Brian Locomotive Cañuelas resting after a long day of work.
Cañuelas is a town 60 km from Buenos Aires, is an important stone discharge station as seen on the conveyor belt that hides behind the locomotive.Unit began life in 1957 as a model U18C built in GE's Erie, Pa. Plant, equipped with a 12-cylinder Cooper-Bessemer diesel engine of 1960 BHP and GE electric equipment. But when Ferrosur Roca received the U18C's, three were overhauled from the frames up changing the prime movers for GM 12-cylinder 567C diesel engines while keeping the GE electric components (generators and traction motors); and the compact original GE hoods and cabs were substituted with EMD ex-GP cabs and hoods, and in so doing the units got a radical "EMD look". Besides #8121, two other U18C's were so converted: #8105 and 8118. Overhaul design and work was in charge of former Ferrosur Roca Master Mechanic Brian McGuinty, after whom the units received the nickname "Brians".