Oh this is wonderful! An operational, preserved SD45. Its unfortunate about whats happened to the WC fleet but progress is progress. Where did their F45s go? LTEX I think? Would be nice to have one of those preserved.

Congrats! Makes we want to visit IRM even more. What's her heritage? 20 cylinders still?

Regards,

Joshua

EDIT: Some more information, and also a second acquisition coming soon- http://www.railroadforums.com/forum/sho ... hp?t=17831

Better ask for some spare 20-cyl. crankshafts from the rest of the fleet while you have the chance--that's supposedly the Achille's heel of the design.

Seem to recall that WC 'de-rated' the '45s to 3200 hp in order to increase durability. Don't think that crankshaft life will be much of an issue.

Dave

Great news! I think they also donated an ex-NP SD45 that belonged to WC to the Lake Superior Transportation Museum last month also. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

From Trains Newswire at www.trains.com:

DULUTH, Minn. - Canadian National Railway has donated former Wisconsin Central SD45 7495 to the Lake Superior Railroad Museum in Duluth. The locomotive, built in April 1967 as Northern Pacific 3617, is among the last surviving Northern Pacific SD45s among a fleet of 30 that the NP received between 1966 and 1968. It became Burlington Northern 6417 in 1970, and went to the Wisconsin Central as the 6417 in 1987. WC later renumbered it 6495 and finally 7495 when WC rebuilt the locomotive just prior to the merger with CN. It was among the last SD45s rebuilt by WC. It is not currently operational.

CN had at one time a couple ex-CB&Q SD24 units. What happened to them?

Thanks for the info!