Speeding SD90/43MAC

Hearing that Union Pacific is planning to route stack trains to Donner Pass, I headed to Feather River Canyon to record them in action. An SD90/43MAC alone on the point of KLTG1 (with 1 DPU) was waiting to highball Portola eastbound when I got there.

Category:

Autos & Vehicles

Tags:

• Union
• Pacific
• EMD
• SD9043AC
• double
• stack
• Portola
• train

[zobayer1]

was it 6000cw on the rear?

[cchan006]

@zobayer1: No, just your typical GEVO (C45AC) DPU.

[KSE828]

Looks like he's doing about 40. I wouldn't exactly consider that a Highball. Love the vid tho. I'd previously never heard of the SD90's at all. Anyone know why they're supposedly getting rid of them?

[cchan006]

@KSE828: SD90MAC's four-stroke 265H prime movers were unreliable. On the other hand, almost all of the SD90/43MAC's which use two-stroke 710G prime movers, including the one in the video are still in service.

[coxsj]

Hey great camera work! Really enjoyed this clip. Thanks for chasing this one, I read somewhere that UP's '90MACs are headed for the scrapper.

[cchan006]

The 6000hp SD90's are in the process of being scrapped, at least that's what I heard. None of the 8900 series locomotives are in operation that I know of.

[mafarnz]

Killer audio of the 90/43.

[hoorider13]

Nice SD9043MAC on the point and GEVO on the rear!

[Jemalacane]

This is easily one of the best train videos ever. You did a good job with it.

[bradstrains]

I think that SD-9043MAC can out pull that Gevo, in terms of power and tractive effort, if I'm not mistaken a GEVO has 4400 HP, and around 180,000 lbs ft tractive effort, but its 4400 hp starts to decrease at higher speeds, that 9043MAC pumps out 4300 HP, but in reality that can reach up to 4500 HP, in the right conditions, and it doesn't drop off like the GEVO.

[MrZkr123]

you know for its size the 90MAC's moved pretty well when they worked

[TEMAOHI2787]

It's REALLY SWEET the way those GEVO's sound like Star Wars "Tie Fighters" !!!

[TEMAOHI2787]

NICE Cam work!!! Makes a Vid REALLY fun to watch!!

[anteater8171]

wouldn,t it be great for alco/mlw to make a comeback with some new stuff ///i wish.

[trainmanjosair]

@anteater8171 Not likely, CP won't but anymore EMD locomotives for quite some time n the reason y is because of the SD9MAC-H locomotives they bought from EMD. They always broke down n cost them plenty of money so i know they will not buy them if anything they will probably get some SD40-2's or GP38-2's.

[anteater8171]

sell the mac90s to cp they,ll buy them.

[chookboobla]

thats not a sd90 its a sd70

[GordonFreemanD40]

EMD locomotives sound powerful. imagine the SD90 with a 24V710 engine though...