GE U23B


The GE U23B Diesel-electric locomotive was a medium horsepower roadswitcher, featuring a 12 cylinder FDL engine, built by GE Transportation from 1968 to 1977. It was one of the most successful models of the Universal Series, with 481 units were built, including 16 exported to Peru. The U23B was replaced by the B23-7.

Original owners

RailroadQuantityNumbersNotes
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway496300-6348
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway302300–2329Bloomberg trucks
Conrail102789–2798
Delaware and Hudson Railway16301-316
Ferrocarril del Pacífico10537-546
Lehigh Valley Railroad12501-512to Conrail 2777-2788
Louisville and Nashville Railroad902708–2772, 2800–2824FB-2 trucks
Milwaukee Road54800-4804
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad3350-352
Missouri Pacific Railroad39668-674, 2257–2288FB-2 trucks
Monon Railroad8601-608
Ferrocarriles Nacionales de México309100-91299114-9121 AAR type-B trucks, all others FB-2
Penn Central Transportation772700–2776to Conrail 2700-2776
Southern Peru Copper1640-45, 50-59FB-2 trucks
Southern Railway703900-3969High-nose, 3900-3914 with AAR type-B trucks, 3935-3969 with FB-2
Texas Utilities1103
Western Pacific Railroad
152251–2265Bloomberg trucks

Surviving locomotives

Not many U23Bs still exist, but a few shortline and regional railroads still use them in everyday service. The Georgia Central Railway was one of the last U23B holdouts, rostering almost all of the remaining ex Southern Railway 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 9553, former L&N 2817, is preserved at the museum and is operable.
The Huntsville and Madison County Railroad Authority 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 an Northern Illinois and Wisconsin locomotive.
n use. In this photo, it is leading a westbound train through Middlefield, Massachusetts, in June 1979.