Blaze06_YT
A Shiny Expectation
A westbound BNSF empty coal train accelerates west next to the small field at Washington Street where the new town hall is with a very interesting power set! The set in particular here is a duo of relatively fresh rebuilt NS AC44C6Ms with #4862 in the lead and #4812 second! This was quite the surprise hearing about this duo sitting at Western Avenue and I was eager for it to make it out onto the Racetrack in daylight! However it took almost the whole day for it to get a crew but a little bit before 4pm this guy was hauling through downtown DG in some pretty decent afternoon light!
Over the summer, NS had been sending fresh C6Ms west on the BNSF coal trains that come from Michigan and it was a neat change from all the faded units normally seen (btw yes I will always enjoy an SD70ACE or two on these trains)! Unfortunately I hadn’t been able to capture any of these fresh units headed west due to them showing up out of nowhere up until this point so it was finally nice to get one in the lead!
Now this is where things get weird about these locomotives. First off, #4862 didn’t originally work for NS back when it was first built as a Dash 9. But rather, as BNSF C44-9W #4800 built in 1998 and later sold back to GE sometime in the early 2020s (and I guess you could say this guy was “on home rails” but for now let’s just say familiar territory lol)! NS has been buying up some ex BNSF Dash 9s cast away by the big orange railroad and having them rebuilt by Wabtec/GE at Erie, PA (this truly goes to show NS has caught a rebuild fever lol)! The other unit (4812) isn’t as shiny but is still relatively new this year and while searching around for its original road number, I realized I had seen it previously as a Dash 9! The original Dash 9 in particular was NS #9637 originally built in 2001 and painted in the classic thoroughbred paint scheme! And funny enough I do have my catch of 9637 uploaded on this site (first link below) so this sure turned out to be an interesting search indeed!
And to end off here is the full history of these units summarized in a smaller fashion:
NS AC44C6M #4862 (ex BNSF/GECX C44-9W #4800)
NS AC44C6M #4812 (ex NS C44-9W #9637)
Yeah not much of a history here for these two units lol. But as I type this “essay”, the CEFX AC4400CW units acquired by NS in 2023 have been getting rebuilt by Wabtec/GE in Fort Worth, TX and are already out for delivery! These are the first units NS has rebuilt that already have AC traction motors equipped and they will also be retaining their original NS 3900 series roadnumbers!
And as “promised” here is NS #9637 (now 4812) in action back in 2023! This was an interesting catch indeed due to it leading a leased WFRX (ex BNSF) SD70MAC!
And lastly I’d also like to credit where I got all this locomotive info from so here I present “NSDash9.com” which is a railfan site dedicated to spreading news and up to date listing on the Norfolk Southern locomotive roster (now I’m starting to wonder what that site will be renamed to once all the D9s are rebuilt lol)!
A Shiny Expectation
A westbound BNSF empty coal train accelerates west next to the small field at Washington Street where the new town hall is with a very interesting power set! The set in particular here is a duo of relatively fresh rebuilt NS AC44C6Ms with #4862 in the lead and #4812 second! This was quite the surprise hearing about this duo sitting at Western Avenue and I was eager for it to make it out onto the Racetrack in daylight! However it took almost the whole day for it to get a crew but a little bit before 4pm this guy was hauling through downtown DG in some pretty decent afternoon light!
Over the summer, NS had been sending fresh C6Ms west on the BNSF coal trains that come from Michigan and it was a neat change from all the faded units normally seen (btw yes I will always enjoy an SD70ACE or two on these trains)! Unfortunately I hadn’t been able to capture any of these fresh units headed west due to them showing up out of nowhere up until this point so it was finally nice to get one in the lead!
Now this is where things get weird about these locomotives. First off, #4862 didn’t originally work for NS back when it was first built as a Dash 9. But rather, as BNSF C44-9W #4800 built in 1998 and later sold back to GE sometime in the early 2020s (and I guess you could say this guy was “on home rails” but for now let’s just say familiar territory lol)! NS has been buying up some ex BNSF Dash 9s cast away by the big orange railroad and having them rebuilt by Wabtec/GE at Erie, PA (this truly goes to show NS has caught a rebuild fever lol)! The other unit (4812) isn’t as shiny but is still relatively new this year and while searching around for its original road number, I realized I had seen it previously as a Dash 9! The original Dash 9 in particular was NS #9637 originally built in 2001 and painted in the classic thoroughbred paint scheme! And funny enough I do have my catch of 9637 uploaded on this site (first link below) so this sure turned out to be an interesting search indeed!
And to end off here is the full history of these units summarized in a smaller fashion:
NS AC44C6M #4862 (ex BNSF/GECX C44-9W #4800)
NS AC44C6M #4812 (ex NS C44-9W #9637)
Yeah not much of a history here for these two units lol. But as I type this “essay”, the CEFX AC4400CW units acquired by NS in 2023 have been getting rebuilt by Wabtec/GE in Fort Worth, TX and are already out for delivery! These are the first units NS has rebuilt that already have AC traction motors equipped and they will also be retaining their original NS 3900 series roadnumbers!
And as “promised” here is NS #9637 (now 4812) in action back in 2023! This was an interesting catch indeed due to it leading a leased WFRX (ex BNSF) SD70MAC!
And lastly I’d also like to credit where I got all this locomotive info from so here I present “NSDash9.com” which is a railfan site dedicated to spreading news and up to date listing on the Norfolk Southern locomotive roster (now I’m starting to wonder what that site will be renamed to once all the D9s are rebuilt lol)!