The History of the One and Only 6000 | The Chicago Northwestern's SD-CAT 

I remember like it was yesterday,When my old man got the issue in TRAINS Magazine and they had the article in there about this Cat-45!!I must have read it 100X over! 😆 We always wondered what they sounded like all those yrs ago.I joked to my Father,they probably SOUND like a giant tractor engine!And I finally,After all this time heard it on your vid 1st!I wish my Father was still alive,He'd have love to hear that locomotive AND He would definitely love and appreciate your creativity and passion you put into your video kind Sir!🙏🤜🤛He loved trains AND model trains with a passion X10,000!As do I.We still have tons of his model trains etc.I go out and make video's and take pics of trains here&there also,like me& him used to do together ❤‍🔥Nothing compares to the sheer utter,power of seeing and FEELING that "Thunder" rolling by!Stay creative young man and keep up the awesome work!We love your channel an just subbed to you as well!RIP Dad,we all miss you dearly!

It is Now scrapped. It was scrapped during the great Helm purge in the late 2000s during the recession. I photographed it in the deadline at Proviso in 1995 and at least twice as HLCX 6600. Helm repowered it with 16-645F3B 3500hp prime mover (same as EMD 50 series)

Great story and video! I know a retired CNW mechanic that worked at Oelwein during that time. I'll have to ask him about it. I'm a big CNW fan, my Dad and 2 uncles worked for them. I own property by the old CNW double main through Montour, Ia. I catch a fair amount of CNW rolling stock still!

The Pennsylvania Railroad locomotives were uniformly painted in a color commonly called Brunswick Green but known to the railroad as Dark Green Locomotive Enamel (DGLE, or DGLC for -Color.) This was an effectively black paint that contained a high proportion of copper oxides. These gave it a very slight greenish tinge that became more pronounced over time and with wear as the paint further oxidised. DGLE is often described as being indistinguishable from black when fresh unless next to a pure black paint (as used on the underframes of PRR locomotives beneath the running boards).

The picture of 6000 with another unit and 2 GP38-2's was taken by me in Marshalltown, IA. The curving track is the former CGW mainline.

It honestly sucks how much issues they had with it because Caterpillars made some great engines for Semi Trucks. Nevertheless, great video!

Well done - great history on a unique unit. I captured it on film (in the lead) in Des Moines in April 1986 but did not know until later its claim to fame. Wish I had known at the time, would have made a point of paying more attention to the sound of it ...

I'm both an EMD and SD45 fan. I really enjoyed this video and learned a lot about the SD45, as well. Thanks for a great video!

The sd 45 on average weighed in at 400,900 lbs! These locomotives were some of the most heaviest diesels built. And this cat engine was a very troublesome engine ever put in a locomotive. They also had a reputation for being unreliable, and hard to start in cold weather.

My father loved that locomotive....he said it pulled great!

There was a lot of experimentation with Cat engines in the 80s. Norfolk Southern tried to rebuild several passenger GP-9s with Cat engines designating them TC-10 for Transfer Cat 1000 horsepower. I've often heard of Cat powered locomotives as sounding like a bulldozer on steroids.

It sounded like a bulldozer. Not surprising since bulldozers are a key product of Caterpillar.

Oelwein is pronounced Oh-Wine. Their former CGW shops played a vital role in rebuilding older units and damaged ones as well. Always cool to see pictures of when they had hundreds of locomotives stored there too

Here in Brazil we had the same situation happen, by 1987 the EFVM was recieving it's first models of the GE BB40-8M (a metric gauge variant of the C40-8) with 4000HP so the railroad decided to try and get it's EMD DDM45 (think of a SD45 on top of the D-D trucks of the DDA40X but on metric gauge) to work 1 to 1 with them and like the CNW tried the CAT 3612 V12 engine on two units (815 and 851), unsatisfied they decided to go with GM-EMD themselves, so they disassembled 6 DDMs and sent their cabs, electrical cabinets and prime movers to La Grange, these 6 units had their prime movers rebuilt, still as 20-645E3, and were microprocessed being renumbered to 1827, 1828, 1830, 1843, 1847 and 1855 (the no.1 was added to the original number of the unit) an being redesignated DDM45-MP, although the DDM45-MPs could deliver up to 3800HP for tracktion with their new microprocessed controls the conversion was not seen as cost effective due to fact the price was almost the same as buying a brand new GE BB40-9WM. As for the CAT units they kept their CAT engines until 1995 when they recieved their 645E3s back but before that they were used in several experiments most notably using paraffin oil and bunker C heavy fuel oil (same stuff ships use as fuel).

