Early on Friday the 18th my friend Troy Minnick who lives near the Wabtec/GE locomotive plant called to let me know they were getting ready to test a new ES44AC built for the Cerrejon Railway in northeastern Columbia. The rail line runs 93 miles from an open pit coal mine to a transload facility at Port Bolivar on the Caribbean ocean. Trains are said to average over 100 cars with over 100 tons per car so big power is needed.
I drove up to the north end of the test track just south of Justin and arrived between the second and third runs of the morning. A few minutes later the Cerrejon number 1025 coupled back to back with a rebuilt NS AC44C6M pulled up to a stop and I went to work with the camera.
With this locomotive now well documented I moved to its companion, the Norfolk Southern 4406 rebuilt from an older NS unit sent to GE.
Now that I had roster shots of both units I moved to more action oriented compositions. Here the two units are approaching the north end of track at 45 mph. Usually the lead unit is pulling in “test” mode while the trailing unit is in dynamic braking to simulate a load.
The NS 4406 generates a bit of smoke as it accelerates from zero to forty-five mph on the way back south towards the plant.
As clouds rolled in I took advantage of the diffused light and moved to the west side to catch the other side of the locomotives as they continued testing.
I was pretty well done now, but one more opportunity for a unique photo to close out this session presented itself when a northbound BNSF came by on the parallel Fort Worth Sub. The timing and trees prevented me from lining up the two lead units so I settled for this. Two BNSF units recently constructed at this same plant are in the engine consist.
I nailed one more photo on the way to run errands when passing over the BNSF and UP Duncan Sub at Terminal Road I looked north and saw a triangle of headlights coming south on the UP. I pulled down to the 38th Street crossing and had just enough time to roll down the window for this snapshot of a UP local heading back to Ney Yard with two tank cars.
Too bad my birth year locomotive was not leading!
