Lionel SD45 (-2)?

ATSF SD45-2...................................would be fantastic!

Regards,

Swafford

44 years!! Wow! That's Great! It's amazing how a little preventative maintenance can make things last forever! ( Well maybe not forever, but close to it LOL!)

ConrailFan posted:

44 years!! Wow! That's Great! It's amazing how a little preventative maintenance can make things last forever! ( Well maybe not forever, but close to it LOL!)

I assume you are joking about the "little preventative maintenance". That unit has been overhauled way more than twice, then Norfolk Southern completely remanufactured it at their Altoona Locomotive Works, i.e. it isn't even a "Dash-2" anymore.

Hot Water posted:

ConrailFan posted:

44 years!! Wow! That's Great! It's amazing how a little preventative maintenance can make things last forever! ( Well maybe not forever, but close to it LOL!)

I assume you are joking about the "little preventative maintenance". That unit has been overhauled way more than twice, then Norfolk Southern completely remanufactured it at their Altoona Locomotive Works, i.e. it isn't even a "Dash-2" anymore.

Heck, it isn't even a "45" anymore.  it's a 3000 hp machine.

And speaking of EL SD45s, I wonder if the Lionel versions will have the low profile fans like the prototype had.  And I would expect the horn to be incorrectly mounted as well.  They're promising "road specific" details, but we've heard that before.

According to the images in the catalog I see that the Bicentennial EL is a SDP 45 like one of the prototypes (placement of the flared body on the extended long hood). However I also see no horn in the same image.

Its any ones guess as to what the final item will look like.   I am looking forward to seeing them. These big machines were my two son's favorites as they roared up the western slope of the Poconos. 

Glad to see that Lionel understands what road purchased the SD45 and in the correct scheme.  I would hope that someday MTH would wake up and produce a Southern Pacific SD45 in the scarlet and gray scheme.  Lionel has stepped up and offered the Southern Pacific SD45 in the correct scheme. Which railroad purchased the most SD45's?

Hot Water posted:

ConrailFan posted:

44 years!! Wow! That's Great! It's amazing how a little preventative maintenance can make things last forever! ( Well maybe not forever, but close to it LOL!)

I assume you are joking about the "little preventative maintenance". That unit has been overhauled way more than twice, then Norfolk Southern completely remanufactured it at their Altoona Locomotive Works, i.e. it isn't even a "Dash-2" anymore.

No, I'm not joking, preventative maintenance comes in all forms, overhauling a unit falls within the parameters of preventative maintenance. You're looking for problems before they become problems. In overhaul you're looking for items and opening up areas that you cannot get to on the line. I work for a major airline and we change engines on a preventive maintenance schedule, the aircraft does not go into overhaul to do this, we do this on an overnight visit. It doesn't matter that it is no longer -2 anymore, the sheer fact that after 44 years its still running shows what a preventative maintenance schedule can do to any piece of equipment.

I think SP purchased the most SD45's.

ConrailFan posted:

Hot Water posted:

ConrailFan posted:

44 years!! Wow! That's Great! It's amazing how a little preventative maintenance can make things last forever! ( Well maybe not forever, but close to it LOL!)

I assume you are joking about the "little preventative maintenance". That unit has been overhauled way more than twice, then Norfolk Southern completely remanufactured it at their Altoona Locomotive Works, i.e. it isn't even a "Dash-2" anymore.

No, I'm not joking, preventative maintenance comes in all forms, overhauling a unit falls within the parameters of preventative maintenance. You're looking for problems before they become problems. In overhaul you're looking for items and opening up areas that you cannot get to on the line. I work for a major airline and we change engines on a preventive maintenance schedule, the aircraft does not go into overhaul to do this, we do this on an overnight visit. It doesn't matter that it is no longer -2 anymore, the sheer fact that after 44 years its still running shows what a preventative maintenance schedule can do to any piece of equipment.

The same can be said for locomotives over 100 years old operated by groups with far less resources than NS:

Rusty

ConrailFan posted:

Hot Water posted:

ConrailFan posted:

44 years!! Wow! That's Great! It's amazing how a little preventative maintenance can make things last forever! ( Well maybe not forever, but close to it LOL!)

I assume you are joking about the "little preventative maintenance". That unit has been overhauled way more than twice, then Norfolk Southern completely remanufactured it at their Altoona Locomotive Works, i.e. it isn't even a "Dash-2" anymore.

