Something Different

For obvious reasons foreign power is not a thing in Alaska so what it offers in scenery and cool operations the Alaska Railroad lacks in variety. In the decade I lived there I only got to see the same 51 locomotives over and over since I'd missed the lease unit era that predated the arrival of the fleet of SD70MACs. The only two exceptions were two different occasions when demonstrator locomotives were floated up as different builders tried to woo the ARR into a purchase. NRE brought up one of the 2GS21B twin engine demonstrators that worked in Anchorage for several weeks in 2007 but stupidly I didn't once take a photo of it.

However I did get a few shots of this demonstrator that EMD brought up as it stayed for nearly two months. EMDX 7102 seen here in front of the yard office was one of two GP22ECO units built in direct competition with NRE. The 7102 is a rebuild of Canadian Pacific GP9u CP 1637. Work was completed at CADRAIL in Lachine in April 2008. The package is rated at just less than 2,000 hp. The unit demonstrated in Calgary for CP first before sailing here. The other demo, EMDX 7101 was rebuilt from a straight GP40 core.

While the ARR ultimately chose not to purchase either model, instead just sticking with their fleet of GP38-2 and GP40-2s as lighter yard power this unit did find a home ultimately going to Mexico as FXE 2100.

Meanwhile CP must have been impressed because five years later they started taking delivery of a 130 unit order of GP20C-ECOs that while different (mainly in crashworthiness standards and relaxed emissions standards) can trace their origin directly to this unit. The GP22s are now ubiquitous across the continent anywhere CP operates.

Anchorage, Alaska
Saturday October 4, 2008

Photo courtesy of Dave Blazejewski