Mid February Iron Horse Roundup- EMD Announces Closure of London Plant; Steel Silk Road in the Works? 'New' Power For Farmrail, New Brunswick Southern

Two EMD SD80ace's are seen on flatcars outside of Canadian Rail Collision and Refubish's Toronto, ON facility. The locomotives- destined for Brazil- have just been repainted and are part of the last order constructed at EMD's London, ON facility before Progress Rail announced they were closing down the facility. Photo- Oscar Majcher

EMD/PROGRESS RAIL- After a month-long lockout and standoff with the Canadian Auto Workers over a new contract, EMD parent company Caterpillar [NYSE: CAT] announced they were shutting down their London, Ontario plant this month.

Electro-Motive Canada announced it was shutting down its plant, wiping out the jobs of 475 locked out workers as well as 200 non-union staff.

Sixty-two years after it started making locomotives in the city and two years after it was purchased by a subsidiary of heavy equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. the plant was history.

It’s the biggest plant closure the city since 1994 when the Northern Telecom plant employing 2,200 shut down.

It will likely cause another spike in the London-St. Thomas unemployment rate which dropped to 9% last month, but is still the second highest of any major city in Canada.

The lockout of the London workers had been a lightning rod for protests with the company asking employees to take as much as a 50% wage cut. A rally on Jan. 21 drew more than 5,000 people.

According to Caterpillar, a key sticking point with the CAW was wages and temporary hiring of outside non-union contract employees to deal with large orders. While the decision to shut down the London plant has understandably sparked outrage throughout Canada [including calls for the seizure of Caterpillar's assets in Canada- NANESB], it's also worth pointing out that whether it was General Motors, Greenbriar Equity or Caterpillar, EMD remained an American company that happened to have a major plant in Canada the whole time the London facility was open.

Prior to Caterpillar's announcement, members of the CAW Local 27 had blockaded flatcars carrying some of the locomotives from the final order from London's plant before leaving of their own accord. The locomotives are destined for Brazilian mining and logistics firm Companhia Vale do Rio Doce [NYSE- VALE] which operates more than 8700 km of track through three subsidiaries in eastern Brazil.

According to Canadian Railway Observations, EMD also received orders for new power from Norfolk Southern, Brazil's VALE and Union Pacific as well as freight and mining railroads in the UK, Australia, Mauritania and the United Arab Emirates. Meanwhile, Canadian Pacific announced that they selected Progress Rail to undertake an extensive rebuild of their aging fleet of four-axle GP9s and six-axle SD40-2s.

Shortly after the announcement regarding the London plant, Progress Rail hosted a job fair for it's Muncie, IN plant and announced a second one set to take place in early March. Coincidentally, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels had signed a right-to-work bill a few days prior to Caterpillar shutting down the London plant. The bill makes the Hoosier state the first 'rust belt' state with right-to-work laws.

A Russian-built locomotive brings in freight from across the border with Uzbekistan to the frontier town of Hairatan. Photo- Railways of Afghanistan/Asian Development Bank

AFGHANISTAN- Operations began on a new 45 mile rail line in Afghanistan linking the city of Mazar-i-Sharif with the Uzbekistan border at Hairatan earlier this month.

The inaugural load comprised nine wagons of flour from Kazakhstan and three of timber from Siberia. Unloading began shortly after the train arrived at Naibabad, which lies just east of Mazar-i-Sharif airport.

Nominally operational since mid-2011, the line saw its first test trains reach Mazar-i-Sharif in late December, following further work to reinforce the trackbed and improve security. The line is being operated by Uzbekistan’s state railway under a three year concession signed on August 4, but UTY had been waiting for formal safety approval before starting commercial operation.

In addition to supplying NATO forces in Afghanistan and domestic customers, an expanded rail line could also play a role in transporting much of Afghanistan's untapped mineral wealth to markets in Asia and elsewhere for export.

FARMRAIL/GRAINBELT- According to a press release, Farmail subsidiary Grainbelt Corporation has taken delivery of five additional GP38 diesels.

The press release didn't mention where the GP38s came from, but the prior batch of GP38s were purchased by the western Oklahoma railroad secondhand from the Iowa Interstate Railroad. This brings the total number of units in service on the Farmrail/Grainbelt system to 31, including some of the former

Although agricultural traffic on the 300+ mile Farmrail/Grainbelt system has taken a hit due to drought conditions throughout Texas and Oklahoma late last year, this has been offset by increased drilling activity and shipments of crude oil throughout the Anadarko Basin.

Former Grand Trunk Western GP40-2s seen with a Fort Worth & Western genset at Hodge yard in Ft Worth, TX on Dec 31st, 2011. Photo, JT Leal

FORT WORTH & WESTERN- The Fort Worth & Western acquired a pair of former Grand Trunk Western GP40-2s (nee Detroit, Toledo & Ironton) from Rail Management leasing.

The 1972-built roadswitchers join a fleet of about a dozen second-generation roadswitchers and two gensets on the 275-mile Texas carrier. In addition to being repainted in the FW&W's yellow and blue paint scheme, the locomotives will also receive the name of a historical figure or locale along the route as is custom for the Fort Worth & Western.

NEW BRUNSWICK SOUTHERN- JD Irving's New Brunswick Southern has taken delivery of their first-ever 6-axle locomotives. The Canadian National delivered Helm Leasing SD40-3s #6200 and #6318 to the NBSR in January.

Although one of them has already reportedly been repainted in NBSR colors, both locomotives are currently on short-term lease from Helm and being evaluated for service on the mainline between St John, NB and Brownsville, ME.