No, I'm not joking, preventative maintenance comes in all forms, overhauling a unit falls within the parameters of preventative maintenance. You're looking for problems before they become problems. In overhaul you're looking for items and opening up areas that you cannot get to on the line. I work for a major airline and we change engines on a preventive maintenance schedule, the aircraft does not go into overhaul to do this, we do this on an overnight visit. It doesn't matter that it is no longer -2 anymore, the sheer fact that after 44 years its still running shows what a preventative maintenance schedule can do to any piece of equipment.

It is simply not logical to compare aircraft industry maintenance of ANY kind, with the railroad industry! When something "fails" on/in an aircraft, it might fall to the ground. Such is not the case with railroad equipment.

 Scheduled preventive maintenance of any type of heavy equipment is the same, the type of industry does not matter. The type of maintenance is obviously different, but maintenance is still maintenance. You perform preventative maintenance so you don't have a major problem down the road that will cause your equipment to go out of service. Out of service equipment does not generate any money for the operator. Companies look at the reliability of components, talk with the manufacturers and other operators and look at what is trending throughout the industry.  This is accomplished so companies of any type can keep their equipment up and running. An idled piece of equipment does not make money for any company, be it airlines, railroads, trucking, shipping, or mass transit. It was scheduled preventative maintenance that kept this piece of equipment running for 44+ years.  While you may not see an overhaul as preventative maintenance, it is scheduled preventative maintenance. I've worked for airlines, mass transit, trucking and scheduled bus lines,  and preventative maintenance is always scheduled maintenance, hence the overhaul. What you call a "re-manufacture" is in fact an overhaul. The company installed components with greater reliability that would have a longer MTBF, upgraded other components with newer technology and standardized whatever systems they could that were in the realm of what the equipment could handle. Most companies do that during an overhaul if it's cost effective and will improve reliability of the piece of equipment while in service. When something fails, whether it be inflight or on the ground, the equipment is still idled and does not make the company any money, that's the bottom line, MONEY, not nostalgia. Do you honestly think NS kept this engine in service after they inherited part of CR because of nostalgia??? Scheduled preventive maintenance. And for the record, aircraft just don't "fall" out of the sky due to a parts failure. I won't even begin to get into that discussion.

Conductor Earl - EL 3632 was an SD45 (painted in Bicentennial colors)

                              EL 3638 was an SDP45 (also painted in Bicentennial colors)

Lionel appears to be producing the correct unit.

CONRAILFAN,

You can try all you want to compare aircraft "scheduled  maintenance" to railroad diesel locomotive scheduled maintenance, but there is really no correlation. Many railroads, back in the days of the 1970s & 1980s, literally ran their motive power to destruction before performing a major overhaul/rebuild. The practice of changing out "failed" power assemblies in the engine, sometimes as many as 6 or 8 at time, instead of performing a complete overhaul was very, very common, especially on CONRAIL.

Locomotives are like the legendary axe.  The head's been replaced twice and the handle three times, but it's still the same great axe.

I wonder if all this hullabaloo would be going on if the 1700 emerged from the shops in good ol' NS black:

Rusty

Would love to see this as well as an SDP45!

Hot Water posted:

CONRAILFAN,

You can try all you want to compare aircraft "scheduled  maintenance" to railroad diesel locomotive scheduled maintenance, but there is really no correlation. Many railroads, back in the days of the 1970s & 1980s, literally ran their motive power to destruction before performing a major overhaul/rebuild. The practice of changing out "failed" power assemblies in the engine, sometimes as many as 6 or 8 at time, instead of performing a complete overhaul was very, very common, especially on CONRAIL.

Nobody is comparing aircraft scheduled maintenance to railroad scheduled maintenance and the fact that most railroads ran their equipment into destruction back in the 70s and 80's has no correlation to this locomotive. What point of scheduled maintenance don't you understand? Scheduled maintenance is scheduled maintenance on ANY type of equipment. Do you honestly think this locomotive was kept around because it was reliable for all those years with NO maintenance???? REALLY??  We're talking about ONE locomotive not an entire fleet and I am talking about scheduled preventative maintenance which is what kept this one locomotive operational. Maintenance is maintenance, it does not matter what field you are in, why you want to try and point out that railroad maintenance is different than any other heavy type equipment maintenance is beyond me.

Much ado about nothing. 

Once the 1700 and its brethren becomes too expensive to maintain, it's off to the scrap yard.  Fancy paint or not.

Rusty