Hundreds of Locomotives stored at Donkey Creek, Wyoming - 2020
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- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2023
- Numerous SD70MACs, CW44-9s and GPs in various paint schemes rest in the open fields of Wyoming awaiting reassignment or retirement. Donkey Creek is located just east of Gillette and serves as the northern wye of the Orin Sub in the Powder River Basin. Here we see a few BNSF freights passing the storage tracks as well as a full drive by. Enjoy and subscribe for more!
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I was born in 1940, and remember during the mid-1950s seeing long lines of steam locomotives in storage at railroad yards; some did return to service, but most of them were eventually sent away to be cut up for scrap. That is probably the fate for most of these locomotives as well.
Same here, born in Cheyenne Wyoming, my father was RPO on train working for government
This video is from year 2020, during pandemic lockdown. Video recycled for more $$
Too bad. Steam really needs to return to service plus a good rail to run on. America needs to go back to work desperately.
@@craigpennington1251 Just the thought of taking on coal and water (let along the facilities needed) leading to slowing down the movement of a freight train is enough to keep the railroad industry from ever going back to using steam locomotives.
@@WAL_DC-6B
Water in short supply in a lot of areas also.??
During the Conrail era, many of the retired first generation engines were stored in Altoona. Along with my good friend Joseph Van Hoorebeke, we received written permission to enter the yard and photograph each engine. We were challenged by a Conrail employee questioning us why we were on Conrail property. We shoved the paper in his face, and the frustrated man, drove away. We used to go to active yards during the Conrail era as well. We were never bothered -- until post 9/11, every railfan is considered a terrorist, so that ended that era.
All I want is one on my front lawn.
I get the blue one for my lawn! You can take your pick from the rest!😊
@@yogiperogy LMAO. Oh ya, well I can paint my engines whatever colour I want!
They got enough sitting executive mac's I'ma take one of them
I’ll take that Green Geep
I’ll take a H1 lol
We had that here at the UPRR yard in Tracy California, there was 267 locomotives that sat there for about two years. The tweakers figured it out and started to dismantle them, it happened to be next to my ranch so I try to get the authorities involved. The sheriffs department stayed away the city police stayed away and the railroad police said they did not have a problem with it. My issue was after the locomotives left the crime would remain. And that it did. Finally after two years they removed all the locomotives with millions and millions of dollars of damage, they stripped them clean. And now they are gone and the crime is still here, what a shame
I find the economics so mind boggling….hundreds of millions of dollars worth of locomotives- so much money!! 😮 I struggle to buy one for my model railroad!!
Recession leading indicator.
A friend passed away a few yrs back - leaving a few hundred thousand $$$$ model RR collection to a daughter.
I remember yrs prior he talked of one engine that cost $1,100 - many yrs back. Wonder if they held their value? Seems like collectibles lost a lot of value recent yrs.??
All my life I've listened for the trains. When the trains stop moving; America stops period.
Judging from that drive along and counting engines, I’m guesstimating that there are at least 540 engines there. Wow!
no lul
I started counting late and lost track somewhere around 450 lol
drove by this a couple years ago. it was a amazing but sad sight......
Worked at EMD for 25 yrs. Every year from 1990 onwards the majority of builds were BNSF.
Interesting since UP bought 1500 SD-70Ms.
The Warbonnet seen in the very first shot has been put back into service. Saw it up here about a week ago pulling freight manifests.
As a kid I had the Santa Fe engine, super cool 🐾✌️🇺🇸
I'm 73 and can still watch trains all day,,,*L
The ghost of Dai Woodham walks that yard.
Such wealth ! I grew up in the service of my country's railroad , and when I see these beautiful track lions being sidetracked, I feel sad. My country is in dire need of motive power . How I wish a few of these locos could be charited to my nation Zambia !
The shipping might be more expensive than the locomotives themselves.
Zambia nice
Man, great to hear from you in Zambia! Africa is the future just don't worry! China will do it for you soon and fast shipping incl. like they already did for Argentina, Etiopia, Kenya or Laos.
Nice shots, at least BNSF kept these units in storage rather than purging everything to the point that they barely had a functioning fleet like a certain other Railroad did!
