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  • Burlington Northern U30C #5365-5394 question

  • Discussion relating to the Burlington Northern and its predecessors Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Chicago Burlington & Quincy, Seattle Portland & Seattle, St. Louis - San Francisco, and their subsidiaries. Visit the Friends of the Burlington Northern for more information.
Discussion relating to the Burlington Northern and its predecessors Great Northern, Northern Pacific, Chicago Burlington & Quincy, Seattle Portland & Seattle, St. Louis - San Francisco, and their subsidiaries. Visit the Friends of the Burlington Northern for more information.
 #1453051  by Leo_Ames
 
Anyone know why this particular group were so long lived?

The vast majority of the model on BN, including older and newer examples of similar vintage, died at the typical U-Boat retirement age of 15 (Small numbers appeared to have had their lease extended by a year or two, but they're very much the exception to the rule). Yet this particular order bucked the trend and survived into the mid 1990's with the average retirement age of 20, with several examples even surviving the merger and being assigned BNSF numbers, 6-7 years after even newer U30C's had already been strickened from the roster at age 15.

Did these just happen to be the only group from BN's large fleet of 1972-1975 built U30C's to have been bought outright rather than be acquired with a 15 year lease, or did some other attribute contribute to their longevity compared to their sisters?
 #1484731  by Engineer Spike
 
I have no way to know, but I think you may be right. Maybe the group in question was owned instead of leased. Maybe this group had a longer term on their lease too.

One other thought may be just fleet necessities. BN may still have needed this power, since there was no replacement in the pipeline. Perhaps, even though this group was older, they had been more recently overhauled. For this reason, if they were on lease, it may have been extended.