Western Railroad Discussion > 3 Cascade SD40-2's pick up two GP-35's

Today's Longmont local still had the 3 BN Cascade Green SD40-2's pulling it, and on the way south from their turnaround point North Yard in Fort Collins, they stopped at Loveland, CO to go to the Great Western Railway and pick up two units and some empty cars. The two ex-SP GP-35's are lettered for Hudson Bay Railway, but have puttered around Great Western in Colorado for a couple of years.

Photo 1 - The southbound Longmont Local with the 3 Cascade Green SD40's whistles down Mason St. in Fort Collins, CO past stations for the MAX bus rapid-transit system that parallels the ex-C&S BNSF secondary main line. 

Photo 2 - On the shaky Transfer Track between BNSF and the Great Western yard.

Photo 3 - Pulling the lengthy pickup off the GWR Transfer including the two ex-SP Hudson Bay-lettered rebuilt GP-35's onto the BNSF Front Range Sub, where these cars will be backed onto the rest of the train that is waiting.

Two mooore...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/15 15:17 by highgreengraphics.

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Nice pics! Love the BN Green.

Hopefully those nice looking ex-HBR GP35's will be replaced on the GW by another couple of those great looking ex-CN GP40 widenoses - NOT.  Wonder where they are headed?  Wonder what will replace them.
Nice photos, glad you get to see and photo so much of this local stuff.  I've been so completely inactive that my camera is suing for divorce...

EDIT: Hi, I'm somebody...HA.

Kirk O. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/15 15:10 by kwo.

Photo 4 - I could not tell where these were going, but they are no longer HBR 3600 and 6526, now they have been cleaned up a bit and their reporting marks have been changed to OMLX 3600 and 6526. Note in this view the SP bloody nose red bleeding through inside the hand brake lever well.

Photo 5 - Departing Loveland with the two GP-35's entrained, and the ancient Loveland Mill in the background, rolling onto a small girder bridge over an irrigation canal as the sumac trees look on.

Well, I swore I would never go out of my way to ever chase BN SD-40's, I got so tired of running them and looking at them, as an Engineer for BN I know them inside and out, I was just tired of them, they were everywhere! But how times change. Darn good engines, though, if I owned a short line, I would want 100 of them (right, RCPE?). It's just as a fan, they were so ubiquitous, they got pretty old. And when they were new, they replaced an awful lot of cool old stuff. So here I have done just what I said I would never do. Somebody is laughing at me...

Happy SD40 railfanning! === === = === JLH



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/27/15 15:17 by highgreengraphics.

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>Somebody is laughing at me... 

I think we both laughed about it...

The two OMLX units are going to the Kettle Falls International Railway in WA State.

http://omnitrax.com/our-company/our-railroads/kettle-falls-international-railway-llc/

Thanks! The nicely-painted Kettle Falls EMD painted by GWR in Loveland, CO roamed the Great Western for a year or so, and I am not sure if it ever ended up on the KFIR for whom it was decorated. === === = === JLH

The only locomotive painted in full KFR colors has never once seen KFR rails.  It spent time down in Texas on the PNR, then went to the IR in Illinois.  Latest word is that it is now roaming around Chicago on the CRL.  With these Hudson Bay painted units, the KFR will now have nine locomotives, in a total of seven different paint schemes, not one of them representing the KFR very well.  Omnitrax has run the KFR for ten tears now, but most local folks don't even know the railroad exists.  They still think it is the BNSF.  Corporate visibility and public image are not high on the Omnitrax list of priorities.  Maybe someday that will change.

Great shots.

~Ryan

I REALLY like Pic 1!!