BNSF has the largest capital investment program in the Class 1 space to renovate and bring back to revenue service many of the mothballed EMD locomotives. ALL of those locomotives still have millions of miles in them, unlike the GE's that BNSF terms as cheap and expendable. Many will be upgraded and put back into full time service. BNSF has a huge shortage of motive power, and buying new locomotives is not an option, thus the capital upgrades program.
@3RTracing buying new locomotives isn't an option? Might need to tell BNSF that, because they just purchased 25 ET44C6H and 7 " Tier 4 credit" ES44C6H units. Also, that's all well and good that they seem to have the capital space to renovate these locomotives, the problem is, they're still in this "PSR state of mind", and what locomotives I've seen that's been reactivated have for the most part not been rebuilt or even seen the paint booth! The only freshly repainted locomotive I came across lately is a photo of an ex Santa Fe C44-9W that's been converted to a remote control yard switcher.
Dozens of locomotives is not a large order. All of the railroads have been avoiding new tier whatever power as much as they can get away with for years.
@MilwaukeeF40C no its not a large order, but it's something, which is alot more than I can say has happened in the past couple of years with BNSF. This order also signifies what an epic failure the C4 project has been as well! Whether this means the existing C4 fleet eventually gets upgraded to the standard 6 motor design remains yet to be seen.
True. Precision Scheduled Railroading was a hugeass mistake.
8800-8900 MACS are currently leased my NS patched at WFRX: I got 8858, 8868, & 8909 so far.
These could likely all be brought back to service if needed. The demand for coal from the power river basin has dropped significantly over the past 10 years.
I prefer the green and white color scheme!
I looked up cabooses. How interesting. The upper part was used to overlook the cars to watch for issues on the tracks and train. Had a bathroom, table, place to sleep and food cabinet. They did away with cabooses in the 90's I think.
theres a few gevos in the line as well , great video
We had a bunch stored here in southern AZ, east of Tucson just off I-10.
How many in a bunch.
@@CarlosAlberto-ii1li Never counted, but several miles worth. 3-5 if I had to guess., maybe more.
@@CarlosAlberto-ii1li Cienega Creek - one of the tracks was filled with stored locomotives for a length of about 4-5 miles along I-10, between Tucson and Benson back in 2017. It was interesting the locomotives that were stored here - some very old, most not too old and some fairly new. Lots of GEs, and a lot of older EMD in the 60-70 series. No SD/GP40-2s, no GP60s. Several GEVOs.
This lineup could tell us many things about RR's and the economy. Is this the result of PSR? Is this the result of BNSF revising its physical plant to reduce train movement delays? Is this the BNSF killing off small shipments from side track customers? Is this the US economy becoming more and more concentrated into fewer and fewer companies? Is this the decline of coal? Is this more USA manufacturing and less Chinese imports? Is this what things look until the grain harvest? Can these units be brought back into service without hiring and training a great number of employees?
It's PSR and meeting a revenue target for the next quarterly earnings report. Buffet/Berkshire will take BNSF public at some point and reap billions in profit.
In late April 2020 I took a trip to CO, NE, KS, OK and Texas. There were box cars lined up in the middle of nowhere in western Nebraska and eastern Colorado, with breaks only where the tracks were intercepted by a road. For the same reason, there were planes lined up wing tip to wing tip at the Denver airport, idle until the economy started getting back to normal post-Covid.
Thanks government idiots.
Great video! That's a crazy amount of unused locomotives!
Oh, really!? Thank you for your profound comment. It sticks out from the usual banal statements...
And money 😂😂😂
Warren knows the condition of everyone of them.
I didn’t know there was that many locomotives built.
BNSF has the largest capital investment program in the Class 1 space to renovate and bring back to revenue service many of the mothballed EMD locomotives. ALL of those locomotives still have millions of miles in them, unlike the GE's that BNSF terms as cheap and expendable. Many will be upgraded and put back into full time service. BNSF has a huge shortage of motive power, and buying new locomotives is not an option, thus the capital upgrades program. I see a lot of GE Junkamotives in this video. No big surprise.
Some with the common scorch marks that say bad turbo fire.
3RTACING.....Thank you for your commentary on the fleet
There is also an economic stat called 'idle equipment'. This may suggest a few things about the actual present state of the economy.
Sometimes they send trains out without enough locomotives. And that train Has to go slower than it should when the dispatcher could add another locomotive, and have the train go faster.
They just bought 50 new ones 2 weeks ago.
