The GE U23B was a 2,250 horsepower

diesel-electric locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels ...

built by

GE Transportation GE Transportation is a division of Wabtec. It was known as GE Rail and owned by General Electric until sold to Wabtec on February 25, 2019. The organization manufactures equipment for the railroad, marine, mining, drilling and energy generati ...

from 1968 to 1977. It was one of the most successful models of the Universal Series, with 481 units built, including 16 exported to Peru. The U23B was replaced by the B23-7.

History

Featuring a 12

cylinder A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infin ...

FDL engine, the U23B was a derivative of the U30B with a lower horsepower rating, producing 2,250 hp compared to the U30B's 3,000 hp. A variant with 6 axles instead of 4 was produced, known as the U23C.

Original owners

Surviving locomotives

Not many U23Bs still exist, but a few shortline and regional railroads still use them in everyday service. The

Georgia Central Railway The Georgia Central Railway operates about of former Seaboard Coast Line track from Macon, Georgia through Dublin, Georgia and Vidalia, Georgia to Savannah, Georgia. It also operates about of trackage between Savannah and Riceboro, Georgia, swi ...

was one of the last U23B holdouts, rostering almost all of the remaining ex

Southern Railway (U.S.) The Southern Railway (also known as Southern Railway Company and now known as the Norfolk Southern Railway) was a class 1 railroad based in the Southern United States between 1894 and 1982, when it merged with the Norfolk & Western to form Nor ...

high short hood U23Bs. The Georgia Central as of July 2015 has all of its U23Bs off of the roster with the 3965 going to the Southern Appalachia Railway Museum in Oak Ridge, TN. Another U23B,

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

9553, former L&N 2817, is preserved at the museum and is operable. The

Huntsville and Madison County Railroad Authority The Huntsville and Madison County Railroad Authority was created in 1984 to operate on of track that was abandoned by the Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The line was originally constructed by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Rail ...

in Huntsville, AL, operates one of the last U23B's used in daily freight service, as of April 2020. HMCR 9554 was originally built in late 1974 as L&N 2800. The last U23B built, originally Conrail 2798, and more recently Providence and Worcester 2203, is in regular excursion service at the Naugatuck Railroad, operated by the Railroad Museum of New England in Thomaston, Connecticut. Western Rail Inc in Airway Heights, WA currently has a U23B that is leased out to other railroads. It is numbered NIWX 2204 and is a Northern Illinois and Wisconsin locomotive. RJ Corman operates at least one, Road Number 2300, after acquiring the Lehigh Railway short line in Northeast Pennsylvania.

References

External links

* * Sarberenyi, Robert.
GE U23B Original Owners
' {{GE diesels U23B B-B locomotives Diesel-electric locomotives of the United States Railway locomotives introduced in 1968 Standard gauge locomotives of the United States Standard gauge locomotives of Mexico