FL9

Since I mentioned them yesterday in comparison to the GE U50-C’s, here are my only two pictures of EMD’s DD40AX units in actual freight service.  The first is of a pair of DD40AX’s and a SD24 B-unit westbound through Riverside, CA on the same February morning in 1971 that I photographed the UP City of Los Angeles-Challenger.  I was barely able to stop the action with the 1/300 of a second maximum shutter speed on my Kodak 35mm camera.

Union Pacific purchased 47 DD40AX’s from EMD between 1969 and 1971.  EMD created the world’s largest diesel locomotive by pretty much combining two GP40’s on a single frame with two four-axle trucks putting out 6600 horsepower.  My second and final encounter was on a railfan trip to Kansas City in 1975 when three of them roared out of the sunset at Edwards, KS dwarfing a pack of smaller units behind.  I remember wishing they had instead been heading into the sunset with perfect lighting, as the lead unit was none other than the class engine, #6900.

So goes the occasional disappointments of railfanning, and at least the UP has been kind enough to keep #6936 in operation so we can still see this huge locomotive out on the road, and not just a static display in a museum.