The Colorado Railroad Museum has been storing this Tunnel Motor at the Coors rail yard for the past eight years. Yesterday they used panel track to move it down 44th Avenue and across the street to the museum campus.

I am not much of a Diesel fan; what makes this 1980 EMD product special? What is a Tunnel Motor?

I understnd it was not the last D&RGW locomotive on the Union Pacific roster.

Ted Miles, CRRM Member

Excellent! I am sure that someone familiar with the mechanicals will chime in but only SP and Rio Grande had them, I probably have seen 5401 1k times when I lived in South Boulder Canyon. They had a different hood section back where the radiators are that makes them distinctive, there is a wire grill there instead of solid doors giving it more air intake from a lower level. The idea of the name is that instead of taking the hot air from up high where the exhaust is in a tunnel it takes it from low along the gangway and pushes it up, thus the cooling air is cooler. There were also internal differences, all Rio Grande units had water sprayers that sprayed cooling water on the radiators from a holding tank, occasionally trains going upgrade toward the Moffat Tunnel would use all their water in their units and would stop at a section house in Pinecliffe to refill. They were the backbone of the D&RGW fleet up through the SP merger and were well maintained to the UP takeover.

Yes, it wasn't the last former Rio Grande locomotive on the roster. Several remain active to this day. That said, all Tunnel Motors from both Southern Pacific and the Rio Grande, and various rebuilt versions of such, are off the Union Pacific roster.

Barring perhaps some frame donors that have been used as the core for otherwise new locomotives and the F9B that is going to be used for rotary snowplow service, I believe the UP is down to just the three GP60's and a few GP40-2's for active ex Rio Grande power (At least one of which I believe is an upgraded GP40). All the rebuilt GP40's to GP38-2 standards have been returned to the leasing companies.

That said, the 5371 was the last remaining former D&RGW unit still in full D&RGW paint when she last operated on February 29th, 2008 (Retired December 2008 and donated January 2009, per the UtahRails site). I believe she may very well of been the last Tunnel Motor active in UP ownership.

If not, she came awfully close to the last.

I haven't checked any official D&RGW records, but I believe 5401 was the last Tunnel Motor built for the road.

Rob Gardner

A huge thank you to all involved in the preservation of this second-generation diesel.

Its been an incredible journey and I'm so glad we got it moved onto the museum grounds. Now its time to return it to Rio Grande 5401, fix the light package and spruce it up.

Jim Barton

I search for "Tunnel Motor" on Google and found...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD40T-2



-otto-

That is correct, 5371 was the last. It also has the distinction of never carrying any other reporting marks. I am surprised, honestly, that the 5371 was donated and displayed at the same time as 5401, and is now under restoration to its as-built appearance, yet the attention is focused entirely on the 5401 and the 5371 got little to no recognition from the preservation and railfan communities.

Well, 5371 has been in preservation for about 10 years now. Some work was done to the lighting arrangement, don't recall it ever getting a fresh paint job. 5401 has been in storage for 8 years while they raised the money to move it. They just moved it, which is no small task. At one time at the Colorado Railroad Museum, there were some that wanted to sell it and used the money for more money making things like passenger cars for events. I'm glad they lost, don't know how serious those people were, but they had the power to make things happen.

Both Tunnel motors are important parts of the history of the D&RGW. They represent some of the last new diesels the D&RGW ever bought before the SP merger. Both museums have engines that represent the beginning and end of D&RGW power. Ogden has the 223 and 5371. Colorado Railroad Museum has 346 and 5401. They also have a Rio Grande GP30, and an F9 AB set (5771 and I can't remember the B unit number). It all tells a story, the evolution of the railroad. Sure its a 1980 EMD that isnt rare overall, but if we don't preserve them now....their will not be any left later and we will regret it. I won't be surprised to see wide cab C44 and Dash 9's going to preservation soon.

That is correct, 5371 was the last. It also has the distinction of never carrying any other reporting marks. I am surprised, honestly, that the 5371 was donated and displayed at the same time as 5401, and is now under restoration to its as-built appearance, yet the attention is focused entirely on the 5401 and the 5371 got little to no recognition from the preservation and railfan communities.[/quote]


Josh. Yes you guys have done great work to first save 5371 and then get the front of the locomotive looking so nice. For eight years I've thought how fun it would be to someday get 5401 looking that nice as you drove onto our property. I've saved some of the photos your crew has taken. (We may be reaching out to you with questions.)

We were able, thanks to our staff, to get all the local t.v. news organizations to do stories on our move, many of them live and we got placed on multiple newscasts times as well. We made the front page of The Denver Post with a photo just below the banner. The number of people that watched on our live feed from around the world was off the charts, especially because we didn't publicize this move at all due to safety concerns with moving a locomotive of that size. Very few people knew it was going to happen. In the end we got some great publicity out of it and it was certainly a day I'll never forget.


Jim Barton

What's getting rare is UNALTERED EMDs from the 1970s/1980s. By now, if you still find an unpreserved one, it's on its second complete gutting and rebuilding, to the point where the only thing original is the frame.

It's hard to find something that central to the American railroad operating system that is still in basically unaltered condition. If you find one that is, it's probably newer and sitting on the scrap line because they turned out to be "lemons" (see certain GE locos of newer vintage).

I remember when the "rollerblade" SP GE widecabs started showing up at North Yard in Denver around 1994, heard over the scanner: "They should return these and get their money back." Besides overheating in the mountains they had all sorts of teething issues, and the crews would rather have the then 15yo or older tunnel motors. I think more than anything that shows the importance of preserving several SD40T-2s. The GEs? Meh, but I am sure some of the GEs from that era will be saved.

Here's a short video of the tunnel motor move from a drone's perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AedZNZyE1oA&feature=youtu.be


Jim Barton

I don't think that is actually correct. Here's a Trains magazine explanation of how the tunnel-motor's cooling actually works:Link, which appears to be available to non-subscribers:
Tunnel (motors) from the past - More than 500 still ply the rails, and now there’s a new twist

No, I think that is actually saying the same thing. If you look at a straight SD40 or SD40-2 it has three round fans on top of the unit and then a grill on the sides near the top, the fans pull up through the radiators and then out the top, so that the air being used to cool the radiators is coming from near the top of the unit. On an SD40T-2 the air comes from down low above the gangway (i.e. the walkway along the hood) pushed by one large fan up through the radiators and then out through the top. It is really obvious when you walk along side one of those, you can see to the other side through the mesh of the grill that is the air intake (Mike Danneman photo):