The DL-535E(W) would not be the first White Pass locomotive to come to the former Rio Grande.
The Durango & Silverton purchased four DL-535E locomotives in 2020 and has been using them ever since.
While some online have griped about the prospect of a road diesel arriving on the C&TS, which until now has only employed a few industrial diesels for yard work and light work trains, the DL-535E(W) the railroad is getting is unique in its own right.
The locomotive was one of four ordered by the White Pass in the 1980s from Bombardier, which had acquired the Alco/Montreal Locomotive Works designs.
The White Pass had previously ordered ten DL-535Es in the early 1970s from both Alco and MLW.
While internally, the DL-535Es were similar to their predecessors, they had one major exterior difference, they featured the full width "wide cab" common on Canadian MLWs.
However, by the time the locomotives were complete, the White Pass had suspended freight operations.
The DL-535E(W)s, among the last Alco designed locomotives built for domestic use, sat in Quebec with nowhere to go.
Then in 1991, U.S. Gypsum purchased two of the locomotives for us at its Plaster City, California, operation.
A few years later, after wrecking one of the locomotives, it went back for a third.
The fourth locomotive was eventually acquired by the White Pass & Yukon once that railroad resumed operations as a tourist line.
Locomotive 114 arrived in Alaska in 1994, 12 years after it was originally ordered.
Since then the locomotive has been used in excursion service but was recently replaced by newer units.
Justin Franz.