Western Railroad Discussion > BN B30-7A ?

Are there any left running on short lines

uprrman156 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Are there any left running on short lines

Do you mean B30-7AB units? Burlington Northern never had B30-7A locomotives.I Don't think any are in service anywhere. Usually short lines don't have much use for Bunits. Not flexible enough.

SantaFeRuss



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/28/19 12:06 by SantaFeRuss.

SantaFeRuss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> uprrman156 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Are there any left running on short lines
>
> Do you mean B30-7AB units? Burlington Northern
> never had B30-7A locomotives.I Don't think any are
> in service anywhere. Usually short lines don't
> have much use for Bunits. Not flexible enough.
>
> SantaFeRuss

I just saw a picture on Facebook of a shortline somewhere with 2 of the b units in a consist and running.

Posted from Android

SantaFeRuss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> uprrman156 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Are there any left running on short lines
>
> Do you mean B30-7AB units? Burlington Northern
> never had B30-7A locomotives.I Don't think any are
> in service anywhere. Usually short lines don't
> have much use for Bunits. Not flexible enough.
>
> SantaFeRuss

SantaFeRuss 
They were never labeled B30-7AB only B30-7A as wierd as that sounds all other railroad that had them with a cab were called B30-7
 

And MOP had B30-7A units, with cabs and jacked up 12 cyl engines.

Out

Didn't Central Michigan have a couple of GE B units?

VSR had one of the BN units in Eads CO for a while. Maybe 6 years ago. Not sure what that outfit did with it.

Posted from iPhone

washington state, thought there maybe a couple pics of them up there

> SantaFeRuss 
> They were never labeled B30-7AB only B30-7A as
> wierd as that sounds all other railroad that had
> them with a cab were called B30-7

Southern, and subsequently NS, had B30-7A1's, which were a stanard cabbed unit, but were delivered with high short hoods.

Regards
Russ

NSTopHat Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> > SantaFeRuss 
> > They were never labeled B30-7AB only B30-7A as
> > wierd as that sounds all other railroad that
> had
> > them with a cab were called B30-7
>
> Southern, and subsequently NS, had B30-7A1's,
> which were a stanard cabbed unit, but were
> delivered with high short hoods.
>
> Regards
> Russ

The Southern "A1" designation was due to a different blower design/arrangement. Still, it was a railfan designation. GE called them B30-7's if they were 16 cylinder and B30-7A's if they were 12 cylinder. GE did not give any official designation to identify the differences.

Posted from Android

Brasspounder Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> SantaFeRuss Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > uprrman156 Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > > Are there any left running on short lines
> >
> > Do you mean B30-7AB units? Burlington Northern
> > never had B30-7A locomotives.I Don't think any
> are
> > in service anywhere. Usually short lines don't
> > have much use for Bunits. Not flexible enough.
> >
> > SantaFeRuss
>
> I just saw a picture on Facebook of a shortline
> somewhere with 2 of the b units in a consist and
> running.
>
> Posted from Android

The Providence and Worchester had a couple.

Grenada Ry in MS had a BN at one time---numer 6064 I think
Brian Stevens

Thanks folks. I stand corrected.

SantaFeRuss

This thread started off wrong, and has gone downhill from there!  The preview function works wonders.

The original title asks about B30-7A locomotives.  It does have a question mark.  The subject line doesn't have a question mark....??

Now, are we asking about B30-7A locomotives, or B30-7AB locomotives????  Two different things!

Santa Fe Russ was correct in his original comment about B30-7AB locomotives.  I would also have given the same answer he did, in trying to out-think the original post and be helpful.  The other reply concerning 12 cylinder engines being built with an 'A' suffix is also correct.  The units built with 16 cylinder engines do not have a suffix.  The SP owned about 125 B30-7s before they bought about 25 B36-7s.

Consequently the remark "The MOP had a bunch of them (B30-7As) with jacked up 12 cylinder engines" is correct.

 The BN 4053 Class are indeed B30-7AB, for B=4 axles, 30=3000 HP, 7=built in the 70s, A=12 cylinder engine, and B= no cab.

About 20 years ago, we relieved a crew at Portola with about 25 of the B30-7ABs to go down the Feather River Canyon, dead in train on a Roseville train.  They were next to our engines, so I got to tie down all of them when we left them on the train in the receiving yard.   The Blue Cards definitely said "B30-7AB."
  
Two of them went to the Sierra RR where they used them between two of their GP20s in hauling the Arizona fire damaged logs up to Standard. 

WIKIPEDIA has an excellent explanation and some good pictures!
G

uprrman156 Wrote:

> Are there any left running on short lines

Unfortunately, several of the shortlines that acquired and used the ex-BN cabless B30-7A's were eventually taken over by Genesee & Wyoming, who usually makes short work of any GE locomotive older than a Dash-8 on the properties it acquires. 

