How common is an SD-50?

[phillyreading]

I was looking thru the July 2012 issue of Trains magazine and saw a photo of an SD-50. I have seen SD-40's & 45's, an SD-70 & SD-90 and heard of the SD-80, this is the first time I heard of an SD-50.
Is this an engine that CSX mainly has in their fleet?
Have seen Norfolk Southern run four GP-60's together on a freight train to Miami FL, on FEC tracks.

Lee F.

[richg]

Some do not consider Wikipedia to be accurate but look below.
Though some times it can be more accurate than a persons opinion.
I eventually find good info by searching the Internet and even then may not find all the facts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD50

I found more links but I will let you look for them.

You can do a search including the railroad name with SD-50.
You can build a little library in Favorites with the links you find.

Rich

[jward]

421 built as follows:

csx:
seaboard 8500-8552, 8596-8623
b&o 8576-8595
c&o 8553-8575, 8624-8643

conrail:
6700-6834, to ns and csx

rio grande:
5501-5517, to UP

norfolk southern:
6506-6525

missouri pacific:
5000-5059, to UP

c&nw:
7000-7034, to UP

kamnsas city southern:
704-713

[2-8-8-4]

SD-50's are not what I would consider common--they were not anywhere nearly as reliable as the engines they were built to replace (the SD40-2's).  For the big Class 1 railroads, both the General Motors'/EMD -50 and -60 series engines have been more trouble than they were worth.  They pushed the prime mover beyond where it should have gone, reliability suffered, and this resulted in General Electric becoming the number one builder in America.

Today there are -50 series engines going to scrap while large numbers of SD40-2's soldier on, perhaps in rebuilt form.

However, the SD40-2 is arguably the greatest diesel model ever built for what it accomplished during its generation of railroading.

Diesel Era has published a number of fine articles on both the EMD -50 and -60 series diesels.  They get into the cold hard facts about these engines. On Seaboard/CSX the SD-50's failed to live up to the railroad's expectations for them, and were subsequently banished to low priority, non-time-sensitive trains.  This is very well documented in Diesel Era.  Back issues are available if you go to their website.  There was at least one feature article on the Seaboard/CSX SD-50's, but I do not remember which year it was done.

For factual information, great photos, and great history, Diesel Era is probably the best diesel magazine there is.

https://secure.witherspublishing.com/catalog/3

John

[jward]

while the sd50 and gp50 were where emd stumbled, the same is not true for the sd60. the sd50 pushed the 645 emgine to its limits but it introduced some advances in wheelslip technology that are widely used to-day. the vast majority of sd50s toil on to this day, either in the form of ns's rebuilt 6300s, or on csx and kansas city southern. csx still uses them on manifest freights, i saw 8609 on an auto rack train just yesterday. the only railroad which owned sd50s that has completely gotten rid of them is union pacific.

the sd60 was a different story. they were the first with the new 710 engine, which has proven itself to be reliable. the early sd60s had some problems which emd rectified, and later sd60s have been good performers. the sd60s which have been cast off by major railroads have been the c&nw ones, retired by UP and most picked up by ns, and the oakways which were always lease units that bn never owned. many of those have been purchased by CN and susquehanna.

as a comparison with ge products of the same era, it is true that ge began to build more locomotives than emd in this era. but where are those locomotives now? almost none of the ones built during the sd50's production years (1980-1986)are still running in this country. ge's simply wear otu faster than emds. that is a well documented fact. another is that, unlike emd's, few railroads feel old ge's are worth rebuilding. the first of the really big ge fleets are near retirement age and the prospects don't look good. both UP and bnsf have sold off large blocks of old ge's in recent years. ns and csx have retired the entire production of c39-8 and c39-8e locomotives. in fact, ge's built before 1988 still in service on a major railroad are almost nonexistant.

[Desertdweller]

I think the 40-series are hands-down the greatest loco series EMD ever produced.  They were hugely popular and successful.  This series included the non-turbo GP and SD 38, the GP, SD, and F 40, the SDP 40 and SDP 40F, and Dash-2 variants of most of these.

A lot of these are still in use.  They are reasonably easy to work on, and are easy to run.  Great parts interchangability throughout the series.  I think they are the ultimate development of the 645 series engine.

The SD, SDP, and F and FP 45's used a 20-cylinder variant that were fuel-hungry and had problems associated with the longer crankshaft.  From an engineer's standpoint, they were no different to operate than their 16-cylinder bretheren.

Les

[phillyreading]

Looked up the Reading & Northern website and found out they a few SD-50-2's in their fleet, rebuilt SD-50's.

Lee F.