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Caption: Back in 2018...only a year ago now but it seems like forever...CN was very colourful and some days you never knew what you were going to come across. This is one of those consists, here we see CN 398 passing through Copetown with IC 1003, GECX 7329 and PRLX 250. In the height of the most recent lease frenzy on CN we could find GECX, PRLX, CEFX, CREX, EMDX and GMTX units roaming the system. Today we still have some CREX ES44AC's, GECX ET44AC's (owned by CN now), GMTX GP38-2's and some CEFX AC4400's.
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DTS on CN ownership. We have not seen the master agreement between GECX and CN and none have been renumbered after all this time. The first rumours were posted almost 2 years ago:
GECX 2029 to CN 3121, GECX 2033 to CN 3122, GECX 2034 to CN 3123, GECX 2035 to CN 3124, GECX 2036 to CN 3125, GECX 2037 to CN 3126, GECX 2038 to CN 3127, GECX 2039 to CN 3128, GECX 2040 to CN 3129, GECX 2041 to CN 3130, GECX 2042 to CN 3131, GECX 2043 to CN 3132 (Sean Graham-White)
Like the CEFX ac4400′s on CP it could all be a lease / financing arrangement and the devil is in the details of a confidential agreement.
I’ll believe it when CN reporting marks are applied to the first one. Has this happened yet?
Now that’s a lash up and a half! Great catch Joseph!
Mind blowing research details as always Stephen!
Apparently they are now scheduled for paint at Quality Rail in Madison IL. Get your shots
4 are already at Madison, IL. 2035, 2039, 2042, 2043.
There’s a lot of annoying railfan rumours going around these days. Pretty brutal – but when you see CN leave a gap between CN 3120 and CN 3133, you kinda had to take this rumour for fact.
Tx Tim!
Any idea why CSX and UP sold these? Too much power on their rosters or do they favour newer wheareas CN likes the older war horses?
a good chunk of the railroads actually lease their power from holding companies etc. A lot of these older -8’s have come off lease and the companies don’t want them in favour of the newer GE’s. So GE ends up leasing them to various lines.
Very true. The “Green Goats” were mostly leased from Railpower despite being painted in various railroads paint schemes. Think of it as a ‘goodwill’ gesture as they wanted to be seen in the Class 1′s paint. (So their lease allowed it to be painted) But as they were returned they had to be painted out, an expensive proposition for a small company like Railpower (paint twice in a short period of time? $$$) and no surprise, they ended up insolvent and sold to RJ Corman – for many more important reasons (they were junk).
Leasing companies can be the railroads themselves operating leasing divisions (PRLX – Progress Rail, GECX – General Electric/Wabtec) or middle men such as CIT, a huge financing company that basically acts as a middle man and financier of many locomotive deals – and operate their own lease fleet. Considering the money involved to place an order it basically requires a huge bank to act as a middle man or, essentially, as a mortgagee.
Wells Fargo has a huge chunk of this market:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wells_Fargo_Rail
https://www.wellsfargo.com/com/financing/equipment-financing/rail/equipment/locomotives/
Usually locomotives would be ‘mortgaged’ and registered with the “interstate commerce commission” and you’d see placards on the sides of them saying what bank holds the title to a locomotive or a freight car, but that was abolished in 1995. It still occurs but is largely hidden behind private financing agreements. Some are registered with the STB though and you can search the STB website to see some of it.