Eastern Railroad Discussion > An aborted Blackberry and a Banana-Meridian, MS.

While out and about this morning, I heard KCS train M-SHNS (Manifest-Shreveport, LA to NS Irondale, AL) on the scanner making some switching moves in town. Once I got to the 27th Avenue crossovers, I saw that the lead unit was one of the black PR/EMD SD70ACe-T4's that was apart of the cancelled NS order. This was my first time seeing one of the Blackberry's, as some of the crews call them. The unit had all of the normal NS appliances: High Mounted headlight, flashing ditch lights, etc. As an added bonus, the train had one of the yellow "Banana" Tier 4's as a DPU. 

For those that don't know, these units are apart of the Progress Rail Lease fleet. KCS has about 20 on long term lease right now. For a while, they ran them paired up with a GE unit or an older SD70ACe. Over the last month or so, KCS has started running them in pairs without the other "brands." I suppose they've proven themselves. From what I've heard from a few of the KCS and NS crews here in town, they seem to perform good. I believe Progress Rail has worked out some of the major bugs they had when they were first introduced.

Enjoy!
-Dylan  

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Definitely excellent and interesting photos.
Thanks very much for your posting.
ALLEN