One ugly locomotive! Looks like Morrison Knudsen was trying to put a Dash-9 and a EMD SD60M into one locomotive. I would say it was an ultimate fail, unless you can prove that UPs uses these today. Still a cool shot. Thanks for sharing Mark!
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@John Here is the history of the model. SP & UP declined to purchase them. The Utah Railway ended up with all 6 and eventually 4 were moved to the Kyle Railway in Kansas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MK5000C
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They only lasted a little while on SP, and an even shorter time on BC Rail. All 6 MK5000Cs built (3 SP and 3 MK) ended up on the Utah Railway in 2001. In a step that showed how bad they really were, Utah had them rebuilt with the innards of ex-MoPac SD50s! They now work on sister G&W railroad Kyle.
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Thanks for posting this shot. Very interesting to see how different the long hood used to be as originally built. When MK replaced the CAT powerplants with the aforementioned SD50 guts, they also used the SD50 long hoods, so these units now look like SD50s with a goofy cab. I just shot one on the KYLE a few weeks ago, to boot...
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Ugly, and then some ! Then slap on SP's Boring, Dull , Drab scarlet and grey and you have one Hideous Locomotive
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