At the time of the PV&T merger, the D&H had ~60 EMD & GE locomotives, including 40(!) GP39s & 12 GP38s. The long term plan was to retire/rebuild all of them in favor of 251-powered engines, but that – obviously – wasn’t going to happen immediately.

So since they were staying on the roster, they needed to be classified; the GP38s were put into class DL17, and the (almost identical, except more powerful) ‘39s went into class DL17b.

14 more were added to the class when the CV was merged into the system, then 22 were added when Groupe I&M was taken over.

The 52 that the D&H owned were stored after the D&H’s purchase of C&NW C628s & CN HR616s, but were reactivated and transferred to the BAR in 1989), and all remained in service until 2011, when they started to be replaced by ILW‍ eco-644 & eco-435m units.

The dozen D&H units (533-544) were transferred to the DLP at retirement, and have now been leased to the Plaster Rock Railway and are back on the roster.