LMX was seen on a diesel engine in Southern California. I'm curious what it stands for. I checked with my dad and uncle who are retired Western Pacific RR engineers but they didn't know. Can you help?

-- Carol Wood Pence (cpence@sdcoe.k12.ca.us), September 26, 1998

Answers

LMX units are a leasing agent of GE, not Conrail (See Sept.'99 TRAINS magazine). Conrail's lease units are, or were painted CR blue and lettered simply LMS. All 100 LMX units were leased to BN, now BNSF, although a few have been retired due to wrecks. Hope this helps. Glenn

-- Glenn Anderson (anderphoto@hotmail.com), August 10, 1999.

Locomotives with LMX markings are owned by Conrail and are leased to various other railroads. I'm not sure of the abbreviation's meaning, but all leasing companies (that I know of) have marks that end in "X". Other lease fleet markings include HLCX, HLMX, GATX, and GECX.

-- James Guffey (james.guffey@kvaerner.com), October 14, 1998.