Nostalgia & History > Nosy 9000s!

Funny things will often cross your mind during the times of tedium while scanning a large mass of slides. There are always a few idle minutes as the scanner is “doing its thing”. I was scanning through a large tray-box of slides Jim Watson had out of his main collection for another project. I believe he said these were for consideration in a past issue of the UPHS publication “The Streamliner”. I also have a couple of other on again/off again projects with Jim’s collection, so it’s kinda hard to keep it all straight.

So there I am, scanning away when the visual impact of these 3 vertical shots jumped out at me. As so often happens I had the title of this thread before it officially became a thread to work up. Scanning 3 vertical nose shots of UP GP40-Xs in quick succession suggested the term “nosy 9000s”. Thus was born a thread. Then the 9003 in image #1 took a considerable amount of TLC during the photo-editing process. The black goopy gunk you see at the bottom of the plow was actually splattered all over the nose. What ever this unit got into, it was really really messy! And in the original scan the 9003 was a bit off of true vertical. So in the editing and dirt & blemish removing procedure I felt just like a besieged parent with a miscreant child: “Alright kid, sit up straight. And for crying out loud, WIPE YOUR NOSE!!!”

1. UP 9003 posed under blue flag protection on April 16, 1980.

2. & 3 UP 9004 and UP 9005 posed for their portraits on November 4, 1980.
All 3 candidates posed for possible magazine covers at the railfan portrait studio otherwise known as North Platte, NE…
(Three original Kodachrome slides by James W. Watson)

Thanks for snorting!
Lance Garrels (santafe199)
Jim Watson (UP6900)



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 12/23/22 03:20 by santafe199.

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Those 9000s were about the roughest riding units I ever had. Those and the Dash 8-40Cs that had the trade in trucks from U30Cs.

Forgot say nice pics by the way!!

ditched e's for these

Those 9000's were EMD GP 40X locomotive. I agree with you on the GE 9000's The best thing about them was that the rest room was right behind the cab wall . No climbing down into the nose.

Fredo Wrote:
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> Those 9000's were EMD GP 40X locomotive. I agree
> with you on the GE 9000's The best thing about
> them was that the rest room was right behind the
> cab wall . No climbing down into the nose.

Ya mean ya didn't have to hang it off the side of the gangway.  Anyway, there's always the coal pile.

Oh yeah!!  Those were the OTHER 9000's.

-LD

Pic of 9004 has a cloud of something off to the right side of shot. Was this a washer for locos or the residue from a lit fart contest gone horribly wrong?

Don Allender

ATSFSuperChief Wrote:
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> Pic of 9004 has a cloud of something off to the
> right side of shot. Was this a washer for locos or
> the residue from a lit fart contest gone horribly
> wrong?
>
> Don Allender

That's a wash rack in use.

santafe199 Wrote:

> 1. UP 9003 posed under blue flag protection on April 16, 1980.

Strange horn on that beast.  Looks like someone cut the top off a Leslie S-5T manifold, leaving spaces for only three horn bells. 

Did get to see these 9000's in action between Cheyenne and North Platte in 1978. Very unique styling. SD45 mini me's.

Bill Rettberg
Bel Air, MD

Nice post , Lance!

Randy Lundgren