets in Texas.
However, I do not use that long pairs to serve my industry. They feed the yard (2 * 2 GP35u, 2 GP38, 2 GP60M) and a single GP30 is the local switcher serving the industry. It is a system with some similarities to the LAJ.
Reinhard, I think the reason that you will see so many standard cab Gp60's in local service is that the Santa Fe roiginally bought as many if not more of the Gp60b's than the wide cab 60a's as well as having quite a few Gp60's with standard cabs in Blue and Yellow before they bought the red & silver 60m's. Now that the 60's are being replaced by larger GE C's & EMD Sds, they have a bunch of 60bs that are of no use without cabs. The solution is to have reconditioned used cabs installed on the b-units for local service, so they are into a large retrofit program to convert Gp60bs into standard cab Gp60 what ever the new designation is.