Yes yes more vídeos and that cool music, sounds like van halan

A very informative video. As it's said in the trucking industry "Yellow paint comes at a high price." But if they weren't so heavy, we'd have seen a lot more road switchers with 3512s and 3516s. Don't know how long they're going to keep the C175 gimmick going. As EMD 1201 vanished without a trace.

SD45 are my favorite engines

If you want to look at CATs in EMDs... Look into the SOO and BN (later TCWR and RRVW) using CAT 3516's in a "GP20c"

The 645-20 does not weigh 4100 pounds. It's around 43.000 pounds.

I enjoy your videos a lot man. More of this please!

cool vid - and now Caterpillar completely owns EMD, funny how things change

Hello CNW i am new to the channel and now a subscriber, and thanks to you for this piece.

My S3L in the video lol.

Nice video!

"Ain't nothing like a Caterpillar Engine." Jack Cruze.

great vid!! love eric johnson

Great video! Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Where is the locomotive now? I know you said the holding company has it, but where geographically is it?

AT&SF HAD A SIMILAR ENGINE SWAP USING THE SD 45-2 RN# 5855! MY BROTHER AND MYSELF WORKING AT ARGENTINE SHOPS GOT TO PERFORM SOME EMERGENCY ENGINE WORK ON IT CAUSED BY A MECHANIC MISTAKE AT CORWITH SHOP IN CHICAGO! THE HIGH WEIGHT OF THE CNW UNIT WAS DUE TO BEING HEAVILY BALLASTED A THE TIME OF ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION! THE 5855 CAT WAS DERATED FROM 5000 POSSIBLE HP TO 4300 HP TO ACCOMMODATE THE EMD TRACTION ALTERNATOR AND TRACTION MOTORS THIS WAS ALSO TOO MUCH AND THE ENGINE WAS AGAIN DERATED TO 3900 HP! AT THIS SETTING IT WAS AN AWESOME PERFORMER, MAKING A 645-20 LOOK LIKE A BOAT ANCHOR! AT THIS TIME A 645-20 MADE 3600 HP WHILE BURNING 180 GALLONS OF FUEL AN HOUR! WHILE I NEVER HEARD EXACT FIGURES THE CAT WAS QUITE GOOD ON FUEL MILEAGE! IF I HAD A SAY IN THE MATTER I WOULD HAVE INSTALLED THE GENERAL ELECTRIC TRACTION ALTERNATOR AND THE 752-AF TRACTION MOTORS AND RAN THE ENGINE AT 5000 HORSEPOWER. THE EXPERIMENT WENT WELL, BUT NOT REPEATED DUE TO THE PERFECTION OF THE DASH-8 GENERAL ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES! STARTING WITH THE 7400 , 500, 800 AND 900 CLASS UNITS SANTA FE BECAME A PRIME BUYER OF GE POWER! THESE ENGINES WERE ALSO LEASED ON THE HORSEPOWER BY THE HOUR ALONG WITH GENERAL ELECTRIC SUPERVISED MAINTENANCE! IN ALL OF THIS , I CONCEIVED A MINOR REDESIGN OF AN INTERNAL ENGINE PART WHICH CATTERPILLAR USED TO MAKE THE 3600 SERIES ENGINES EASIER TO MAINTAIN WHEN BEING USED AS LOCOMOTIVE POWER. KEEP THEM ROLLING BROTHERS!! 👍👍

3:54

You ever look into the units now operated by the TC&W that are cat repower units? GP20s i think from the BN

im waiting for the CNW Crandall Cab locomotives. EDIT: fix mispelling.

Odd question I lived by railroad track while growing up, hence now why a collector. But anyways, there was a cnw coal train eastbound in Wisconsin in late 80’s early 90’s that hit a pulp truck and derailed. Didn’t know how much cnw history you knew. But looking for pictures etc

I hear Marty Friedman or Jason Becker In the background.

So? How many "CATs" were there?

In the future wish there was credit for photos and video. And ask For use as well.

Enjoyable video. But please use editing and a script going forward so you don’t sound like you’re stumbling over yourself at times. Makes you sound a bit better :)

3:29 what song is that?

I never blow crankshafts 🙄

LESLIE S3L

The EMD 645-A3 20 cyl did not weight 4148 lbs it weighed 40,144 lbs.

Did any of these units survive being preserved?

Very interesting locomotive rebuild! I feel like anytime CAT engines are installed on a locomotive they always have some sort of issues