Where do you think this is?… Colorado or Utah? Nope.… Kansas? Nope.… But if you guessed Wisconsin, you’d be right on target. This is one of those infamous Wisconsin Central ore/coal moves ... (more)

Led by Rio Grande SD40T-2 No. 5390, Union Pacific’s LJP45 dirt train rolls through the desert between Wash and Mounds, Utah, on April 5, 2005.

In the hole at Oxnard, with "The Borg's" assimilation in full swing, SP 8524 awaits the arrival of Amtrak before continuing its journey westward.

A pair of grimy Rio Grande SD40T-2 Tunnel Motors help Amtrak’s California Zephyr with some extra power over Soldier Summit on July 7, 1988. The train is now heading downgrade through the curves ... (more)

By mid-2002, there were still 47 former Rio Grande EMD SD40T-2s running on the Union Pacific system, but only seven were not patched or painted yellow. At this time, a quartet called Helper, Utah,... (more)

Waiting for duty, a trio of Rio Grande SD40T-2 Tunnel Motors bask in the summer sun in the engine facility at Helper, Utah, on August 7, 1996.

It’s a mostly cloudy early afternoon in the desert country of Utah on February 4, 2003, as a fortuitous sliver of sun illuminates a quartet of Rio Grande Tunnel Motors on Union Pacific’s LJP45... (more)

An MNA freight rolls into Carthage with an ex DRGW SD40T-2 leader

By February 2006, Rio Grande EMD SD40T-2 No. 5371 was the last Denver & Rio Grande Western locomotive on the Union Pacific system in its original unpatched paint and road number. Slumbering next t... (more)

If a railroad knew something about operating a railroad through the mountains, not around them, it was certainly the Rio Grande. On a railroad riddled with grades and tunnels, it took a page from ... (more)

SP 8552 leads a hot intermodal west through the town of Tehachapi a few days after Thanksgiving.

A CSX local train between Cayce, South Carolina and Sumter is seen here running through Columbia with GECX SD40-T2 8649 leading. The locomotive was built in 1978 for the St. Louis Southwestern as ... (more)

The Tunnel Motors were designed to keep units from overheating in tunnels and snowsheds like those on Donner Pass. The tunnel motor design was applied to 245 SP-SSW SD45T-2s and 239 SP-SSW and... (more)

Southern Pacific EMD SD40T-2 No. 8355 waits on a train at the SP’s yard in Mojave, California, on March 6, 1995. The optional extended nose houses radio and electronic equipment used for remote-... (more)

Climbing out of California’s San Joaquin Valley is a Southern Pacific freight with SP SD40T-2 8505, SP SD40 7328, Cotton Belt SD45 8973 and an SD45T-2 providing the muscle to defy gravity and ge... (more)