After meeting 2 northbounds at Junland, the UP 7997 with the ALDAS 29 and UP 5206 and the OCFWI 28, UP Train LSI55 30 is easing into Poplar Bluff Short Yard is with a pair of Geeps, the leader having briefly spent time on these rails for its then-owner, Missouri Pacific Railroad. Signs of the Mo-Pac still dot the landscape here, whether it's the lead unit, the 1910 St. Louis Iron Mountain and Southern Depot, or the old Trailmobile piggyback trailer to the left, MPZ 250374.
GMTX 2160 is an EMD GP38-2, built as CRI&P 4351 in 11-1976, builders number 757136-37, making it 40 years old this month. It was part of 52 units owned and leased in 2 batches of 26 from from Equilease and JP Morgan Interfunding to the Rock Island.
The lease went to Citicorp, and then was split again by them and GATX. They were leased to Missouri Pacific in 1980, arriving on the property during spring of that year after the Rock shutdown of March 31st and subsequent liquidation and the engine became MP 2289. This lease passed to the UP in 1982 with the merger and on 12-17-1986 it became UP 2289.
On 12-11-2000 it was renumbered to UP 789. The lease had been renewed several times by the UP over the years, and on 12-29-2004, Citicorp sold their half of the group to GATX, giving them all 52, and the final lease expired in 10-2007.
In 11-2006, UP enacted a policy that all short-term leased locomotives would operate with the owner's reporting marks and paint schemes, and GATX started sending all 52 units through NRE Paducah overhaul, and repaint to GMTX numbers. This unit was renumbered on 6-1-2007. It had dynamic braking installed in 2015, erasing the previously smooth non-dynamic roof line.
Locomotives: GMTX 2160, HLCX 1046
11-30-16
Poplar Bluff, MO
