Step onto the captivating world of Hotrail Productions, where the magic of lights, camera, and trains combines to create an unforgettable experience. I travel all over the country photographing railroad history in the making. My footage dates back to 1995. Whether it's a thrilling action sequence or a heartwarming romantic scene, the railway has long been a favorite setting for filmmakers and TV producers.
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Witness an unforgettable moment as a northbound CSX tank train roars
around the southwest wye track in Deshler, Ohio, charging westward. The
power trio features a stunning GE AC4400CW and two impressive C40-8Ws,
with the third unit still rocking the classic "yellow-nose" paint
scheme.
Filmed on 8/31/22
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Uncommon GE Trio in Mixed Paint Storms the Deshler Wye
Mixed-Livery GE Muscle Unleashed at Deshler’s Southwest Wye
Rare Mixed-Livery GE Trio at Deshler
A Rare Sight: Mixed-Livery GE Trio Charges the Deshler Wye
Unmatched GE Power on Display at Deshler’s Southwest Wye
GE Trio Mayhem on Deshler’s Southwest Wye
The CN Seymour local winds through downtown Champaign at Randolph Street. On the west side of Randolph, the IC branch actually fed into the Wabash branch line, so at this point he is actually running on the Wabash. The Illinois Terminal put their wires over these tracks as well, and the depot was immediately to my left. Note the "jog" in the platform where the bay window once was. This track is now gone. At this point, the CN train heads east on the ex-Wabash to the IC New Orleans mainline.
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Witness an eastbound CSX freight, mainly composed of tank cars, glide
from the north to south track at Wellsboro! Watch as it crosses CN's
(Ex-GTW) Battle Creek Sub, powered by a dynamic duo of GE AC4400CW's.
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CSX Tank Train Slides the Crossover at Wellsboro
🚂💥
Eastbound CSX Tank Train Makes North-to-South Crossover at Wellsboro | AC4400CW Power
CSX Tank Train Crossover at Wellsboro | Dual AC4400CWs on the Point
CSX Tank Train Crosses Over at Wellsboro | AC4400CWs Charge the CN Battle Creek Sub
CSX Tank Cars Dominate the Crossing at Wellsboro
Many
of these stored diesels are destined for scrap. The acres of
locomotives sit idle at LTEX’s Lordstown, Ohio facility on Dec. 23,
2024. The reasons behind these engines’ retirement are varied. Joseph
Zadeh
A frequent question from railfans is why? Why are some diesels destined for scrap?
Why does your favorite locomotive go off the breaker’s yard? Why do some engines get shuffled off this mortal coil while others continue for decade after decade?
There is a multi-part answer to that, and it involves bureaucracy, the economy, mechanical issues, and even plain luck.
CSX
9037 is partially scrapped as LTEX pauses work for the Christmas
holiday in 2024. Its older YN2 paint speaks to a long life without a
rebuild, making it a likely candidate for being sold off. Joseph Zadeh
The economy
The most obvious reason why a locomotive might go to the scrapyard is
simple economics. Prolonged downturns in traffic might render many
locomotives surplus to requirements, or a rise in scrap prices may make
it viable to cut up already-stored locomotives. Due to accounting rules
and best practices, locomotives can remain stored for up to two years
after being pulled from active service before they can be sold for scrap
or other uses. During this time, railroads will often treat these
stored engines as extra power, ready to go at short notice should demand
return or the economy improve.
However, if a locomotive remains in the dead line long enough to be
fully written off the company’s books, it’s put up for sale. Gone are
the days of in-house crews breaking down an engine for the metals —
Conrail was the last of the Class I roads to do that, and the practice
is now left only to short lines and scrap merchants.
Where the engine goes after it leaves the railroad is, once again, a
matter of economy. If the high bidder was a metals dealer, then it will
probably be cut up sooner rather than later. If it goes to an operation
like LTEX, it may be scrapped, it may sit for years waiting a rebuild
and subsequent new life in lease service, or it may wither away to
nothing as a source of spare parts for those engines that continue
operating. An engine can also be sold directly to a short line or an
industrial operation, where its work may continue for decades to come.
NS
has sizable storage tracks behind Juniata shops in Altoona on Aug. 22,
2023. Some of these locomotives may be repaired, but others will be
eventually sold off to scrap dealers and short lines. In previous years,
Conrail broke up locomotives on this site. Joseph Zadeh
Mechanical problems
As a railway’s fleet of locomotives ages, certain units will
experience more problems than others. There are a variety of reasons for
this, ranging from accidents, poor maintenance, or even design flaws.
For example, the Electro-Motive Division Dash-2 series of locomotives
have significantly fewer wiring issues than their older compatriots due
to Dash-2’s modular circuitry and Exane wiring,
which is more resilient than the wiring formerly used by EMD. As a
result, while the wiring in an SD40 locomotive can decay as the
locomotive nears 30 years old, the wiring in an SD40-2 of similar age
may be in better condition, or at the very least be significantly easier
to re-wire. It seems simple, but these factors can often be the
difference between a long career as a locomotive, or a career change
into razor blades. Similar issues have befallen the General Electric
Dash 8 locomotives; they are significantly harder to rebuild/rewire than
their Dash 9 successors and are more likely to be removed from mainline
fleets as they age.
