What's the difference between an SD50 & an SD60?

Pretty close!

Hi, Artie.

When identifying these units, the main spotting feature is found underneath the radiator section. The SD50 has four latched doors in six door panels and the SD60 has six latched doors in eight door panels. Needless to say, this can be a difficult process as a locomotive passes at speed so it's best to acquaint yourself with road numbers or have a roster close at hand.

I hope this helps.

Bob   

Hot Water / CNJ 3676,

Thanks for the info.

So if I was going to do a custom paint job for an SD60 and just happen to have an MTH SD50 'lying around' I may be able to take use of a little 'poetic license' and make it look believable.

Sounds like a plan.

Artie

I would use the SD50 as it's a better MTH model. I don't think the SD60 has been updated and has been added to MTH's "scaleking" line.

The SD50 used a 16 cylinder 645 engine. At 3500hp, is was pretty stressed out, and suffered from mechanical reliability. There were some other electrical changes as well that did not help EMD's cause. So bottom line, the SD50 was not a good product.

OTOH, EMD's SD60 used  a 16 cylinder 710 engine, which handled the increased stress to 3800hp much better. An improved electronics suite also helped. So today, you will find far fewer SD50s roaming around than SD60s. The SD60 is simply a better locomotive.

Chris

LVHR

SD10

Non of what you describe is visible from the out side, and that was what the original poster was enquiring about.

I kind of figured there were some major internal changes.  As long as there weren't too many changes to the car body my repaint plans will proceed.

Thank you all for the info.

BTW, MartyE, LOL!!

AF

According to the latest Diesel spotters guide the only external difference is 8 door panels under the radiator grids on the SD-60s versus 6 door panels on the SD-50s, there were almost twice as many 60s as 50s built.