Baldwin VO-1000 - Conversions

Conversions

In the early 1960s the Reading Company sent 14 of their VO-1000s to General Motors Electro-Motive Division to have them rebuilt to SW900 specifications. These locomotives retained most of their original carbodies, and were subsequently given the designation VO-1000m.

Around the same time, the Elgin, Joliet and Eastern Railway repowered its VO1000s with turbocharged 606SC Baldwin engines taken from its EMD-repowered fleet of Baldwin DT-6-6-2000 locomotives. The work was performed at EJ&E's Joliet, Illinois workshops, and produced a finished unit that featured an offset exhaust stack and left-side turbocharger bulge, the latter being much like that found on Baldwin road switchers. The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad had eight of their VO1000s repowered with EMD 567 series engines, which produced 1,200 hp (890 kW). The Great Northern Railway converted four VO-1000s into transfer cabooses in 1964. The units were stripped to their bare frames (the original trucks and distinctive cast steps were left in place) and fitted with 15-foot (4.6 m)-long steel cabins.

The St. Louis – San Francisco Railway repowered theirs with EMD 567C prime movers.

In December 1970 the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway (following close on the heels of its highly successful CF7 capital rebuilding program) produced a one-of-a-kind switcher locomotive, known to railfans as the "Beep", at its Cleburne, Texas service facility. The company hoped to determine whether or not remanufacturing its ageing, non-EMD end cab switchers by fitting them with new EMD prime movers was an economically viable proposition. In the end, the conversion procedure proved too costly and only the one unit was modified.