Last of Their Kind, 4 Axles from GE and EMD

superheater · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm **Posts:** 2605

What was the last GE 4 axle?

Likewise EMD?

Alexander D. Mitchell IV · **Posted:** Mon Jul 21, 2014 12:47 am

ASSUMING you are being ethnocentric and mean only production for North America:

superheater wrote:

What was the last GE 4 axle?

Some P42DC built in 2002.......

Quote:

Likewise EMD?

A GP15D, GP20D, or F59PH from 2001.... and ElectroMotive Diesel is now offering GP22ECO rebuilds.....

superheater · **Joined:** Sun Aug 22, 2004 11:54 pm **Posts:** 2605

New construction, U.S. domestic freight.

SteveC · **Joined:** Thu Nov 20, 2008 11:45 am **Posts:** 86

I think that ATSF ordered 80 or so of the Dash 8-40B-W in the 500 series. I think that these are the last of the 4 axle GE's for freight. The GE's they build for Amtrak (Also in the 500 series were actually freight units) may have been build after the ATSF units?

I also think that for GM, they were the GP-60B units also built for ATSF.

EDIT: I did some looking, and the Southern Pacific units were built into 1994, making them the last of the GP-60's

Steve

jmlaboda · Updated 8/9/17 with 8,402 new links

Hard to believe that the Espee units were delivered 20 years ago. And it has been even longer since the last GE B-B units were delivered to the Santa Fe (1992). But there are other units that have been delivered .. albeit not for freight service.

The advent of the GenSet and a variety of environmental friendly rebuilds have dramatically changed the market for smaller units, with these locomotives being built using a variety of underframes ranging from early Geeps to recent EMD and GE power. Brookville has provided passenger BL20CH B-B units to Metro North and Connecticut D.O.T. and Motive Power, Inc., continues to provide larger four-axle commuter power as well. It is more so a rebuilder's market when it comes to orders for newer, smaller power and the radial trucks offered by both EMD and GE now allow for six-axle units to go where earlier units were unable to do so, making the need for newer B-B freight units not nearly as great as it use to be.

The whole market in general is greatly different from what it was 10-, 15- to 20-years ago and we likely will never see a return to it, at least not in this hemisphere. The age of multiple B-B unit lash-ups on mainline trains has forever changed and we likely will not see a return to it in the future. "The times they are a changing!" For better or for worse.