This appears to be rather ordinary: One of an endless parade of BNSF Railway intermodal trains (in this case, S-LBTMEM1-16A, heading from Long Beach CA to Memphis TN) with a massive fleet of General Electric locomotives to power them.
But … This isn't even the front of the train. In this instance, the interesting power is on the rear. And, no, not BNSF Dash 9-44CW 791, wearing the attractive "Superfleet" paint scheme (based upon Santa Fe's popular "Warbonnet" paint scheme). No, the interesting locomotive is the one on the rear: BNSF 5745. It looks like just one of hundreds (thousands?) of GE ES44AC … or ES44DC, or ES44C4, or … well … any of the many look-alike late GE models. But, no, this is different …
BNSF 5745 was built by GE in January 2004 in what would soon become the standard body for all those GEVOs. But its builder's plate lists it as an AC4400CWT2! BNSF operates 30 of these, numbered 5718-5747, but shortened the model designation for their computer system to AC4400EV. These diesels are AC4400 Tier II demonstrators, equipped with 12-cylinder diesel engine rather than the standard 16-cylinder engine. These were AC4400 Tier II demonstrators, pre-production test units for the then-upcoming ES44AC diesels. In a world of so many look-alike GE locomotives, we tend to get our thrills (as it were) by anything that is even slightly different. (Placentia, California – March 16, 2025)
