What was the last C&O painted unit on CSX has been officially retired and enroute to Clifton Forge and the C&O Historical Society for donation. Per Mr. Catlin the Chairman of the Board for COHS a full plan for 4617 will be released in early October.

Short of perhaps N&W/NS SD40 #1580 rejoining the Norfolk Southern roster for a time before it's donated, this officially ends the reign of unrebuilt SD40's on Class 1's, doesn't it?

NS/SOU #3170 has operated more recently than this one that I believe has been stored for a while now, but the #3170 of course was already retired and donated into preservation a few months back.

Of course, a fair number of Dash 2 and Dash 3 conversions remain, although even most of those have been scattered down to regionals and the like as they standardize their remaining SD40-2's and get rid of the oddballs (Union Pacific for instance is down to just factory built SD40-2's; No more SD45 conversions, Dash 2 upgraded SD40's, Tunnel Motors, etc.).

What can we say about the SD40? Their mainline Class 1 service stretched 50 years, from 1966 to 2016. If counting the rebuilds into -2 or -3 units, it'll be even longer. NS still has a CNJ SD40, a few PRR SD40s, and a few KCS SD40s running around from the Conrail SD40R rebuild of the Early 90s.

I know CSX still has many SD40s rebuilt into -2s as well. They will most likely be -3'd in the future, however.

I'd say it shows tons of resilience on the part of EMDs. I don't expect to truly see the end of the SD40(-2) series on a Class 1 until at least another 20-30 years.

The C&O ultimately purchased 59 SD40s from EMD which all subsequently went on to the Chessie System and then to CSX. How is it that this one very specific locomotive was never rebuilt and wasn't repainted by CSX (except for the yellow nose ends and redone cab) until late 2008? Did it somehow just fall though the cracks? On a side note, I'm surprised its original C&O factory paint lasted for 37 years when it seems like Class 1s are repainting locomotives every 10-15 years now.

Please pardon my ignorance on the matter.

Best,
-Andrew

CSX 4617 was repainted SPECIFICALLY because it was in its C&O paint scheme and a rail fan magnet, which irritated management in Cumberland Terminal. They were not happy with all the attention it was getting, so they painted it.

CSX 4617 was the last of three unmodified SD40s on the roster. The other two were 4618 and 4621, both former Western Maryland units.

We ran across the #4617 back in the early 1990's during our trip over to the Cumberland Hump to weight WMSR #734 after the rebuilding...