GE E60

The GE E60 is a C-C electric locomotive made by GE Transportation Systems. The E60's were based on existing locomotives designed for freight service. There are several versions of E60's: E60C, E60CP, E60CH, and E60C-2.

E60C

Black Mesa and Lake Powell Railroad (BM&LP) ordered 6 E60C's between 1972 and 1976 to transport coal 78 miles from the Black Mesa Mine near Kayenta, Arizona to the Navajo Generating Station power plant at Page, Arizona. These E60C's have only single cabs and single pantographs. The E60C's collect the power via 50,000 volt overhead catenary supplied by their power plant at Page, Arizona. The road numbers are between 6001 and 6006. At this time March 2012, Black Mesa is operating six ex-NdeM E60's and the 6006. The 6001 was donated to a railway museum. Deseret Power Railroad located near Rangely, Colorado is also a 50kV operation and started out with two new E60's which were built in 1983 along with 39, 25 kV locomotives that were built for NdeM in Mexico. Deseret acquired two second hand NdeM units in 1998 and put one in service with their spare 50 kV transformer. Three additional NdeM units that had not been energized since manufacture were acquired in 2009, one is in service with a rewound main transformer, the operating is up to four units. BHP's Navajo Mine Railroad near Farmington NM operated with two secondhand ex-Amtrak E60C's converted from E60CH's and E60MA's. A third ex-Amtrak unit was acquired from NJ Transit after a wreck. BHP now operates three ex-NdeM E60's, a fourth ex-NdeM unit is being acquired from Texas Utilities. The Deseret and NdeM E60's have the latest GE propulsion control including power factor correction and the wheelslip control borrowed from the Dash-7 diesels.