Subscribe to download
CSX YN3 Side Rod

(This was requested by 'The Eagle').

(If you have a particular livery you would like me to make, please ask nicely. I will NOT honour your request if you do not word it as a question, because I absolutely hate getting the idea that I'm being told to do something that I may not want to do).

CSX Transportation is a large railroad company that operates in the eastern United States, including states like Florida, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Sometimes CSX trains run across the border and into the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. They are a Class 1 railroad, and have been running under their current name since 1986. One of the lines frequently used by CSX trains is the section from West Palm Beach to Miami.

Curiously CSX also operate their own coal trains over the Norfolk Southern-owned Monongahela line out of West Brownsville in Pennsylvania. This is achieved through a trackage rights agreement. As far as I know, the way trackage rights agreements work is that it allows a railroad (b) to operate over a line already owned by railroad (a). The condition is that railroad (b) can't build their own route in close proximity to the line owned by railroad (a).

This reskin is a bit of a what-if, in that it depicts what I think a Hitachi Side Rod locomotive would look like if it ever carried the blue YN3 livery. The number carried by this re-skin is not only that of a real Side Rod engine, but it's also the same as a diesel locomotive in New Zealand. Said locomotive is DL 9043.

CSX introduced their YN3 livery in 2002, with EMD SD50 No. 8503 being the first locomotive to receive it. YN3 consists of dark blue with yellow ends and a white cab roof. In recent times, the livery has been updated to YN3B, with the only change being the replacement of the old CSX logo with the current 'boxcar' one. These are some of the locomotive types that have received CSX YN3:

EMD F40PH-2 (ex-Amtrak)
EMD GP15-1
EMD GP30
EMD GP35
EMD GP38-2
EMD GP40-2 (and the GP40-3 rebuild)
EMD SD40-2 (and the SD40-3 rebuild)
EMD SD60
EMD SD70MAC
EMD SD80MAC
General Electric AC4400CW
General Electric C40-8W
General Electric ES40DC
General Electric ES44AH
General Electric ET44AH
NRE 3GS-21B (genset locomotive)
RCPHG4 slug (converted from a General Electric B36-7)

The F40PH-2 engines are not used in regular freight service. Instead they are used to haul executive office and track geometry trains. As for the GP30, GP35 and (some) GP40 locomotives in CSX's fleet, they have been converted into road slug locomotives. These are locomotives that have had the prime mover removed, but retain the traction motors. The idea is to get extra tractive effort out of one normal locomotive. The GP30 and GP35 slugs have retained their cabs, and the driver can still control the normal locomotive from the slug's cab.

In real-life, CSX doesn't actually operate the EMD SD80MAC anymore. The 12 engines of this design that CSX had were transferred to Norfolk Southern in 2015, with NS handing over 12 SD40-2's. All of these have since been rebuilt as SD40-3's.