Caption: The final unit of Canadian Pacific's first and only order of the pure 6000 horsepower SD90MAC-H model, brand-new CP 9303 trails a freight at West Toronto, heading east for painting and final completion work. This photo from my collection acquired many years back is undated and unlabeled, but I suspect it may be a Tim Reid shot taken in either December 1999 or January 2000.

UP and CP both got on the high-horsepower bandwagon in the late 90's by ordering EMD's mighty SD90MAC units, promising to be the most powerful single-engined diesels built with EMD's newly designed 4-cycle 6000 horsepower 16-cylinder 265H engines. Initially CP ordered 61 of the "convertable" SD9043MAC units in 1998 (some of which were built by CP from kits at Ogden Shops) that were powered by the older 4300hp 710G engine. They were intended to eventually have the 710G's swapped out for the new 265H when it was ready (but that never ended up happening on any UP or CP unit). CP then placed an order for 20 of the new H-engined units, which was reduced to just 4 (numbered 9300-9303). They were built in December 1999 at EMD's GMD London plant, and forwarded in the unpainted state shown to Alstom in Montreal QC for final completion work that included painting. The first two reportedly began testing on CP in February 2000, and all four tested early on out west in the mountains.

CP was, to say the least, less than impressed with the reliability and performance of the big units, and no further orders for more would be forthcoming. The 6000hp units had a rather lackluster career in general freight service (when they were running, and not dead or in the shop) and after being parked and retired, all four were sold by CP to RB Recycling and cut up for scrap in 2011. Needless to say 9303 was the last EMD product CP bought for a long time, only coming back to the EMD table in recent years for ECO rebuilds.

The 4300hp units fared a little better, but most ended up being parked during a traffic downturn a few years back and were never reactivated (while older SD40-2 and AC4400CW units continued to soldier on in service). After being stored for many years and even being put up for sale, the remaining 58 units are being rebuilt by EMD/Progress Rail into CP SD70ACU locomotives, following the lead of NS rebuilding their ex-UP units.

Photographer unknown, Dan Dell'Unto collection.