Nostalgia & History > The Best EMD Had to Offer

Rio Grande SD50 #5517 (built by EMD in September 1984) and Union Pacific SD60 #6010 (built by EMD in April 1986) were the modern EMD power of the day in the mid-1980's. Rio Grande's 17 SD50's were the railroad's last big six axle power and UP's first 85 SD60's were the road's last new standard cab EMD units.

For the most part, EMD's GP50 & SD50 series were largely prone to mechanical failure. The new and improved GP60 and SD60 series set the stage for the wildly successful SD70 series we familiar with today.

Rio Grande 5517 survived beyond the UP/SP merger and lives on as the UP 9861. Even the UP 6010 has been renumbered, and is now the UP 2165.

James

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We all know the best locomotive they ever had to offer was the 80MAC. A pair of 80s could pull the pilots off a set of SD40-2s any day of the week, hehehe. Seriously though, I know they were prone to a lot of small electronic and cpu problems, but the prime mover has been pretty reliable here in the last nearly ten years. I don't think EMD ever got the credit for getting at least that part of the 5,000HP beasts right...


SH, knowing he's old when the 80MACs are ten years old soon

sharris Wrote:
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> We all know the best locomotive they ever had to
> offer was the 80MAC. A pair of 80s could pull the
> pilots off a set of SD40-2s any day of the week,
> hehehe. Seriously though, I know they were prone
> to a lot of small electronic and cpu problems, but
> the prime mover has been pretty reliable here in
> the last nearly ten years. I don't think EMD ever
> got the credit for getting at least that part of
> the 5,000HP beasts right...
>
>
> SH, knowing he's old when the 80MACs are ten years
> old soon

I, too, think the SD80MAC had (or even HAS) a lot of potential. UPRR is quite happy with it's SD9043AC's, but the H-engine SD90AC's are the scourge of the fleet...I'll bet they wish they'd ordered the 710-engined SD80MAC, instead. Had the UPRR gotten ahold of these 5000 HP beasts, I think you might have seen a repeat order, rather than dumping the concept of any more high horsepower EMDs (they did go back for a substantial follow on order of the GE C60AC in 2001...which is not all that long ago), which was a much better unit than the SD90MAC).

I think the RR's have settled on 4000 to 4400 HP as optimum, now, just as they settled on 3000 HP SD40-2's and C30-7's in the late 1970's and early 1980's, after the horsepower race of the late 1960's and early 70's. It's sort of like history repeating itself.

There will probably be orders for 5500 to 6000HP units when they are reliable, as they would reduce power consists and save fuel.