[Hat tip- Canadian Railway Observations; Railways of Afghanistan]

IRON HORSE ROUNDUP: May-June 2010 Edition

EMD: Perhaps the biggest news of the month (if not the whole year) is the acquisition of locomotive manufacturer Electro-Motive Diesel by Caterpillar's Progress Rail Services from private equity firms Berkshire Partners and Greenbriar Equity LLC in a deal believed to be worth 820 million. Started in the 1930s as the Electro Motive Company and acquired by General Motors by the end of the decade, EMC started out making small, low horsepower switchers before graduating to the FT series. The introduction of the distinctive FT series in 1939 was seen as start of the demise of the steam locomotive while ushering in the streamliner-era.

Immediately after WWII, EMD's locomotive manufacturing faced competition from steam locomotive manufacturers ALCo, Baldwin and Lima-Hamilton and their early entries into the diesel locomotive market- the most resilient of which (ALCo) lasted until 1969. By that time, the EMD brand was introducing successful locomotives along the lines of the SD40 but was also facing competition from GE's burgeoning diesel manufacturing. Even with orders for the popular SD70MAC and SD70ACE from Class I haulers CSX, BNSF and Canadian National coming in, General Motors sold off their EMD subsidiary to Berkshire and Greenbriar in 2005.

Several overseas companies manufacture EMDs locally as well. India's Diesel Locomotive Works manufactures EMD engines and parts under licence, with EMD having a 50 year presence in India. Sweden would produce locomotives with EMD components up until the 1970s through Nydquist & Holm while Australia's Clyde would manufacture EMD products for the state-run railways throughout Australia as well as the privately-run ore-haulers in Western Australia.

As a side-note, a half-dozen Clyde Built SD50S that had worked for Western Australia ore-hauler Hammersley Iron were exported to the USA when they were replaced by American-made C44-9Ws a decade ago. The Clyde-built locos [which after nearly 2 decades of hauling ore in the Australian outback could hardly be described as 'gently used'- NANESB!] roamed the country briefly as loaners before being purchased by the Utah Railroad. Here, Aussie import Clyde #6064 is seen in it's distinctive Genesee & Wyoming orange paint while between assignments at Utah Rail's Midvale, UT yard in April 2009.

(railpictures.net: Jeff Terry)

NORFOLK SOUTHERN: Before purchasing EMD outright, Caterpillar subsidiary Progress Rail Services was busy re-engineing and refurbishing EMD locomotives approaching the end of their service life. In addition to the Progress Rail PR30Cs being tested extensively by Florida East Coast for much of the last year, Norfolk Southern was testing a pair of higher-horsepower Progress Rail rebuilds on their Illinois lines. The units were rebuilt from SD60s Norfolk Southern was withdraing from service, designated PR43Cs (PR for Progress Rail, 43 for 4300 HP and C for 6 axles) and worked mainly around the Peoria, IL area- headquarters of Progress Rail's parent company Caterpillar in case any servicing was required.

(Photo: Henry Dralle)

One can only learn so much about a locomotive's performance on the flat-as-a-tabletop terrain of Illinois, so in February, the Norfolk Southern decided to bring them to Virginia to test their capabilities in hillier terrain. Secondhand reports indicate that both PR43Cs handled the 1.58% Starkey Grade on the line out of Roanoke, VA with about 50 loaded hopper cars and the test car quite well. Norfolk Southern would also bring in Kansas City Southern's EMD GP22ECO mother/slug set and Brookville Equipment Corporation's 'co-generation' hybrid locomotive for road testing and evaluation in the Roanoke area over the spring.

Genesee & Wyoming subsidiary Buffalo & Pittsburgh is also reportedly interested in looking at the KCS GP22ECO rebuilds.

ARIZONA: Passenger service returned to the restored 1916 depot in the Arizona mining town of Globe for the first time in 77 years with the Copper Spike excursion. The excursions have been operating since late 2008 and the newest addition is Arizona Eastern E8A painted in a scheme reminiscent of Southern Pacific's 'Black Widow' livery. The Copper Spike's consist also includes a dome car and a rebuilt Illinois Central coach that's now a club car. The Arizona Eastern normally hauls freight between Miami, AZ to the Union Pacific interchange at Bowie, AZ- a distance of 130 miles. In 2008, AZER also gained trackage rights over UP's former Southern Pacific Sunset Route between Bowie, AZ to Lordsburg, NM and acquired the former Espee branch between Lordsburg and Clifton, AZ. The Arizona Eastern is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iowa Pacific Holdings, LLC.

MICHIGAN: The Escanaba & Lake Superior filed a request with the Surface Transportaton Board to abandon 43 miles of trackage between Ontonagon and Frost in Michigan's upper peninsula. Smurfit-Stone Container, the largest shipper on that line, and the Ontonagon Economic Partnership have agreed to draft a joint letter to the STB requesting a stay. Both the board and Smurfit-Stone are in talks with outside parties to sell the currently idle paper plant. In anticipation of the pending abandonment request, the E&LS began moving equipment off the line and elsewhere as early as November 2009- when railpictures.net contributor Dean Sauvola caught E&LS SD9 #1224 and SD40-2 #501 hauling a string of empty boxcars stored at the mill across the Ontonagon River. Hit particularly hard by the recession, Ontanogon County MI has one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation.

INDIA: At least 145 people were killed and another 250 injured when suspected Maoist terrorists in West Bengal sabotaged a stretch of track that the the Gyaneshwari Express was travelling on, derailing the train and knocking some of the passenger cars into the path of an oncoming freight train. Indian Railways minister Mamatma Banerjee said that rebels removed a 50cm section of rail and timed it so that the Gyanshwari Express would collide with another train. Local investigators found Naxalite literature at the scene, although they wouldn't identify which specific group. According to the Ministy or Railways, the engineer had just left the station in the Paschim Medinipur district when the train hit the sabotaged portion of track, derailing 13 cars from the Gyanshwari Express.