Wow...such a sad demise for a once-mighty beast! Sad none were saved. Great photo Craig.
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That sucks! I know they were hated by the railroad, but think of how cool it would've been if the Espee had kept at least one of these and ran it around on the front of business trains in the 80's and 90's like UP does with their DDA40X 6936!
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| Posted by K100DS on January 6, 2010 | |
Sad. It looks like most, if not all, of EMD's 6000 HP SD90MACs will meet the same fate. I certainly can't see any museum or railroad being willing to save one, despite how unique they are. Some things just can't be saved, I guess.
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I would guess these were fairly expensive locomotives to operate. Great photograph.
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Why would someone not be willing to save one? Surely if they're unique, someone ought to stuff and mount one in a museum somewhere
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U50s and U50Cs were all cut up for scrap decades ago. There were only 26 of the four-truck U50s built (3 for SP and 23 for UP) and 40 of the two-truck U50Cs (all for UP). There are lots of other locomotives that escaped preservation, too, such as SD45Xs, most PAs, most C-415s, C636s, most Train Masters, most FTs, most older E-units, etc. Not everything can be saved, I guess...
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| Posted by K100DS on January 7, 2010 | |
Bewildebeeste: it's not that people aren't willing to save something; it's a matter of not having the money to acquire it and/or not having a place to put it. I once tried to save a very rare locomotive from being scrapped, and between acquiring it, transporting it, and finding a home for it, it would've cost over $100K. Even the most successful museums usually don't have that kind of money just lying around to spend on a new project. I suspect that is the reason why no U50s or U50Cs were saved, and why it's likely that no SD90MAC-Hs will be saved, either.
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It happened to so many machines, but it's always sad to see it while it's happening. Thank you for sharing this Craig.
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Now there are three things you do not want to see personally, Sausage making, Congress passing bills, and engines being scraped.
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