Eastern Railroad Discussion > SD90's to Muncie

Last week I captured the first four former UP SD9043MACs that EMD Muncie is going to rebuild into SD70ACUs for NS leaving east Wayne Yard in Fort Wayne.

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Today, I captured the first two SD70ACUs to be done, rebuilt by NS at Altoona moving DIT to Muncie for EMD to check them over before they officially enter service in the exact same spot, and then about a mile west of there at Meyer Road.

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More.

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Very cool junctiontower; thank you for posting those!

-Tom

Whoa, nice looking power there; will be nice to see 'em trackside.

Andy

Those look pretty neat!  New cab and new inverter cabinet jump out right away.  I wonder where they put the handbrake.  They originally had a dreadful electric one mounted on the lead truck, conductor's side.  You usually had to sit and hold the button until it tied.  And if the power part failed, it was a long process to hand crank them. 

imrl Wrote:
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> I wonder where they put the handbrake. 

An electric brake wheel type unit is built into the left side of the long hood, just behind the Norfoilk Southern logo and lettering.


CHris Toth
NSDash9.com

Indeed. It is very difficult to see on super clean black engines. At least they did do away with those awful OE electric hand rakes. 

With coal and traffic in a downturn, as well as the spectre of a possible unfriendly takeover hanging like a big cloud, I don't think I would be in any real hurry to get these done if I were NS... === === = === JLH

imrl Wrote:
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> Those look pretty neat!  New cab and new inverter cabinet jump out right away.  I wonder where they put the handbrake.  They originally had a
> dreadful electric one mounted on the lead truck,> conductor's side.  You usually had to sit and hold the button until it tied.  And if the power
> part failed, it was a long process to hand crank them. 

I had the displeasure of having to move quite a few of the dead SD​9043ACs into and out of Fresno, CA where Harbor Rail Services was doing the frame repairs on the units that the UP kept. What a friggin pain in the a** it was releasing and applying those hand brakes. Those stupid little cranks would just take forever to get the job done. Had to alternate back and forth between arms just to let the blood flow back into them while you kept cranking with the other arm.

they could pass for 80MACs

Very nice!  I was just thinking as I scrolled through your first few pics that it'd be fun to see these when they're actually upgraded and in NS paint.  Scroll a bit further, and presto!  Thanks for sharing those.

Pretty interesting comparing them to SD70ACes.  NS continues to amaze me with their growing motive power variety at a time when everyone else seems to have settled on just a handful of models.

Joe Atkinson
Council Bluffs, IA
www.iaisrailfans.org/../Sub4WestEnd

highgreengraphics Wrote:
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> With coal and traffic in a downturn, as well as
> the spectre of a possible unfriendly takeover
> hanging like a big cloud, I don't think I would
> be in any real hurry to get these done if I were
> NS... === === = === JLH

That takeover is dead and buried from what I am reading?

Bob