▚ Power for hire
Not every locomotive belongs to a railroad. Leasing companies — National Railway Equipment (NREX), GATX, EMD's own lease fleet (GMTX), and others — own thousands of locomotives that show up anywhere in the country filling in for railroads short on power.
▚ The patch and the plain gray
Leasers are the wildcards of any modern consist — plain gray units, patched-out ex-Class-I power with new reporting marks slapped over the old, showing up in the middle of a lashup where you least expect them.
▚ On this layout
The lease fleet here includes an SD50 and GMTX SD70s — the hired guns that can show up on anybody's train.