In the engine room you walk up several steps to a door that leads to the cab. Open that door and step into the cab right behind the engineer's seat and you see the view of the next photo.
This is the control stand in the SDP40F, BNSF 6969.
I liked these units. Well not these exactly. I can't recall ever having one on the point. But I had plenty of BN F45s which had indentical cabs except for better radios. I wish all the modern wide nose units had the old style control stands like this instead of desktops.

The cab from the conductor's side.
The BNSF does not permit these units to lead any longer because of crew injuries climbing up and down the steep side ladders to board. The cabs are no longer maintained for occupancy. Even the toilet has been removed from the nose.

Let's go back into the engine room and walk back along the engine to the rear of the unit. There we will walk over to the left side of the loco and look up the left walkway towards the cab.
In the first shot you can again see the air compressor in the lower right.
Beyond the compressor the smaller horizontal cylinders are filter housings. A fuel pump and its electric motor is mounted near the end of the filters. The large horizontal cylinder up at eye level is the water expansion tank previously mentioned.

Taking a few steps forward up the left side we get the next picture.
The two red cans are the final fuel filters. They screw on just like the oil filter on your automobile. There are two fuel sight glasses above them. The sight glass next to the engine block should be completely full of fuel and show no bubbles in it. The sight glass nearest in the photo should be completely empty. It is the by-pass sight glass and if it has fuel flowing through it the filters are beginning to plug and need to be changed. On the floor midway along the base of the engine is the turbo lube oil pump.

Other Cowls Since we are on the subject of cowl units I thought I'd throw in a couple of shots of the MRL's F45s.
Here one has just backed out of the roundhouse at Laurel Yard in front of me as I am taking my power to the house. I have just brought a westbound train into the Eastbound Yard and we are on the lead at the Top-Of-The-Eastbound yard. The F45 ahead is the third unit of a very special set of power headed to get on an MRL train in the Westbound Yard. The other two units were a non-dash 2 SD45 and an SD45-2! All 3 SD45 models in one consist and I could not get into a position to get a picture of it. Oh cruel fate. The hoppers being switched are on the Top-Of-The-Westbound lead.

Finally a fuzzy night shot of MRL's F45 number 390 and a sister at Laurel roundhouse as I am going to work. That is my power at the right edge of the picture.

I wrote a short essay about another SDP40F I had in a consist in May of 2000.
SDP40F cowl unit story

Train of Visitors

Created 11-25-2000
Updated 10-21-2001