The New Brunswick Southern Railway has five more leased engines on the way. GMTX 2644 (a GP38-2) will join the growing NBSR fleet. This old lady was built in October 1967 for the Baltimore and Ohio as GP38 3821. It is in Oakway blue and white like GMTX 2639.
The other four are SD40-2 engines from Helm, HLCX 6304, 6319, 6332 and 6340.
HLCX 6304 looks pretty sharp. Photo by Terry Cantrell.
HLCX 6319 is in dark red and blue, and looks like the leasers that the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway had/has.
HLCX 6332 is in Conrail baby blue with HLCX on the side, originally a Pennsylvania Railroad engine. Apparently it is looking pretty shabby, so maybe it will get a repaint. Even in 2006 it was looking a bit rusty. Photo by Brian Jones.
HLCX 6340 is in Southern Pacific gray with red ends. Very recently she was working on the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern (ICE), purchased by Canadian Pacific.
Oh, and GMTX 2666 showed up very quietly at the beginning of this month. GMTX 2666 is a GP38-2 painted in Oakway blue and white and was on a westbound NBSR freight shot by Byron Thomas on August 2. Note HLCX 6200 leading, GMTX 2645 in second position, "new" GMTX 2666 in third, HLCX 6315 fourth, and finally NBSR 2612 as the fifth engine.
I love this shot. The consists are so colourful on the NB Southern these days.
By my count that makes 29 engines. You can see my NB Southern roster page for the full list.
2 comments:
Are they leasing new engines due to increased freight traffic on the line or are they simply replacing / retiring older engines?
If it is due to increasing traffic, what is driving this increase? Is it oil, paper, or just general freight?
Also, as NBSR seems to be growing, are there any talks of a larger railroad buying them back (such as CN and NBEC)? It would be interesting to see CP return to the Maritimes!
Hi Tony, these are "new" engines to NBSR. It is due to the increased traffic, mostly crude oil but also general freight.
I have heard of no talks of buyback but I doubt that J.D. Irving (NBSR's owner) would be interested.
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