Finest Hour
With only 30 minutes left before the crew go against the law, NS 180 (Macon,GA-Bellevue,OH) is slowly stomping it's feet up the main one track on the south end of Howardsville grade on the NS Atlanta North-End. The train will come to a stop four rail-miles for this location at the end of the double track main at Control-Point (CP) Long. To our much surprise the train is being led by an SD70 spartan cab, which is becoming very popular out of the blue in the railfan community. With NS recent announcement of them ramping up the SD70ACC rebuilt program from the older SD70s. This rebuild program will be headed up by Norfolk Southern and being rebuilt by Progress Rail Services Corporation out of Muncie, IN. The whole project will convert the 25+ year old locomotives from DC to AC, update the electronics on the locomotives, and give the SD70 a new safety cab which will meets FRA Crash-worthiness standards. NS will drop the 2500 series for these locomotives and give it the 1800 number series for the SD70ACC.
The EMD SD (special duty) series are a strong and reliable kind of locomotive which still serve America's rails today. They have proved themselves reliable by clocking in several million miles of freight service over several decades.
