Our Conrail wayback machine has taken us to Orrville just in time to witness the passage of an eastbound on the Fort Wayne Line as it passes beneath the Wheeling & Lake Erie bridge. On the point is SD60M No. 5507. The image was made on May 25, 1996.
Photograph by Robert Farkas
It’s Tuesday and time to present a pair of images from the same railroad.
In the top image, we see Conrail SD60M leading an eastbound manifest freight on the Fort Wayne Line in Orrville on May 25, 1996.
The bridge it is passing beneath carries the Wheeling & Lake Erie.
The photographer wrote about the image, “while Conrail tolerated my entering their little-used yard in Orrville, Norfolk Southern would not allow this today.”
In the bottom image, Conrail SD45 No. 6130 is shown in Akron in June 1979 during the railroad’s relatively short life in the rubber city.
Norfolk Southern has acquired 16 used locomotives, including nine SD60Ms and seven SD75Ms.
All of the locomotives were previously used by BNSF but had been returned to the lessor when the leases expired.
The SD75Ms are former Santa Fe locomotives and represent a new locomotive model for NS. These units were built in 1994 and featured higher horsepower (4,300) than the 4,000 hp SD70Ms in the EMD catalogue at the time.
The SD60Ms were purchased new by Burlington Northern in 1989 and feature the distinctive three-piece windshield that was standard on early SD60Ms.
NS plans to renumber the SD60Ms to Nos. 6807-6815 while the SD75Ms will receive Nos. 2800-2806.
Allen Rider, the NS manager of locomotive engineering said all 16 locomotives will be sent to Altoona for repairs and minor modifications. The units will not be repainted prior to entering service although the SD60Ms will eventually be placed in NS’s SD60E rebuild program. That rebuilding will give the distinctive looking locomotive cabs of the units a limited life in the NS motive power fleet.
