Western Railroad Discussion > The Gensets of Stanislaus County

All gensets are ugly, unreliable junk suitable only for use as artificial reefs.  Now that that’s out of the way…
 
I haven’t surveyed the entire country to be sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Stanislaus County in California’s Central Valley has the highest concentration of surviving gensets of any county in the US.  Three shortlines and several industrial operators still use or at least haven’t scrapped their examples yet, though two of the three shortlines have announced plans to repower what they have and the industrial operators may or may not still be using theirs.
 
1) California Northern’s ex-SP line from Tracy almost to Los Banos, CA passes through the west side of Stanilaus County between Vernalis and Newman and plays host to the only NRE-built gensets in the county as far as I know.  CFNR 3GS21B-DE 501 pilots the daily southbound train (railroad east back in the SP days) as it switches next to the deteriorating steam-era water tank at Westley in November of 2024.  More photos from this day are in this old thread:

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5946418
 
2) Further east, switching railroad Modesto & Empire Traction bought big from NRE’s competitor Railpower, replacing their fleet of GE 70-tonners with RP20BD gensets starting in 2008.  Railpower gensets were built on existing frames, so the size of an RP20BD varies depending on the donor locomotive.  M&ET has units like 2003 built on EMD frames with Blomberg trucks and other like 2007 built on GE Dash-7 frames with FB-2 trucks.  Other design changes by the builder over the course of the model’s production resulted in quite a bit of variation among the M&ET’s original 9 units.

3) M&ET interchanges with Union Pacific in Modesto and BNSF at Modesto-Empire Junction in Empire, CA.  Last October, the railroad was awarded a Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements grant to repower 9 gensets, replacing their three Deutz engine-generator sets with single Tier 4 prime movers. 
 
https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/2024-10/FY23-24%20CRISI%20Selections.pdf
 
I haven’t seen a report that work has started toward that end yet, and for the time being at least, the mighty MET still operates a fleet of shiny red and white RP20BD’s. 

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4) M&ET also acquired a pair of former UP gensets from a third party in 2023, UPY 2644 and 2650.  I don’t know if they plan to use them or if they are just for parts or conversion under the CRISI grant.
 
5) Even further east, the Sierra Northern converted a couple of their EMD geeps into gensets in their own shop in Oakdale, CA using Railpower-provided kits.  In the last few years, they’ve also acquired an amazing number of Railpower gensets from Union Pacific, both 4 and 6-axle versions.  You could be forgiven for thinking the Sierra was a UP subsidiary based on this view of their yard in Oakdale last month.  Sierra hasn’t gotten rid of all their non-genset power yet, but everything I saw looked to be in long term storage.  The 2609 had just returned from switching the Riverbank Industrial Complex.
 
6) Earlier the same morning, a pair of the big 6-axle RP20CD’s built on SD40-2 frames were working the Central Valley AG Group transload just east of Oakdale.  In the background, you can make out a pair of former KCS gensets stored at the end of the spur.

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7) A closer look at ex-KCS RP14BD’s 1400 and 1401.  These platforms have had quite a history – built as Illinois Central GP9’s, rebuilt by ICG into GP10’s, rebuilt by Railpower into GG20B Green Goat hybrids for KCS, then rebuilt again into RP14BD gensets (only two engine/generator sets in these, hence 1400 hp max instead of 2000 hp).  I don’t know Sierra’s plans for the units, but with the road's intention to convert their fleet to hydrogen fuel cell power, there may well be another rebuilding in store for them.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sierra-northern-railway-successfully-tests-first-four-axle-hydrogen-fueled-zero-emission-switching-locomotive-302423855.html
 
Stanislaus County also has two former Railpower genset demonstrators that found work at feed elevators, but I don’t know if either one is still serviceable.  RPRX 5403 went to the Foster Farms (now Associated Feed & Supply) elevator west of Turlock, CA:
 
http://www.trainweb.org/rosters/ff5403.html
 
The current aerial photo on Google Maps shows it parked out of the way east of the unloading loop:
 
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Pqf9uiSWYgUnhQFP7
 
8) Sister RPRX 5405 is at the NuWest Milling facility along the BNSF mainline east of Hughson, CA just down the road from Empire.  The unit’s rear end shows evidence of a hard coupling or two. 
 
9) Stanislaus County isn’t all gensets, though.  The morning I visited NuWest, they weren’t using the RP20BD to move cars around, but 68-year-old, high hood SD9 #3.  The locomotive’s rrpicturearchives.net entry says it’s former Norfolk Southern SD9M 56, built as Nickel Plate SD9 356 way back in April 1957.  The Class-1's cast off their gensets over the last decade, and with shortlines making noises about repowering the ones they have, this SD9 could well outlast the genset era...if it can avoid getting its frame bent. 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/25 16:47 by Evan_Werkema.

