Western Railroad Discussion > UP's C44AC/C44-9W Modernization Program, is there an actual plan?

As the title says, has UP ever made known any actual schedule or plan for what locomotives will get modernized?   Didn't UP state at the start of this program, they wanted to modernize ALL of the C44AC units?   

Since I work for the RR contractor at one of the PRB coal mines, many of these end up on trains I operate, so I have an interest in this.   I look at the DieselShop Roster pages every couple of weeks,  but it doesn't show anything beyond what has been done.   And UP has only had a couple of media statements saying they weill spend X amount of dollars for Y amount of units to be modernized.  However I've never seen any actual plan.     

I know they did all of the units based on the AC6000 frame, then it looks like they did 100 out of the former Southern Pacific AC4400CWs from 1995 but then stopped.   They have not touched the 6700-6886 C44AC series, many of which were made around that time.  Looks like they skpped ahead to units from 1997-2003, plus I think 10 units from 2004.    And what was it, 50 DASH-9 conversions last year and a couple dozen so far this year?     

Does their unit selection has anything to do with the generation/age of the units, or the long term lease contracts, or something else?  Is there an end-date to this program, or does UP keep quietly adding to it? 

I'm guessing that whatever plan they have is not known to anyone but UP and Wabtec.  And it's probably changed a few times.   

A related question:

I know. this modernization program is in part, a way for the railroads to avoid getting new Tier 4 units.   I have wondered though, since these newly modernized units end up labelled as passing Tier 1 +, a designation I don't remember seeing back in the early-mid 2000s when Tier decals started showing up inside the cabs, does that Plus mean that Wabtec is earning fresh emissions credits out of these modernizations?    BNSF hasn't touched the moderization thing, instead they bought brand new 6-axle units over the last couple of years, and half of them were Tier 3 Credit Units.    I would have thought the Emission Credits well would have ran dry a long time ago.   The last ones I remember seeing were the 2500 series UP units from a decade ago. 

Anyhow, been meaning to ask this for a while.   Just never seem to get around to it.  

-Andy T.
 

The last major announcement was for 1000 units to be modified.  It worked out to about $1.67 million per unit which is a substantial discount to the cost of a new unit.  Time will tell if it was money well spent.

Eng.Shadetree
 

Seems Wabtech has been rebuilding a bunch of old AC4400's at Fort Worth, but I have not kept track of which road numbers are being rebuilt.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Very difficult to assess since rebuilt most UP GE locomotives retain their original locomotive number after they are re-built unlike our friends over at Norfolk Southern (and thanks to Chris Toth and his website.)