Whole line of BNSF’s
Amazing. Thank you.
What’s next for the engines?? They just sit that’s it ?? They can use all that scrap to do something!! That’s crazy
This looks a little like Galveston,TX yard. There's two to three hundred BNSF locomotives there also.
Yep, ride down there fairly regularly and see them, it’s cool, but that’s a lot of money to be sitting around:/
Awesome sight all those locos
Maravilha de vídeo amigo imagens fantásticas, parabéns pelo excelente registro 👏👏
The green ones are SD70MAC and are 20+years old. Tired and worn out. They were bought to haul coal from Powder River Basin, Wy east to user. I remember seeing some pulling freight out of Chicago/ Cicero yards. They can be rebuilt as they surely need. But the other brand was cheaper and pleased the the accountants, but you will struggle to rebuild these throwaways.
I can tell you nobody likes the tier 3 & 4 tier low emission locos. The much loved 2 cycle EMD are gone. I do not know about the emission rules regarding rebuild these older ones. Some of the later ones used GPS to cut power and reduce emissions when entering California. Government is giving the RR a hard time.
EMD is working to develop a battery loco for long haul work. They will not use tenders. Should be interesting. I suppose overhead electric lines could be put in, however 40 years ago cost was $1,000,000 per mile. In the mean time, some will be rebuilt and put back in service.
The tier3 locos are not the problem,its the tier4's that are.
@@michaeldorosz6446 I have been retired 18 years. Latest info second hand so I do not dispute. EMD has been having sales issues for many years.
There are still a lot out there at Rozet even today. I shot stills of them in July 2021... Mostly older units and dpu's. The freshly-painted ones are often old units that were put into local or switcher service... Yet, there's still a lot of old original Santa Fe and Burlington Northern paint still out there. My best find was a Santa Fe SD40-2 down on the Rozet end of one of the storage tracks that had great paint even though decades have passed since the merger.
k
Where are the caboose's stored? I'm sure there is someplace where a few caboose's are stored to rot into the tracks. I just want one or two on my property in case I'm put into the doghouse for being naughty and sassy.
love seeing the old war bonnet livery
That's a whole bunch of horsepower just sitting there.
Oh man , I wish I could take one of those home .......................
If we were only so strong....
Please understand large finances,
Xerox could not sell copy machines but they found out how to lease them.
GE is the same way, they have GE Financial, they lease everything, locomotives, Turbines to generate power, airplane engines, and many other products. When the lease is finished they belong back to GE. I'll bet the rail roads now charge siding rent back to GE for their equipment.
Just because it is logoed BNSF it still belongs to GE.
Let’s pray to god they will still have the paint scheme and they will be restored.
It makes me think maybe there is one for me there. Only in my dreams.
Make offer.
@@MilwaukeeF40C I’m not sure I could get it home if I did.
Hundreds of millions of dollars of inventory in a couple of miles. Wow.
Locomotives and rail cars are stored in various places just like the ready reserve merchant ships are. Outside of Hermiston, Oregon there are hundreds of boxcars. There’s also an army weapons depot nearby. During the first gulf war I was on a ship at Sunny Point, N C , an army weapons stations. We loaded 500 lb bombs and on the shipping crates was Hermiston, Oregon shipping labels. They came in boxcars.
i am 690 person to liked this video, lots of trains makes me happy
the railroads: we don't have enough locomotives
the locomotives:
Looks like most older units... the green emission guru's are really coming down on the diesel industry right now.
would be nice to see some of these used to convert to the latest power requirements. a chassis is still a chassis
Nothing like promoting capitalism and prosperity!
@fedupdomer5654 they usually take older locomotives in trade in on new units and reuse some parts like trucks or the get sold to other countries or short lines depending on scrap value.
Look at commifornia, soon raillines will be cut at the Nevada border!!
They will lay off a few employees but store a bazillion dollars worth of locomotives.
love the video...i think i see my heaven when i look at this video
How could BNSF end up with such a huge surplus of unused capital equipment. Does someone in purchasing have some 'span'n to do?
сколько же тепловозов стоит в этом отстойнике? такого количества локомотивов в одном месте я ещё ни разу не видел!
All they need is a little love.
☮
“Gillette isn’t the best the man can get!” - Stobe the Hobo
Where is that guy now?