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Dispite the number of people that have complained about the gensets, they seem to have been operating fairly reliable on these 3 Northern operations. The California Northern runs the crap out of theirs all the time and any day of the week you can see 3 or 4 running up the valley between Tehama and Woodland.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/04/25 16:43 by TomG.

Very interesting. Never knew KCS had these critters?
JB

Have they got the funky electrics sorted out?

“Now that that’s out of the way…..”

This will be my go-to chuckle line for the next few days… 😎

Posted from iPhone

Ironically, I saw the Richmond Pacific's genset working the in-yard job last week and I took a picture and was going to post a picture of it for you, Evan, captioning it with something like "Evan's favorite genset" as a joke. 

Great set of photos. The drone really comes in handy, doesn't it? You're getting a lot of great shots with it in a variety of situations. 

That Caddy is awesome!

I'm super impressed by the SIERRA RR's efforts to grow their business.  That new milling operation east of Oakdale is giving them huge new carload traffic, which in turn helps them maintain operations for their original traffic:  lumber from mills further up the line towards Jamestown.

OK, so they're sidelined and hated for their electrical 
problems...I assume this means cutting the various gensets
in and out as needed for power. Seems like there's a lot of
room on a locomotive for the electronics needed to do this.

Remember, we have electric cars with up to 4 motors 
that have to be controlled via electronic circuitry. This does 
not appear to be a problem even in the more limited space 
available on a car. So my question is, What makes the electronics 
so problematic on a locomotive, when similar technology
is in use on every electric car on the road??

Seems the biggest problem with electric cars is finding 
enough operable charging stations, not the electronics.

Any comments on this from folks who actually run and maintain
these things?

George Andrassy
 

Auburnrail Wrote:

> OK, so they're sidelined and hated for their electrical 
> problems...I assume this means cutting the various
> gensets in and out as needed for power.

The issues were more complex than that.  There have been a couple of good threads outlining issues with Railpower and NRE gensets - see in particular:

Railpower: hawker95's reply in this thread: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5018549
NRE: MrMRL's reply in this thread: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,4825571,4825880#msg-4825880

It sounds like a lot of systems, not just the electrical system, were under-engineered and needed more development to create locomotives able to take the level of abuse and neglect railroads have come to expect based on their old EMD's.  Shortline locomotives that come home every night to crews familiar with their needs and idiosyncrasies are easier to keep in trim, which is also a reason why Alcos and Baldwins survived longer on shortlines than Class 1's.  All the genset manufacturers were smaller outfits that relied on suppliers to provide engines, generators, etc., and I wonder how much they were really able to redesign as the problems emerged.

FIne images and a very informative write-up. Thank you!
GK

Re:Gen-Set electronics,
Evan,  thank you for the references, and
the not-so-obvious reasons of the gen-sets failures.
Oh, and also, excellent post. I travel up and down the Central Valley
and still see them at work.
George Andrassy



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/25 07:47 by Auburnrail.

Thank you for the great report, photos and the write up.

CFNR's NRE Gensets have EMD-like proportions, and I don't think any TO members have called them ugly. As for others, they are more oddly-shaped, but then so were some of the old end-cab switchers.

Didn't know about the ex-KCS ones, but I see the Gensets (and the high-nose Cadillac) occasionally when I hunt Z trains on the Fresno Sub.

cchan006 Wrote:

> Didn't know about the ex-KCS ones, but I see the
> Gensets (and the high-nose Cadillac) occasionally
> when I hunt Z trains on the Fresno Sub.

The genset visible from Highway 99 is RPRX 5406 at Associated Feed & Supply (formerly Foster Farms) in Traver, CA in Tulare County: https://maps.app.goo.gl/AiPA4qUqDqtWzE6d6

The high-nose SD9 visible from Highway 99 is J.D. Heiskell 1886 (another ex-NS SD9M) at Pixley, CA in Tulare County: https://maps.app.goo.gl/voS6CG1LbmuGK88a7

A third ex-NS SD9M not visible from Highway 99 works (last I knew) at the Heiskell facility at Guernsey, CA along the BNSF line in Kings County along with a chopnosed ex-ATSF GP7: https://maps.app.goo.gl/FUcMUkspiJY7C8VRA 

See also: https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?1,5026723

I think it fair to say the most recent crop of genset locomtotives were never meant to be productive...they were meant to see if this was a potentially good way to do a switcher locomotive...unofortately they are so bad that one cannot know from what was offered...whether it's workable....I'd say go back and do version 2...this time make robust switchgear and foolproof engine management...maybe then we cans see what these things can or cannot do. 

Some people in Westley wanted to restore the old SP water tank.  Anything happening with that project?