Providence & Worcester had five of them, but they departed in 2015 after G&W bought the P&W:

https://railpictures.net/photo/512991

Central Michigan had three of them, and when RailAmerica bought the road in 2004, they combined it with their GE-friendly Huron & Eastern.  Then GE-unfriendly G&W bought RailAmerica's holdings in 2012, and that was the end of the GE's:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2948916

The Sierra Railroad didn't end up in the G&W family, but they also no longer have cabless B30-7A's.  The road's management bought 40 of the things in 2001 with the stated objective of using them as mobile electric generating stations during California's electricity crisis of 2000-2001:

http://web.archive.org/web/20011217005929/[url=http://sierrarailroad.com/powertrain/index.html]http://sierrarailroad.com/powertrain/index.html[/url]

Powertrain USA never got off the ground before the manmade mess that produced the "crisis" was resolved, and the units mostly sat collecting cobwebs at the former McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento.  About half a dozen were sprung from storage and put back into service on the SERA in early 2003 when the railroad started receiving 60-car unit trains of singed but salvagable logs from the Rodeo-Chedeski Fire burn area in Northern Arizona. 

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,3300382
https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,1778689,1778894#1778894

The log trains ended in May 2003, and I don't know how long Sierra used the units after that.

Yolo Shortline, which was under the same management as the Sierra, used one of the re-activated B-units briefly in 2006:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?4,1152186

I don't know when Sierra's fleet of 40 met its ultimate demise.

The Natchez Railway had a cabless B30-7A, ex-BN 4066, when Ohiorailfan stopped by Natchez, MS in 2017:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,4285460,4285460#4285460

Natchez Ry. is a Victoria & Southern affiliate, and this unit is the one that was on another V&S property in Eads, CO for a while.  After that, it spent time on the Grenada Railway in Mississippi when that road was under V&S ownership, and then went to Natchez.  I don't know its current status.

Minnesota Commercial had a couple as well, ex-BN 4076 and 4085.  The latter actually got MNNR paint and the number 85B, but I don't know if they still have it or not.  It didn't appear in the recent MNNR thread by Ohiorailfan, and the most recent photo of it on rrpicturearchives.net dates from 2010:

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/Locopicture.aspx?id=55293

There are two in Brazil, one still using BNSF painting.

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

---

---

pedrop Wrote:

> There are two in Brazil, one still using BNSF painting.

Back when those two arrived in Brazil in 2011, we determined that they weren't built as 3000 hp B30-7A's, but rather as 2250 hp B23-7's:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?6,2371502

Specifically, 1007 is ex-BNSF B23-7 #4263 (originally Santa Fe 6406) and 1008 is ex-BNSF B23-7 #4266 (originally Santa Fe 6409). BNSF sold them to NRE in 2007, who evidently souped them up to 3000 hp before exporting them, essentially making them into B30-7A's (Santa Fe themselves did something similar with some of their B23-7's in the late 80's, but these two were not part of that program.  The up-rated units had to be derated back to their factory settings after Santa Fe signed a maintenance contract with GE, and the builder refused to be liable for any extra wear and tear).

Any photos of what they look like now?  Overall, how well have the large numbers of used Dash 7's exported to Brazil in the 2000's held up?

Hi, many old GE´s were  scrapped in the last three years, specially the ones that were bought by former ALL railroad. The ones converted to narrow gauge using BB trucks still working plus othe C30-7 in better shape. Rumo rr that took over ALL is buying a lot of modern AC44, so the old GE´s wont´t rest for a long time there.
About the two ex BNSF B23-7´s,  unit 1007still stored at the shed of the owner since it arrived in Brazil, but 1008 wa converted to broad gauge (1600 mm) was rented to a construction company to work in the FNS construction and then was leased to steel plant in Volta Redonda, RJ, where it is until now.
Videos of it can be watched in these links

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLxpHPVCqzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB5Ttbx30GI


Evan_Werkema Wrote:

> Any photos of what they look like now?  Overall,
> how well have the large numbers of used Dash 7's
> exported to Brazil in the 2000's held up?

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

---

pedrop Wrote:

> Videos of it can be watched in these links
>
>  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLxpHPVCqzI

Love that first video.  She looks and sounds great!

A Google view of unit 1007 in the owner site. Due to the new railroads that will be built in Brazil in the next years, I imagine that the owner will find a costumer for unit 1007  soon. 

Pedro Rezende
Vespasiano MG,
https://youtube.com/c/minasgeraisrailways1

---

---