Nice video 👍🏿
Probably a dumb question, but I see what appear tobe propane tanks scattered here and there trackside. What are they for?
2 possible uses: fuel for switch heating (highly likely in WY) or to run generators to power signals in a loss of grid power.
"The only dumb question is the one you don't ask."
Great video sir!
Are all these locomotives dead in the water? Why are they setting there instead of being reconditioned?
Standing beside that crossing bell… Only made it to 2:19
How many do you estimate there? do you have some drone footage?
Nowers Yard in OKC used to be like that, but it's a totally empty yard now.
Judging by the mostly old paint schemes, these are all retired and waiting to be scrapped.
They're stored, serviceable, not retired for scrap. When things pick up again, these locomotives can be put back into service.🍻
Great video. We subscribed. 👍
Mind blowing the tonnage of used motors. In once since what a huge waste and in another I assume to worn with motor, frame, wheel and electrical components to make rejuvenation practical?
And to think each six-axle locomotive has six motors!
The evolution locomotives will probably return to service. The Dash 9s likely won’t, at least not for BNSF.
Well if this was UP I would say that stands for Unlimited Parking but I don't know what it would be in BNSF 🤣
Stobe (R.I.P.) the Hobo didn’t Call them “ FNBS “ for Nothing. 😬👍
In the darkest hours of the night
So what are they going to do with them? Rebuild or scrap?
Many, many of those engines are technically "worn-out" especially all the Red-and Silver ex-ATSF engines. The GP's and SD's can't be directly "re-built" as they wouldn't meet EPA Certification for a Class I railroad. Warren B.'s bean-counter's have to figure-out the BEST thing(s) to do with them. Like older airliners, storage isn't a BAD option until the economy settles down. It may not be IDEAL, but turning them into razor blades isn't either.
All locos (emd & ge) from 1973 to 1998 can come into emissions compliance with a "1033" rebuild on its engine-that will bring it into tier0 compliance,with no effect on horsepower
a train unlike a plane could get a lite refurb and sell on to a 2nd or 3rd world country. just get it running and send necessary parts with it. frees up space, gets capital, and helps somewhat modernize those countries.
@@thomasgirty6397 Might even make enough profit on the sale to pay for the shipping expenses.
Not really. The Government allows class 1’s to rebuild old units to tier 0 emissions compliance without forcing them to retrofit them to Tier 4 compliance. Same with cars, if they’re over a certain age then they are not required to be rebuilt to the current Emissions rules. Only units that are newer and built recently would have to be rebuilt to its current emissions standards
MAN === I never seen soo many idle trains !
I once did in the mid 1980s at the former Chicago Great Western Yard at Oelwein, Iowa. Musta' been about one hundred locomotives stored there. A lot of first-generation engines such as GP7s, SWs and F7s.
I remember driving through the Gillette area in late September 2020, seeing dozens of engines sitting idle. They would have been busy hauling Powder River coal, but the .gov was shutting down coal fired power plants.
And installing wind generators and solar panel farms in their place.
@@WAL_DC-6B and producing a tiny fraction of the electricity to boot.
@@jjc4577 exactly. idiots like hudson501 will never get it. Example: A 4000 acre solar farm can't power just the NYC subway system.
Those paying for the installation of the wind and solar farms are those that made their millions from coal and, especially, oil. They are dictating our energy future as they did in the past. Soon we'll see the return of catenary and third rails and rather than diesel-electric, we'll have electric. @@WAL_DC-6B
Chu go loco! Ander le Ander le!
Areba areba.
They are sleeping. Never disturb a resting locomotive!
You cant believe that's it's cheaper to hire in muscle than fill one of these with diesel and a crew and use your own ????? Theres no hope left for mankind !
The engineers don't wave from the trains anymore not like they did back in 1954, they got computer "n" diesels "n" things, but the engineers don't wave from the trains!
I don't think that BNFS needs to buy another Locomotive. They can probably supply some other RR companies with engines.
Ps BNSF my mistake.
Thanks
In an economic downturn, railroads will 'park' some power - generally this is going to be older, less efficient power and they'll keep running the newer, more efficient power. When the economy rebounds, the units are available for use again. Class 1 locomotive fleets number in the thousands - you don't generally get rid of power you have that you aren't needing now - when you might well need it later. Some of these units are going to be deadline units - units that don't make financial sense to run, perhaps they're worn out etc ... Locomotives are a huge capital expenditure for railroads.
