Stumbling Into SD90AC's

While you wouldn't want to literally stumble into the 200+ tons of one of these babies, here is yet another example of a locomotive I just keep bumping into over the years. (see my "Bad Penny" story last March) In this case it is a class of locomotive within a relatively thin band of 8500 series units. Pretty small number among the thousands of units on the Union Pacific's roster. UP was always a road that experimented with huge locomotives that didn't hang around too long. Remember "Big Boys", Gas Turbines, U50's, C855's, DD35's and DD40X's? These are just their latest attempt to find the ultimate 6000 hp pulling machine.

My first encounter with these guys was in August 1999 at Hornell, NY at the Alsthom facility in the old Erie RR shops. The DTI Fan and I were on our way back from an Ohio railfan expedition and a few of these very 8500 series units were sitting around in various states of being painted, fresh from their being manufactured. I have these two scanned prints from that first encounter.











My very last encounter was only ten days ago (Aug. 4th) in Butler, PA at GWI's Buffalo and Pittsburgh RR shops (top photo). They are already finished with their UP careers, and yes, it says they are SD90AC's on the cab, so that's what I'll call them. (UP designates units their own way, which may or may not be the same as EMD or GE) The railfan press is full of stories about UP giving up on these "6000 hp" units and disposing of them in various ways. Many will be totally "recycled" except for the frame.



The two photos above show the recently arrived now EMLX units at Butler in January 2008. This was not quite a "breaking news story" at the time, but close. They have since been sighted in operation on the B&P via the web and print media. There may have been some SD90AC's delivered to the UP prior to 1999, but some of those in the 8500 series were just being finished in 1999. That's less than 9 years of use by the UP for this bunch.

Here we see one of my middle encounters with these guys, at least one where I can read the numbers. I posted this scan of a print on NERail a while back with explanation but here it is again within context. A college buddy and I were making a regular loop through Nebraska in June 2003 to catch UP and BNSF hotspots so naturally the loop takes us to Grand Island where the UP's original transcontinental line is crossed by the BNSF Powder River Line. These lines crossed at grade here until just a few years before the shot. Can you imagine the nightmare that would be now! I believe we saw similar if not the same units in prior trips to Gibbon Jct. but I can't prove it with the photos. The notch nose was ahead of it's time and very distinctive so we were seeking them out.

For those of you who like technical details, here is more information about their history in a Wikipedia article on the subject of SD90MAC's. You technical guys out there can go into all the details about the hows and whys of these units and their fate. I just like to stumble onto photos of their interesting careers. Too bad the web wasn't around to keep me informed when I was photographing those "common" DD40's.

BC