Western Railroad Discussion > Northwestern Pacific parks its Genset in Storage

I was in Schellville, California last week (in Oakland to see the Mets), on Sept 23, and by luck (or sad coincidence) was there when they finally shoved troubled RP20BD 2009 into the Gold Gate Railroad tracks in order to get her OOS frame out of the way.

Here's how i found the power in the cage (images one and two - image one shot by slipping my iPhone between two fence posts).

Here they are shoving the RP20BD into the Golden Gate RR cage.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/22 18:56 by erielackawanna.

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More images of the shove, and a roster of elderly survivor, MP15  1501.

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Colorful shots; perfect timing!
GK

erielackawanna Wrote:
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> was there when they finally
> shoved troubled RP20BD 2009 into the Gold Gate
> Railroad tracks in order to get her OOS frame out
> of the way.

What exactly forced the final nail in the coffin of No. 2009? For years it was the workhorse (PTC installed) on the NWP and I wasn't aware it had chronic mechanical issues...

NickWolters Wrote:
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>
> What exactly forced the final nail in the coffin
> of No. 2009? For years it was the workhorse (PTC
> installed) on the NWP and I wasn't aware it had
> chronic mechanical issues...

I don't know... but I understand it was a pretty worn and mistreated demosntrator already when they got it.

I'd like to hear from somebody who actually works at the NWP on this. Paging Weather...

I've always like the look of those Gensets, with the big dynamic brakes at the back and all. Unfortunately using a high speed truck engine in a rail application was doomed to failure.

Conceptually they made a ton of sense, and in some markets function very well. But US railroads just have a different use case that requires far more reliability, and newer prime movers get all the efficiency and power of a Genset without the maintenance headaches.

Thanks for posting that she's out to pasture. Hopefully she'll come back one day in a new form.

Gensets:  the road to (mechanical) hell, paved with good intentions.

GENSET: worst locomotive I ever ran; universally hated by nearly all my colleagues in engine service.  The few that did like them enjoyed 12 hour yard shifts that were created by constant break downs, inability to pull, etc, etc.  Hated equally by the mechanical folks. 

Computer problems with the 2009 which caused all sorts of problems with transition, loading, and jsut plain operations.

weather Wrote:
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> Computer problems with the 2009 which caused all
> sorts of problems with transition, loading, and
> jsut plain operations.


Ahh, just what we needed, some actual facts!   Thank you.