You are here: Home > Northern Pacific Section > BN 1930

BN 1930

BN 1930 was built by EMD as NP 351 in January of 1958 as part of an order of seven GP9's numbered 351-357 and all were delivered without dynamic brakes. The 351 was assigned to the Yellowstone division while the other six went to Fargo. It continued to be assigned to the Yellowstone Division through 1969 up to the BN 1970 merger. So far I have been unable to find any photos of the NP 351 to see if it was painted into the simplified scheme or not. In checking my notes there is no record of my seeing the 351 while it was still NP. Chances are it never strayed out to the west end of the NP system.

After the BN Merger it was renumbered BN 1930 and assigned to Glendive which would explain the chopped short hood it received after the merger. The Glendive and Havre shops had a program of chopping down the short hoods of the GP9's assigned to their division. Being assigned to Glendive I never saw the BN 1930 either.

In late late 1987 the BN 1930 left Glendive and went to the MRL as the new regional began operations. The BN lettering was painted over and MRL initials were rather crudely added as seen here at Helena, MT on 6-8-89.

The MRL 1930 was painted blue and renumbered 123 on in March of 1991. I photographed it three years after that at Paradise, MT 7-22-94 and it sure looked nice, chopped short hood and all.

On a trip to Montana in 2009 I ran into the 123 again at Missoula. It and GP9 115 were arriving from Helena, MT on a BNSF freight 7-11-09.

They were cut away from the road power and moved to the engine facility.

4MRL photo 123 here

That was last summer and MRL Yahoo list roster shows the 123 is still active on the MRL today. There are very few GP9's active on the MRL now so it is good to know this one is still around.