HO SD40 Locomotive, Colorado & Southern #876 Overview
At first glance these SD40's look like run-of-the-mill Chicago, Burlington & Quincy locomotives. But they were members of the Colorado & Southern Railway's locomotive fleet. The tiny C&S letters just in front of the road numbers on the battery boxes are the only outward sign of different ownership. Long a subsidiary of parent CB&Q, in October 1967 C&S took delivery of their first 4 SD40's, #'s 875-878 and added 9 more in April 1968, #'s 879-887, for a total of 13 units. The C&S became part of the Burlington Northern system in in March 1970. It maintained its subsidiary status until the end of 1981 when it was formally absorbed into the BN system. Many of these SD40's retained the CB&Q red and white paint scheme into the early to-mid 1970's and they kept their 3-dgit numbers until C&S became part of the BN.
In 1966, EMD updated its locomotive catalog with entirely new models, all powered by the new 645 diesel engine. The SD40 had 3,000 hp from a turbocharged V16. 856 examples of this locomotive model were built for American railroads, 330 were built for Canadian railroads, and 72 were built for Mexican railroads.