I was just thinking the same thing. Operations-wise this is just a fraction of their operating power. In fact you'll see more locomotives go down the transcon in a day than what's parked here, to place some perspective on the operations. And these engines are not slated for scrap either, they are just older engines slated as surplus power. Today with the power pool reaching into other railroads across the continent, as the need calls, they will inspect, rehab and return theses engines to service. Only the engines that are not worth rehabbing will be retired but they probably need more in parts than its worth. Meanwhile each one of these machines has an initial investment of $1.6M to $2.2M each.
@@SD40Fan_Jason In 2005 it was said that an ES44AC was 1.9 outright and an SD70ACe was 2.3 outright. This was 18 years ago - I am sure it's higher now. It seems to me that a lot of railroads are rebuilding the power they have rather than procuring new power. This might be another reason for the long lines of parked units - units which are slated for rebuilding.
Nice action
Daaang, that's alot of power
I'd like one for my home along with the caboose!😊
Dang that’s a lot of the engines BNSF ⚫️🟠⚫️🟠
Might be over 1000!
An aerial view would be nice. Do you do drones?
...... of perhaps full size helicopters?
I know up in Wyoming right now they are running less coal trains because of the natural gas prices being low.
best thing about dc yard is rozet right across the street. if your from or ever worked the powder river division in gillette than you know.
Imagine how much energy they could create if linked together
but also imagine how much fuel is needed to keep them running.
And how much disgusting oily carcinogenic Diesel smoke!1
imagen the energy it took to build all those locomotives.
@@mechamax7919 Sure as hell wouldn't work with solar, wind or rainbows.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed but it would create a lot of tractive effort or force, which I'm guessing what you meant
I counted over 400 before I lost count and after seeing all of that stranded capital ($$$,$$$,$$$), it makes me awfully glad that I'm not a Brand New Santa Fe (BNSF) stockholder.
Berkshire owns the company
Bad investment
there are a lot more smaller yards throughout the west.
Cool video and channel just subscribed
Very interesting, thanks a lot!
Some looked brand new
Wow! If you go to Google Earth Street View on State Highway 51, you can "drive" down the road and gaze at all the locomotives!
I counted some 244 locomotives visible from the road on the drive from about 4:04 to the end of the video.
This was in year 2020, pandemic lockdown, not recent!
@@pchander100 Well if you go to the current Google Earth satellite view dated "8/20/2022" you can count some 382 locomotives resting on the tracks.
They gotta store them somewhere
@@jeffdunnell6693 And may as well be somewhere where they won't be covered in graffiti.
I saw saw grafitti on one - BNSF I think it said.
wonder what the fate of 2044 is. That's a neat one. BNSF has quite a collection of locomotives
what will they do with them all.
There is about 100 sitting in Galveston Texas being pilfered daily
Are those the hurricane flooded ones?
@@michaeldorosz6446 No, they showed up later
@@richardpearcy6149 thank you for the reply!
I wonder how much horse power is there?
Now we know why Wyoming “leans to the right”… 😁💪🏼🇺🇸
Make work projects? Clean and Paint them all!!! Purty those track Dolly's Up!!!🇨🇦😄
They should put them back towork
...And after the major _UPRR_ storage fails in Cali and AZ, you can bet these are _ALL_ monitored and under surveillance, so don't get any _"High Pawn for Cash Intent"_ for units nor parts, either!
Wow thaz a lotta engines.
How can the railroad afford to have so many locomotives just sitting idle? They must have a fortune tied up here.
Like most giant corporations, they probably fudge the numbers whenever they like.
Australia has a shortage of modern motive power for freight, those BNSF locomotives are probably too heavy (134 tonnes max) for east coast main corridor? Not too many foreign countries woould handle locomotives of that size either. Such a wasted financial asset sitting laid up. A freight manager once told me..."If the wheels aint turning they aint making money..."
Australia needs to get those numbers up.
Correct, those 6 axle locos weigh in the neighborhood of 210 to 216 tons, and the 4 axle locos are in the 120 to 140 ton range.
Yea I think these 6 axles are “way to heavy” for Australia’s max weight requirements
Jesus man what are you pulling with all those locomotives at once?
The mu signals would drop out past the 10th locomotive