Blog

When I was using the shop vacuum yesterday afternoon to clean up leaves blown into the garage, it suddenly stopped running. I looked back and saw a little mushroom cloud of smoke rising from the motor area that indicated it was done after ten years of loyal service. Not wanting to undertake a rebuild process on the old unit, I decided to buy a new one this morning, January 18th.

Last day of forecast sunshine for a week and a trip to the store with the camera in the car; all by chance you say in the life of a railfan? A necessary errand while being prepared to railfan along the way paid off in short order this morning when I was passing through Aledo on the way to Home Depot in Weatherford. The westbound UP Abilene Local LBG79 was switching the elevator in Aledo and the power was three SD40N’s.

And what is an SD40N you may ask? The short answer is an EMD SD40-2 rebuilt by UP with rebuilt components and a new electronic control system. For more detailed information check this link:

https://utahrails.net/up/sd40n.php

The Abilene Local has recently been running with a pair of these units, but here now were three together. Usually the only place locally to find more than two of these older units together is on the Fort Worth & Western so this was a treat. With the morning sun causing the units to be severely backlit I set up for as much of a broadside as possible when the units started to pull on their train.

The sound of the three EMD 645E prime movers without modern silencing equipment was music to the ears as the engineer throttled up.

Since I was headed to Home Depot on the west side of Weatherford I decided to travel a few miles further and return to Preble where the light would be more broadside as it was yesterday. The local’s train was fairly lengthy and that may be the reason for the third unit today or there was going to be a power swap with the Abilene to Roscoe local. I arrived at Preble with about ten minutes to spare for this better lit view as the local headed west up the main.

Over the radio I heard there was a westbound IMNSI intermodal (West Memphis to Santa Teresa, NM) about fifteen minutes behind so I hung around the east end of the siding for the UP 8210 west.

No other trains appeared to be close listening to the dispatcher talk to a highrailer, so I drove back to Home Depot to make my purchases. I am glad that UP decided to extend the life of these 40 year plus old units by rebuilding them. However I could not justify the same decision in the case of the ten year old shop vacuum, and made my contribution to the economy by taking home a new one.