Throughout the history of railroads many of railroad company have came up with some strange and unique piece of railroad equipment. Some were a success other not some successful, but one of the many locomotive that was ever thought of, and became a reality in the 21st Century that was huge failure is the Norfolk Southern PR43C. The PR43C is a 4,300 hp locomotive built by Progress Rail as a result of a conversion of existing EMD SD50 locomotives that was left on the NS locomotive roster. This involves replacing the original EMD 645 prime mover with a pair of Caterpillar engines, a 3,600 hp (2,680 kW) C175 engine and a 700 hp (522 kW) C18 engine, which was jointly designed by Progress Rail and Norfolk Southern Railway. Development began in 2008. As of 2008 their was 12 PR43C that was on the Norfolk Southern's active locomotive Roster, but as the years pass the NS 4300 were sent back to Progress Rail, and being lease to other smaller railroad operation. NS 4000-4011 was renumber to NS 130-141. As you can tell these locomotive was put aside for constant repair by Caterpillar, due to loading issue when the PR43C goes through on the road. As you can tell the locomotive was successfully designed, but not so successful in loading when its put to good use.
