PAR Locomotive Fleet - General Discussion

It sounds like at least 5 have been fully chopped up. I believe 19 have been sold to LTE. It would be nice to see the 332 and one of the high hoods make it out, but the scrap crews are making good time on the remaining units.

Andrew Poulliot on Facebook's Pan Am Railfans group:

Pan Am scrapping operations in Waterville have been completed. The following engines were scrapped:

SD40-2’s: 601, 602, 603, 605, 607, 611 and 612
GP40’s: 328, 332, 370, 371, 373, 374, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380 and 382

Some MOW equipment was also taken apart

OOS engines that are left include:
7575, 515, 511, 517, 519, 5933, 7561, 353, 317, 350, 383, 327, 344, 312, 340, 508 and 72

I'm surprised the 600s fared so poorly, so quickly. It feels like just yesterday those locos were arriving on the property and getting their blue dips. They certainly didn't last long.

Also, this marks the end of an era: no more high-nose locos on this railroad. It wasn't that long ago that it was possible to see a premier road train like POED or AYPO pulled by an all-high-nose consist of GP35s, GP40s, and SD45s. They looked and sounded mean... just like the man himself.

I'm sure the crews won't miss them one bit, but they were interesting to observe and gave this railroad some of its unique character.

The 600s are a good example of what happens when you beat the absolute piss out of an thirty-forty year old engine. Granted, a few of them (602) were crap when they came, but yeah.

MEC 600 still a frequently visits Danville Jct.

Figure on CSX along with NS on PAS doing a bunch of wholesale scrapping of the 2nd and 3rd hand loco fleet,with the Ex-CSX GE's shipped back to Wabtec Erie.

Unless the PAS joint agreement changes substantially, NS has no right to scrap locomotives. They are owned by PAR and soon CSX.

The 3400s and several of the 500s are owned by GATX. Should be interesting to see where those end up next. Maybe we'll see a blue 500 working a grain elevator out west somewhere.

Backshophoss wrote:Figure on CSX along with NS on PAS doing a bunch of wholesale scrapping of the 2nd and 3rd hand loco fleet,with the Ex-CSX GE's shipped back to Wabtec Erie.

I assume that CSX will offer them on the surplus site before they torch anything. I wouldn't be surprised to see the 500's, and remaining 600's go to GATX if the price is right. And some of the 300's might take the same route.

Does anyone know what CSX currently has for surplus engines?

Although I am not sure the condition of the PAR 4-axle units, I do not think CSXT has an over abundance of their own to send to PAR territory.

Most of PAR/PAS power is worn out, leak oil, and in poor shape condition wise due to minimal maintenance at best
CSX needs to send ACSES rigged power to run on Amtrak and MBTA trackage

I think they will likely pick through what there is and identify what is worth keeping. That likely will only be EMD 4 axles that are worth putting work into. I think all of the GEs will go away as they already got rid of them once.

Agreed. It's possible that some of the PAR GP40s could get the CSX GP40-3 treatment, like this unit (which was rebuilt from an original 1966 B&O GP40):

Andrew Poulliot on Facebook's Pan Am Railfans group:

The following engines have been parked in the scrapping area of Waterville Yard, awaiting the torch:
344, 519, 327, 508, 312 and 340