After the CNW retired the Alco C628 fleet at Escanaba they tried many combination's of units to try to replace them with varying degrees of success. The original plan was a pair of SD60's or SD50's. It was not particularly a good idea as if you had a failure you were pretty much sunk on the spot. After a few months of problems it was decided to try adding a SD45 to the pair of newer EMDs. That didn't work out well either as the SD45's were long in the tooth and prone to problems more than the SD50's and 60's.Finally it was determined that a three unit set of SD40-2 was the answer. So in the end the idea of lower costs due to the ability to use fewer units was just that...an idea. The crews liked the pulling power of the big Alcos better than anything that followed them, but once management parked them, it was intent on never getting them back out on the road. The retirement did allow closure of the North Green Bay shop which surely did save CNW some money. Anyway here is a three unit set of SD's doing the same thing that three C628s did at Partridge Junction. 6878,6835,6819 are Escanaba bound on a hot July 6,1988.
This will be photos that were taken north of Green Bay on the C&NW ore lines. Mainly photos of ore trains will be in this album along with some manifest trains and switch jobs that worked the area.
