While tripping merrily through the mail, Ken Freeman was overheard
 KF> Well sure. A-B-B-A sets of F's were pretty good too. Especially in
 KF> Central.   Some little shortline in Ohio ran a couple of E units in
 KF> freight service this  summer for the people who owned them and it made
 KF> quite a stir, too.   
Two of the most impressive photos I ever saw were of the same Santa Fe
freight climbing Cajon Pass in the fifties.  On the point were TEN F's,
perfectly matched (A-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-A), and pushing were FIVE more
(A-B-B-B-A).
Another favorite of mine was a UP publicity photo of Alco FA-s, a 
beautiful yellow and grey A-B-B-A set pulling a hundred or so clean
yellow stock cars.
 KF> Now if our local NRHS chapter were to get out their ex US Army H10-44
 KF> and   stretch it's legs on the shortline that would be pretty cool too.
FM's are my favorite diesels!  Growing up along the Milwaukee Road Mainline
in the 50's I fell in love with the "Erie Builts" on the "Olympian Hiawatha".
In my 8 year old ignorance, with those huge radiators on the back I thought
they were Turbines.
Up until he went bankrupt in late '80's a local shortline here ran Five
FM's (the "last run" of one of them is in the Kalmbach video "First 
eneration
Diesels, the Search for survivors").
Milwaukee 760 (The first locomotive built at Beloit) has been saved at the
Illinois RR Museum.
Don
... FAIRBANKS MORSE EATS ALCOS FOR BREAKFAST.
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DD> BW> Without going into any discussion of the latest in technology going
DD> BW> into American locomotives currently, how efficient are those engines
DD> BW> now 25-30 years old in comparison with those less than, say, ten 
years?
 
DD>A lot of the reason has to do with the tax laws re: depreciation etc, 
lso,
DD>the majority of locomotives on US railroads are leased rather than owned,
DD>giving advantages to disposing of them before the end of their useful 
ife.
DD>It's more complicated than I can understand though.
 
Which might have come along shortly after all those EMD GP9/SD9 engines
came down the tracks?  As many times as Southern Pacific rebuilt their
"Cadillacs" (the SD9s), one would have to think that the railroad owned
those from the get-go, going over them every few years to keep them up
and running. At the very least, it kept the former Sacramento Shops with
lots of work to do.
 
You're right, though, about how obtuse the laws and/or bookkeeping ideas
might be for the average guy on the street who sees virtually nothing
but new (or nearly so) locomotives pulling freight duty all over the
countryside. Noted just a few days ago that U.P. is stating that their
fleet of engines is the youngest around, with an average age of 13.7
years.
 
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 # SLMR 2.1a # hAS ANYONE SEEN MY cAPSLOCK KEY?
 # PDQWK 2.5 #51
 
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