Re: Caterpillar agrees to buy EMD
Author: SP5103
Date: 06-01-2010 - 14:09
The interesting thing will be to see how CAT integrates EMD and Progress Rail's locomotive business; and how prime movers will change.
The EMD prime 567/645 is far easier to work on than in the field anything I have seen from CAT. The 3600 was a flop in locomotive service. There still seems to be moderate interest in the 3500 series. The most CAT powered locomotives were built by GE - everything from the 44/47 ton to the U5B/U6B/U8B/U10B/U11B and UM15B series, that ended around 1993.
"Merging" the two locomotive lines should prove interesting considering how different they are, unless they keep them separate and just market them together (ala Alco-GE).
I'm sure many of the smaller builders now have a real bad case of heartburn. Wabtec/MPI's commuter line is dependent upon EMD, and even though MPI's gen-sets are Cummins, NRE has a long lead on them. If EMD/CAT decides to build a commuter/passenger model, Boise for one is in trouble.