Canadian Pacific's SD90s for Sale

Canadian Pacific Railway has put their fleet of 58 SD90MAC/4300 engines up for sale. These engines were purchased back in 1998? but have given CP (and other railways) considerable grief since then. As the tender notes, 8 of the 58 are not operational and the others have all been refurbished between 2004 and 2006.

These engines were originally delivered with 4300 horsepower 16-cylinder 710G engines, making them essentially SD70MACs. They were made to use the new 6000 horsepower 710H when it was available.

CP did take delivery of four 6000 HP engines, CP 9300-9303, (SD90MAC-H, built in late 1999) but they were quite unreliable and CP ended up retiring them and then sending them to be scrapped. I did see three of the four SD90MAC-H engines, but only in storage in the Winnipeg yard.

Because of these engine troubles, CP never did re-engine the SD90s and they still have the 4300 HP prime movers. I've seen a fair number of them around, either on a train or more likely in storage in Winnipeg. They are now being sold "as is, where is" so I expect a fair number will simply be scrapped.

Winnipeg CP Shops

I had a quick glance at the CP shops in Winnipeg on September 24, and here are a few choice photos from the visit.

CP 6000 was working the yard throat, with the Arlington Street bridge in the background.


Later she rolled up to pose very nicely. This SD40-2 looked nice in shiny red paint, unlike the shabby unit coupled to her.



A pair of SOO SD40-2 engines were also present, SOO 6026 and SOO 6032. I love the white SOO engines, a vanishing breed. I shot them first when they were parked...



They then rolled forward obligingly, enabling me to get a better shot of SOO 6032.



Believe it or not, there were more than just SD40-2 engines present. These four SD90MACs were all lined up. There were some GP38s, ES44ACs, and so forth around.



Of course, Rugby Tower was still standing guard. It is still actively used and controls the yard complex.



As always, the complete list of units sighted is available in my railway database.

A Short Branchline Chase

On Wednesday (July 20) I headed to work extra early to get a good start on the day. I also wanted to have a few minutes to railfan on the way to work. It was warm and very humid when I got into my car and headed out. I turned on the air conditioning to try to get rid of the mugginess.

As I approached the crossing of the CP La Riviere subdivision over the Perimeter Highway (map) I saw a southbound CP train just about to enter the crossing. Quickly I decided to chase it. I headed down route 330 a short distance and hopped out of my car to take a shot.

Suddenly the lens fogged over.

A little physics at work... cold lens meets warm, humid air - instant condensation! I frantically wiped the lens on my shirt and took shots. Wipe, focus, shoot. Wipe, focus, shoot. Fortunately the train was moving quite slowly.


The train had SD90 CP 9104 leading and fellow SD90 CP 9132 trailing. Big power for a small branch line!

After taking some shots, and waving to the crew, I headed south on route 330 to the next crossing. The same routine of wiping, focusing and shooting took place.


I squeezed one more sequence in before they were approaching La Salle.

In this shot you can see a crew member looking out of CP 9132. I don't know if this train normally operates with a 3 man crew, or if the guy was dead-heading on the train.

I probably could have squeezed one more location in before La Salle but I wanted to ensure I got the elevator shot, so I carried on and set up south of the elevator for the big finish.

CP 9104's lights came into view at the end of the straight section. As they slowly approached 1st Avenue, a few cars crossed in front of them. This truck was the last vehicle to cross... and cut it a little too close, in my opinion.


Anyway, here's the money shot.

Yes, they had the nose door open the whole trip. By this time the lens had warmed up so there was no need to wipe condensation off. Whew!

I relocated just north of the elevator to take this shot. I punched up the saturation in the picture to make the Saskatchewan grain car pop.


It was fun to do an actual chase again... even if it was only 9 km!

July 9

My kids and I were out on Saturday, July 9 to get out of the house, and of course see some trains. First we went to mile 10 of the CN Rivers subdivision to shoot the Canadian. I mentioned that I saw the Loto Quebec unit leading already.

However, a CN freight ran ahead of VIA 1, with two SD75 units as power, CN 5640 and CN 5667.


After seeing the Canadian, we headed up north to see what was going on with CP. We went to see the units at the CP shops and hit a few balls in the field.

There were quite a few units outside the shops, including several SD90 units. Those are in the 91xx series. CP 9138 seems to be having some major work done.


Old friends CP 3028 / 1128 rolled in from the main yard area. Another Winnipeg resident, CP 5756, was shunting under the Arlington Street bridge.


There were several units in the short-lived CP Rail System "dual flag" livery. The blue has faded out of CP 5936's American flag.


If you really want to see all the units I saw, they are here.