Going Green – While Seeing Red

Vermont Rail System’s newest locomotive was released this month in the railroad’s classic red image. #431, an EMD SD70m-2, represents the future of heavy haul freight services on the Vermont Rail System. The highly efficient locomotive is the most modern in the VRS fleet, and its microprocessor-controlled features allow the railroad to move more tonnage over its lines while using less fuel, which is better for the environment of the Green Mountain state.

The VRS purchased two of the SD70m-2 units from a railroad in Florida at the end of 2015. Less than ten years old at the time of purchase, the modern motive power enabled the VRS to retire many of its 1960s vintage locomotives. In 2016 the 431 entered the Rutland Shop, where Team VRS forces gave it a thorough rebuild, replacing parts and overall removing the effects of running near Florida’s salt water. The unit was then painted, detailed, and lettered in the Vermont Railway’s red and white – a scheme that appeared on our first locomotive back in 1964.

The locomotive is in daily service, found on the VRS’s busy lines radiating from Rutland to Bellows Falls and North Bennington, Vermont, and Whitehall, New York.