Additionally, as locomotives get older and their value to the
railroad decreases, major mechanical failures can sideline them
permanently. While some failures are obvious — like a cracked engine
block or major wreck damage — sometimes the final nail in the coffin can
be quite small: In July 2023, the Portland & Western Railroad retired the last SD7 in revenue service – No. 1501 — after it developed a simple water leak.
In
some cases, a locomotive may continue on after it is sold off. NS
SD40-2 No. 3215 was sold to Progress Rail in 2021. Progress Rail acted
as a locomotive broker, and later sold the engine to the Ashland
Railway, an Ohio-based shortline, along with another ex-NS SD40-2. As
seen from the ASRY yard in Mansfield, the SD40-2 may be surplus to NS’s
requirements, but it constitutes a great leap forward for the Ashland,
which otherwise operates a fleet of aging GP-series locomotives. Joseph
Zadeh
The bureaucracy of railroading
Railroads are, among many other things, a business, and with that
comes many levels of bureaucracy that informs (and occasionally hinders)
operations. As an example, a locomotive is nominally under the
authority of the railroad’s mechanical department, which can decide when
it is overhauled and repaired. In day-to-day operations, however, the
engine is really under the control of the local yard- and trainmasters
who have final say on what work the locomotive does and when.
Additionally, a locomotive is also an asset that exists on the
railroad’s balance sheet and is subject to the company accountants.
Finally, the railroad’s C-Suite executives have full control over the
entire railroad and can make a unilateral decision to go around all the
aforementioned bureaucracy. And this explanation only covers locomotives
that are owned outright by railroads, and not engines that are leased
from financing companies.
This all affects the likelihood of a specific locomotive ending up on
the scrap heap. Railroads tend to keep frontline power for around 20-30
years, according to Don Graab, former vice president of mechanical
operations at Norfolk Southern. After that point, efforts will be made
by the railroads to pare down the fleet’s older locomotives. However, in
recent years, with the increased focus on short term financial gains,
decision-making began to become more unilateral.
Graab said, “Historically, the mechanical department always played a
role in what units were stored and what units were sold. For a long
time, 12 or 13 years, the interdisciplinary committee that reviewed this
and made recommendations of management twice a year at six-month
intervals. More recently, they just bypassed the mechanical department,
went right to the local trainmasters and said, ‘you know, you got a big
yard out there in Decatur, give us three GP38s, just give us three
numbers and we’ll scrap those.’ And the bad part about this is it’s just
willy-nilly.”
This direct approach to locomotive scrapping goes a long way to
explaining why otherwise functional locomotives end up in the hands of
scrap merchants like LTEX or National Railway Equipment.
Luck
Sometimes, a locomotive survives (or dies) through the simple luck of the draw.
As noted, a railroad’s bureaucracy (and the various ways it can be
side-stepped) will occasionally strike down an engine in its tracks.
Additionally, mechanical damage can abruptly sideline a locomotive that
otherwise could have kept working well into the future. There are
numerous anecdotes of both, but two stand out:
Texas’ Dallas, Garland & Northeastern Railroad had invested heavily into Genset locomotives in the 2010s. These locomotives did not pan out as expected,
and quickly became hated by crews. One locomotive in particular —
RailPower RP20BD No. 143 — was so thoroughly unreliable and disliked
that when it eventually caught fire, a quick-thinking employee is said
to have directed firefighters to point their hoses into the locomotive’s
generator compartment, rendering the engine a total loss in seconds.
A second example of luck playing a role was cited by Don Graab.
“Yeah, well, occasionally there’s been these snafus where this comes to
mind with the Norfolk & Western. They saved one last Fairbanks-Morse
six-axle locomotive to get to a museum and parked it out at Schaffer’s
Crossing, where I used to work, and it sat there for years, and somebody
who didn’t know about this commitment to give it to whatever museum got
wrapped up and said ‘we gotta get rid of some of this crap’ and sold it
off to a scrap dealer. And the museum was like, “what? You promised us
that.”
“Things like that happened,” Graab added, “this was a six-axle, 2,400
hp locomotive. I don’t remember which predecessor road it was from,
Virginian had them and Wabash had them, but they had cut all the others
down into slugs. This one was still there, with the opposed pistons and
everything. [It] sat there for about six or ten years and, all of a
sudden, it disappeared. That’s a shame.”
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As
early evening settles over Wellsboro, Indiana, an eastbound CSX
intermodal stack train throttles up from a stop and storms across Water
Street on the west side of town. The ground trembles as the train digs
in and accelerates toward the mainline.
Moments later, the train glides past the interchange yard, where a
unique road slug set steals the spotlight. The slug—rebuilt from a
former GP30—is paired with a GP40 “Mother” unit, a fascinating example
of horsepower redistribution and classic yard switching technology. This
distinctive setup even helped inspire the artwork for my business card
ads.
Leading the charge on the mainline is modern Tier 4 power, with a GE
ET44AH working alongside a GE ES44AC GEVO, delivering impressive
horsepower and efficiency as the stack train charges eastward through
northern Indiana rail territory.
Filmed on June 20, 2017.
Water Street Power Parade: CSX ET44AH, ES44AC & GP30 Action
Water Street CSX Power Mix
CSX Muscle on Water Street
Generations of CSX Power Roll Through Water Street
From GEVOS to GP30s: CSX Action on Water Street
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