Belated BNSF Power News

I discovered this informative YouTube video on the design and use of BNSF's ES44C4 locomotives. 1280 of these locos were built for BNSF, followed by 311 ET44C4 locomotives. They were simply the loco you saw if you railfanned BNSF during this period. The script seems well-written, but the video with it was probably put together using AI. The artwork in the video title scene is definitely AI.

But what interests me is the content, which is something I never specifically saw in, say, the product documentation for the ScaleTrains models of these locos. Although I had dropped both MR and RMC by this time, I don't believe they ever carried this material, and their smaller and more detail-oriented competitors were gone by then. A 2025 page at Trains.com is the only mention of what these locos were actually designed to do I can find, other than the video above, which is more complete:

The roots of GE’s ES44C4 and ET44C4 locomotives reach back to the transition period in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when North American railroads were slowly converting from DC traction to AC traction six-axle road units and locomotive builders sought ways to completely eliminate six-axle DC locomotives from their order books.

The answer came in the form of six-axle AC locomotives using only four traction motors. At the time, there was a price premium on AC technology and eliminating two traction motors and related equipment would reduce the cost and in theory, provide the same pulling power as a comparable six-axle DC traction locomotive. Enter General Electric’s A1A trucked ES44C4 model, using idler axles in the middle of each three-axle truck that can be mechanically raised and lowered slightly to adjust the amount of weight applied to the powered axles.

. . . The results were impressive, with BNSF ordering thousands of Tier 3 and Tier 4 models over the next decade and beyond. Software improvements and implementation of a rail cleaning system that blows high-pressure air on the rail head just ahead of the trucks to remove moisture and debris would improve the performance of the C4 locomotives even more.

However, this doesn't go into the problems the C4s caused elsewhere on BNSF. The video points out that on the BNSF Transcon, the former Santa Fe route between Barstow and Chicago, the maximum grades are in the 1.4% range, but west of Barstow, both the Tehachapi and Cajon lines have 2.2% grades. As a railfan, I've noted that BNSF runs C4 units on these lines without distinction, where they are nevertheless less efficient. BNSF main lines in Washington and Montana also feature 2.2% grades.

The video suggests use of C4 units on these lines wasn't aa cost-effective. This thread at Trains.com points out that at the start of the C4 program, trhe cost differential between a 9-44CW and an ES44AC was in the neighborhood of $1 million, but in more recent years it's dropped to more like $250,000, and BNSF has found the latest ET44AH units a better fit on the overall network.

I'm frankly a little nostalgic for the wider range of railfan and hobby magazines that were available in the 1970s-90s. I have a feeling that Extra 2200 South in particular would have been on the case a lot faster on the C4 issue. The SP and BN Motive Power Annuals would also likely have carried this sort of info much more completely in that period. Even the RMC under Tony Koester (but not Bill Schaumberg) could potentially have had it.